Question regarding ASAT Special tone

[Salmon]

Subjectivity acknowledged, with all of my G&L single coil guitars I need to dial back the treble/tone knob on the guitar some in order to get a nice sound. This would be 35%-50% or more reduced. It seems to work better to dial back the guitar rather than the amp. I could adjust the amp more to take a lot of the burden off the guitar's PTB/tone but my question concerns the relative amount each guitar requires compared to the others.

If I use the amp settings for my ASAT Classic when I plug in my Legacy I usually need to dial back the treble more, 50%-65% or more reduced. When I use the same setting for my ASAT Special I need to dial the tone back to what would be 1 or maybe 2, as in practically off or 90% reduced. Is this typical of ASAT Special large MFD's compared with the small sized MFD's on the Classic?

Just wondering how this compares to experience other people have.

Thanks

[ChinoGee]

With my Strat (with CS1969 pups) and my ASAT Special, I roll off the tone, I don't play with tone at 10 actually.

With my ASAT Special, I usually roll off the tone to 1-2 (especially when I play alone), and never more than 5, like you, because I like the warmth and the low end. But even the tone back to 1 or 2, the sound remains precise, with definition. Those big MFD are really great and impressive.

Hope this helps!

[Salmon]

Yes, this has helped.

I am thinking the clarity is so significant that it can be confused with treble/tone.

FWIW, one advantage of using the guitar knob to back the tone off when it has a barrel knob is that the screw is moved in place to be used as a visible benchmark.

Thank you!

[KenC]

Salmon,

I've never paid attention to the exact settings, but I definitely roll the tone back on all of my G&Ls. Some of them (most notably the SC-1) also have the volume rolled back quite a bit, and I adjust volume and tone together to get the sound I'm after. I'm not sure how this translates to newer G&Ls, but the circuits on my old ones seem to be designed with that in mind.

Ken

[Philby]

Hi Salmon,

I agree with your tonal assessment. On my Legacy and S-500 I run the treble between 1-5, typically at 3. Any higher than 5 and my ears will bleed. I run the tone on my Special somewhere between 5 and 7. My ASAT sounds great between 7 and 10. This is on a Vox AC15, which is a fairly bright amp, even with the treble cut switched in.

I get such a limited range of useful treble adjustment on my S-500 and Legacy that I'm thinking of pulling out the PTB, or at least replacing the 500K treble pot with 250K to knock off some top end. What some people call 'sparkle' and 'chime' I tend to call icepick. The tone knobs on my non-G&L strat type guitars respond more like the ASAT Special, and seem more intuitive to use.

[supereiv]

I keep the same setting on the amp (a boogie F30 that's picky in the setting department) gain excepted between my ASATs and my S-500, just because it works.
But the volume is never on 10 except when I'm soloing, the treble is on full on the S-500 and on 7-8 on the ASATs (bass on 5 on the S-500). Must agree with the screw thing with the barrel knob, I use exactly the same trick with my 3 guitars.

[helle-man]

Every different guitar is going to require different amp settings. It's not a big deal.

What I do when plugging a different guitar into my amp is to first adjust the tone to suit my NECK PU. The other PU's seem to line up fine after that.

There was a time when I wanted to adjust the tone with every PU selection, but I don't feel the need to do that anymore. G&L's PU's are pretty balanced anyway.

My 2¢
Will