"Smooth Shave" Control

[0wnyourtone]

I wanted a control which allowed me to smoothly attenuate one pickup while both are on, yet leave the sound of the attenuated pickup intact when isolated, without fidgeting with controls - hence, the "Smooth Shave."

This control replaces a pickup volume and consists of a C50K pot and a 3.3Meg resistor. You remove the pickup volume you wish to replace and install the pot as follows: pickup lead to lug two of the C50K, 3.3Meg resistor from lug 2 to ground, lug three to the respective switch lug - neck or bridge, depending on which pickup is being attenuated.

I recommend this control in conjunction with a master volume, which then allows you to adjust the overall volume of a preset pickup mix via one knob.

Check out the video demo:

youtu.be/A0i1NOj09zs
{EDIT: Sorry, the video is no longer available.}

And, per Newey, a diagram of the "Smooth Shave."

[newey]

A neat idea. Please post a diagram rather than just the verbal description, though, as a picture is a lot easier to follow!

[syddd]

There does seem to be a slight dulling of the sound of the pickup you are attenuating even in the max volume setting. 

[sumgai]

Jan 24, 2022 5:02:15 GMT -5 syddd said:

There does seem to be a slight dulling of the sound of the pickup you are attenuating even in the max volume setting. 

That would be due to the 3.3MΩ resistor loading down the signal directly at the pickup itself, and it would also affect the combined pups.  Doing some arithmetic, it would appear that this resistor would be in parallel to the volume/tone pot(s), which would then mean an increase of the overall load by less than 1 percent.  I don't think that's gonna affect the tone quite so much, but of course, YMMV....

HTH




sumgai