Tweaking Tone Stacks?

[JoshuaTSP]

What are people talking about when they say "Tone Stacks"?

What can I do to mod an amp's overal tone, or tone controls?

For instance, I have a Matamp Minimat, which I love, but wouldn't mind a little more treble. With the tone cranked full up, it's still a little dark......
Can I replace a resistor or cap or pot to tweak this?

[EarlTX]

A "Tone Stack" is a set of resistors and capacitors that are generally placed between the 1st and second gain stages of a guitar amp.

Part of the tone stack is usually made up of the bass, mid, and treble pots. Since all the filters are interactive, it's a challenge to predict what a value change will actually do for you. There are tone stack simulator programs out on the net that you can mess with, and get some idea of what would happen if you changed such and such.

I don't know your amp, but if you wanted more trebel, you could add a 'bright cap', similar ro what you would find in the Fender Deluxe Reverb amps. Experimenting wuth that cap value will get you varying amounts of treble.

[Anywho]

Tone stack refers to the eq section of the amp, e.g. the treble, mid, bass, etc. The frequencies affected are controlled by the caps and size of the pots used. The entire amp is a tone shaper, but the tone stack itself is meant to be user adjustable to suit different tastes. You can try to tweak the amp itself or perhaps its something as simple as buying better cables or using a treble booster.

[JoshuaTSP]

A "Tone Stack" is a set of resistors and capacitors that are generally placed between the 1st and second gain stages of a guitar amp.

Part of the tone stack is usually made up of the bass, mid, and treble pots. Since all the filters are interactive, it's a challenge to predict what a value change will actually do for you. There are tone stack simulator programs out on the net that you can mess with, and get some idea of what would happen if you changed such and such.

I don't know your amp, but if you wanted more trebel, you could add a 'bright cap', similar ro what you would find in the Fender Deluxe Reverb amps. Experimenting wuth that cap value will get you varying amounts of treble.

Hmmm.....a bright cap might be the ticket!

That goes from the input jack to....?

[EarlTX]

Josh - the basic principal is to 'bypass' the volume pot with a small value cap, like 50pF. Some folks will do this to the volume pots on their guitars too keep the highs up as the volume pot gets rolled back.

[Blue Strat]

Google "Tone stack calculator".

[EarlTX]

Hey Mike!

I've found that with the tone stack calculators, folks that are not all that 'electrically inclined' have a difficult time relating a X-Y graph to real life.

However, they are a good way to 'see' what happens.

[Blue Strat]

If you mix seeing with listening, things really start to get interesting;)

[JoshuaTSP]

Well...I'd hate to mix listening with seeing. :rolleyes: