Just Saying -- the soapbox thread

[Muadzin]

I don't know why I haven't seriously thought about this before, but nearly 100% of the time I play guitar, my volume and tone knobs are turned all the way up, so it doesn't matter at all what the pot tapers are.  I really should build myself a guitar that has no knobs. (Or, alternatively, I should learn how to properly use the knobs I have.  )

Me too, but sometimes its nice to play with the volume knob for volume swells. And the most useless knob on a guitar that makes it sounds muddy can be fun if you pair it with an oscillating fuzz with no buffer in between. So I keep them on.

I have heard on guitar forums that pickups are designed to have a knob.... it's usually in the 500k vs 250k discussion

Volume pots shave off a little high of the signal, 250K more so then 500K, and 1M barely at all. So people like to use a 250K pot together with single coils, to tame their highs, and 500K with humbuckers, as they could use a little more highs. I reckon it's most a matter of taste. One person's ice pick is another person's clarity and one person's warmth is another person's mud.

[Aleph Null]

I don't know why I haven't seriously thought about this before, but nearly 100% of the time I play guitar, my volume and tone knobs are turned all the way up, so it doesn't matter at all what the pot tapers are.  I really should build myself a guitar that has no knobs. (Or, alternatively, I should learn how to properly use the knobs I have.  )

Having experimented with pot values and pickups, it really does depend on the pickup and the rest of the rig. Higher inductance magnets and/or higher resistance pots tend to produce stronger resonant peaks, which may or may not be to your taste.

If you do decide to make a guitar with no knobs, you could add an internal 1M trim pot and tie legs 1 and 2 to hot and ground respectively. This wouldn't cut any volume, but it would allow you to dial in the treble loss you'd get from a standard volume/tone setup. Or you could just invest in a thirty foot coily cable to load down the pickups.

[EBK]

I don't know why I haven't seriously thought about this before, but nearly 100% of the time I play guitar, my volume and tone knobs are turned all the way up, so it doesn't matter at all what the pot tapers are.  I really should build myself a guitar that has no knobs. (Or, alternatively, I should learn how to properly use the knobs I have.  )

Having experimented with pot values and pickups, it really does depend on the pickup and the rest of the rig. Higher inductance magnets and/or higher resistance pots tend to produce stronger resonant peaks, which may or may not be to your taste.

If you do decide to make a guitar with no knobs, you could add an internal 1M trim pot and tie legs 1 and 2 to hot and ground respectively. This wouldn't cut any volume, but it would allow you to dial in the treble loss you'd get from a standard volume/tone setup. Or you could just invest in a thirty foot coily cable to load down the pickups.

If I actually end up making a no-knob guitar, I'll probably still load the pickups as usual, except I'd use fixed resistors instead of pots to match the full volume, full tone control positions.  I'm tired at the moment, and I can't actually recall what the normal volume tone arrangement looks like.

[alanp]

Get either a single pickup cabronita, or an unmodded 5E3. Those will teach you to use your tone and your volume knob, respectively.

[GermanCdn]

If you're changing out your tone circuit, just put a PTB circuit in.  Ridiculously easy mod, far more effective than a standard treble bleed.

[alanp]

Rest In Peace, Prince Philip. They don't make 'em like that any more.

[alanp]

Next door neighbour gave me an old Zippo lighter. It was dry, and, once re-fueled, only lit itself after twenty or so goes with the flint wheel. (I should add that I do NOT smoke, at all -- I intend to use it for lighting the fireplace in winter.)

I pulled out the old packing and the old wick... the wicks are supposed to go in a roughly S shaped serpentine manner through the packing. Whoever did this one originally just had a very straight 'tick mark' spiking through the packing, which also looked very manky. I put new packing and wick in (according to interwebz instructions), added more lighter fluid, and now it lights every time, no worries!

I don't think I'd be able to ever show it to anyone, though. It's one of Zippo's old ones with graphics on the side... the old USA Confederate flag, the one with the 'X' across it.  but at least now it does a good job of lighting my fireplace.

[GermanCdn]

Next door neighbour gave me an old Zippo lighter. It was dry, and, once re-fueled, only lit itself after twenty or so goes with the flint wheel. (I should add that I do NOT smoke, at all -- I intend to use it for lighting the fireplace in winter.)

I pulled out the old packing and the old wick... the wicks are supposed to go in a roughly S shaped serpentine manner through the packing. Whoever did this one originally just had a very straight 'tick mark' spiking through the packing, which also looked very manky. I put new packing and wick in (according to interwebz instructions), added more lighter fluid, and now it lights every time, no worries!

I don't think I'd be able to ever show it to anyone, though. It's one of Zippo's old ones with graphics on the side... the old USA Confederate flag, the one with the 'X' across it.  but at least now it does a good job of lighting my fireplace.

If you're leaving it until winter, it's going to be dried out again.  Traditional Zippos only hold fuel for about a month before most of fuel evaporates.  You can prevent this by wrapping electrical tape around the joining surfaces when not in use.  Or spend 25 on a butane insert for it.

[matmosphere]

Next door neighbour gave me an old Zippo lighter. It was dry, and, once re-fueled, only lit itself after twenty or so goes with the flint wheel. (I should add that I do NOT smoke, at all -- I intend to use it for lighting the fireplace in winter.)

I pulled out the old packing and the old wick... the wicks are supposed to go in a roughly S shaped serpentine manner through the packing. Whoever did this one originally just had a very straight 'tick mark' spiking through the packing, which also looked very manky. I put new packing and wick in (according to interwebz instructions), added more lighter fluid, and now it lights every time, no worries!

I don't think I'd be able to ever show it to anyone, though. It's one of Zippo's old ones with graphics on the side... the old USA Confederate flag, the one with the 'X' across it.  but at least now it does a good job of lighting my fireplace.

They are dependable as all get out. Surely with you pedal building skills you have the resources to remove the artwork. The paint doesn't stick well. I had one with the Lucky Strikes logo back in the day and it started chipping off within a few months.

Maybe you should etch a circuit board faceplate for it.

[gordo]

I haven't been able to find mine since I moved but hopefully it shows up somewhere.  I don't smoke either but that "tick" sound when you open it is like music.  There's just something very comforting about the damn things.

[Muadzin]

Next door neighbour gave me an old Zippo lighter. It was dry, and, once re-fueled, only lit itself after twenty or so goes with the flint wheel. (I should add that I do NOT smoke, at all -- I intend to use it for lighting the fireplace in winter.)

I pulled out the old packing and the old wick... the wicks are supposed to go in a roughly S shaped serpentine manner through the packing. Whoever did this one originally just had a very straight 'tick mark' spiking through the packing, which also looked very manky. I put new packing and wick in (according to interwebz instructions), added more lighter fluid, and now it lights every time, no worries!

I don't think I'd be able to ever show it to anyone, though. It's one of Zippo's old ones with graphics on the side... the old USA Confederate flag, the one with the 'X' across it.  but at least now it does a good job of lighting my fireplace.

Technically of course the Confederate flag is not a USA flag but one of the Confederate State of America. A different political entity.

[PapaKev]

There's just something very comforting about the damn things.

Agree. Not sure how they have that affect, but they do.

[redkurn]

If you're changing out your tone circuit, just put a PTB circuit in.  Ridiculously easy mod, far more effective than a standard treble bleed.

I can't really even tell if my treble bleed works, I used it on a 500kA 10% cts push/pull pot and the volume cuts before it tapers off fully, reading the posts about dumping the knobs isn't half bad idea, install a kill switch instead? 

[alanp]

They are dependable as all get out. Surely with you pedal building skills you have the resources to remove the artwork. The paint doesn't stick well. I had one with the Lucky Strikes logo back in the day and it started chipping off within a few months.

Nail polish remover and a bit of elbow grease sufficed to get it off, and now it's a super shiny Zippo with no artwork on it. (Maybe I'll pick up some black nailpolish and see if I can do something arty. Maybe some NPN/PNP circuitry diagrams. We'll see.)

I feel a little bit bad about stripping the confederate flag off it, since it was a gift from my neighbour, but I really don't want to deal with all the cultural baggage surrounding the iconography, or get into any arguments with visitors.

[alanp]

There's a quote from the Dick Tracey movie by Big Boy Caprice -- "A man without a plan is not a man."

Does anyone know where it's from? The internet suggests Nietzsche, which I can kinda see, but others argue that it is not Nietzsche, but someone else.