High Fidelity can be yours again

[Tim Rattigan]

G'day Forum,

I'm very excited to announce a new add-on to the Pit Bull offerings. Our resident champion/moderator/go-to-guy Trevor Davies has been hard at work, and we now bring you the fruits of his labour:

The treble bleed circuit mod!

pit-bull-guitars-treble-bleed-circuit-upgrade/

and also - a tester! In case you want to know how it's going to sound before you bust out the soldering iron!

pit-bull-guitars-treble-bleed-circuit-upgrade-tester/

check it out in your next build, a single mod is also available when you buy a kit as an optional add-on.

Rock out without the low-volume block-out!

- Tbo

[Trevor Davies]

This sounds like a great idea!

[colin2121]

Treble bleed circuits were available years ago on Pittbull.
They were called Gizzmo. Made by Dingo Custom Luthiers.
I bought a few back then and still have one in my toolbox.
A great item to add on to a circuit.

[Trevor Davies]

Treble bleed circuits were available years ago on Pittbull.
They were called Gizzmo. Made by Dingo Custom Luthiers.
I bought a few back then and still have one in my toolbox.
A great item to add on to a circuit.

Wow, I don't recall ever seeing them. I wonder why they were stopped?

[colin2121]

It was some time ago.
Dingobass made them up.
Might be why they vanished.

[fender3x]

It was some time ago.
Dingobass made them up.
Might be why they vanished.

Could be. I have a couple of nuts that he made on my basses. They were MIA for a while after he left.

Of course it could be that we were just waiting for someone who solders as pretty as TD ;-)

Looks like the DB's and TD's circuits are also slightly different. Good discussion of the different approaches here:

https://drkevguitar.com/2016/11/24/t...d-mod-roundup/

TD's is (I think) the TV Jones (aka Stew Mac Golden Age) circuit, which seems to be a great all-arounder. Hard to say exactly what DB's is since I can't tell from the pic what the cap or resistor values are. It looks sort of like a Fender circuit?

[colin2121]

Capacitor has 102 printed on it. Looks to be the same as TD.
The resistor is light blue with coloured bands of red, black, black, dark blue and red. I cannot see any numbers anywhere. The internet calculators identified it as 200 MΩ.
Not sure of the overall difference as electronics is not my forte. Hopefully someone can interpret it.

[Trevor Davies]

These new PBG treble bleeds are 1 nF capacitors in parallel with 150 k ohm resistors. Like the TV J and golden age type - middle of the road type treble bleeds. I did quite a few tests a while ago (in an old thread), and this combo gave great results.

The tester allows for a non-soldered trial of this combo, but I would like to create a tester kit to try a few different combinations easily.

As for the old style "Gizzmo", the resistor does seem very large (if 200 M ohm).

[colin2121]

The tester is a great idea.
I used the old Gizzmo version before - it is okay and does improve the sound. It was all that was available and I don't know what testing took place. The fact I remembered it says I have been on here too long!
The new version treble bleed looks great.

[fender3x]

DB's may be his own formula. I am not an EE, but I don't think the physical size of the resistor matters in a guitar circuit. Even the lowest voltage resistors and caps can handle the voltage from passive pickups. An EE did tell me once that a ceramic cap is better in a tone bleed circuit, but I don't remember the exact reason. That doesn't seem to keep the SM folks for offering you a giant orange cap for an additional $5.

Most tone bleeds put a resistor in parallel (although my old G&L had just a ceramic cap--no resistor). This will affect the taper of the pot a bit. Putting the resistor in series with the cap tends to affect the taper of the pot less, but also tends (if I am reading correctly) to bleed a bit of the low end as well as the highs. Doing it the DB way (part series, part parallel) splits the difference a bit.

All sorts of other things can affect your tone. Where you have the tone pot, how long your cable is, etc. For my money, the TD approach makes the best sense. And speaking of $, I also appreciate that he and PB have kept it very affordable.