A "standard" treble bleed circuit for different scenarios?

[thelostart]

Hello! I'm currently building two partscasters but I'm still very new to guitar wiring and electronics. I've already built one that's pretty much a standard strat and just needs a treble bleed because I'm very much noticing the loss of high frequencies as soon as I start rolling off the volume.

I'm planning on adding the "standard" American Fender treble bleed which is a 1.2 nF capacitor & 150 kΩ resistor in parallel, plus a 20 kΩ resistor in series and I'm wondering if the same components will work for my second, and unfinished strat build which is going to have a PAF humbucker and a P90 instead of the usual three single coils. I realise there's several chats about treble bleed circuits on the forum but I didn't see anywhere mention whether the type of pickup makes a big difference?
I've noticed that different manufacturers use different treble bleed circuits, but does Fender use different value components for their guitars that have humbuckers? I've read that lots of things can affect the way the circuit works, including the length of cables, etc, so I'm not expecting that using the same treble bleed circuit will achieve the EXACT same results, but I don't really fancy trying out a bunch of different components if possible, and it'd be nice to put in something fairly "standard" that'll do a decent job!

Here's some photos of the strat looking sexy just because I'm proud of it: imgur.com/gallery/00ty3d9
This one was my introduction to guitar builds and is made from a guitar and some parts I already had lying around, plus a nice-looking swamp ash body I spotted on eBay. Turns out the body wasn't to Fender spec so it was a little bit tricky trying to get it to all fit together, but it plays and sounds great now!

I'm very excited about the second one because it's all parts I've sourced specifically for this project. It'll be a swamp ash body, roasted maple Fender neck w/pau ferro fretboard, Mastery hardtail bridge, a vintage PAF humbucker in the bridge and P90 in the neck with aged nickel covers from House Of Tone pickups here in the UK. Just waiting for the pickups to arrive!

[JohnH]

hi thelowstart and welcome to GN2

I got interested in treble bleed circuits a few years ago, so I went into comparing the various options, using some spreadsheets and maths, plus listening.

Most guitars don't have them, and most guitarists are either happy with the result, or they don't notice or don't mind.

The Fender recipe that you describe is quite good, but I recommend a simpler one, with one cap and one resistor in parallel. The best values turn out not to depend on the pickup, but are slightly influenced by the volume pot value and also at what volume setting is your most important reduced volume. With a 500k pot and volume in tbe range 5-9 on the knob, I reckon 150k in parallel with 1nF. With a 250k pot I use 120k, and if the most important range is below 5, I'd drop the cap down to 0.82 or 0.68nF.

All of that is hitting the same ball-park range as the Fender values, and are all within range of tweaking a value or two based on a personal preference. Its not like you make a small change to the values and its suddenly 'wrong.

So if you like the Fender circuit, you could stick with it

Here is our thread. The conclusions come part way through, the first parts are the journey.

guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/5317/treble-bleed-circuit

If you really want to get nerdy, this spreadsheet will analyse your guitar and can include any of the TB options:

guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/3627/guitarfreak-guitar-frequency-response-calculator

[thelostart]

Ah of course - I hadn't even considered the importance of the pot value! Especially important in this case, as I'm going to use 500k pots in the second guitar. So I guess I just need a pair of 1nf capacitors with a 150k and 120k resistor for each of the guitars. It's good to know that it's fairly straightforward to adjust things. Would I just need to try lower resistor values if I find I'm getting more high frequencies than I want as I turn the volume down?

Those graphs are fascinating! I would've been interested to see how the Fender design compared, but I expect it wouldn't have been a huge difference.

Thank you so much for all this information. I've no idea how some people don't notice the lack of treble bleed! I can't bear the sound of my strat when I roll off the volume right now - the volume control has become unusable for me.

[JohnH]

Great! Actually, when Fender came out with their Tons-Saver circuits, I wanted to check them out. So have a look on page 3 of that treble-bleed thread, my post from December 2017.

[thelostart]

Oh that's amazing! And it's interesting that I've not noticed excess treble on Fender guitars before, but I guess it's maybe because I don't roll off THAT much volume.

Thanks again!

[rones09]

Great information.  Thanks!