Fig. 1
Different capacitors in a treble blend circuit altering the cutoff frequency. Image courtesy of basslab.de
It has been a while since we looked at tone controls. (The last time was my June 2012 column “Active Versus Passive Tone Controls," which focused on the pros and cons of each system.)
While active systems usually work comparably to the multi-band tone controls we have in our amps, passive systems are most often represented by the simple treble blend. Doesn't look like a fair comparison, right? But in fact, there are many possible ways to use passive elements to control tone, and our guitar colleagues constantly discuss them in great detail. This type of modding is far less popular among bass players, so let's consider what passive systems offer and see if they can be useful to us.
Passive resistance. The number of passive elements used for tone controls is small: just resistors and capacitors and (less often and more theoretically) inductors. The next limitation is that these few elements can only be wired in series or parallel with nothing in between. Still, given the number of varying electrical specs and possible combinations, these simple elements can be deployed in a vast number of ways.
One trait of passive wirings is that almost everything influences everything. That means, for example, that using a given wiring with two different pickups can produce very different results. (Meanwhile, changing pickups with active systems doesn't alter the preamp's behavior at all.) So to get a passive control to regulate a specific frequency, you have to experiment to find the right values for your particular pickups—and sometimes even your amp—or dig deeper into electrical engineering to calculate values before you start. Since not everyone wants to be an electrical engineer, let's go with the experimental approach and focus on schematics and principles, rather than concrete electric values.
Guitar circuits on bass. Don't be afraid to check out guitar wirings on bass. They all work, and you only have to change a few values, but not the circuit itself. Fig. 1 is a reminder of how capacitors of varying value in a standard parallel treble blend can alter the tone (or frequency response) of your pickup. The greater the value of the parallel capacitor, the more high frequencies get cut.
Fig. 2
A capacitor cascade with a DPDT-switch (on/on/on) for a switchable passive bass/treble cut.
Image courtesy of singlecoil.com
One obvious thing you could build from this is a simple SPDT switch to activate different capacitors, each removing varying amounts of upper-spectrum frequencies. Here the pot controls the amount of amplitude reduction above the “end of spectrum" roll-off frequency, as determined by each capacitor's value. To expand this further, you could arrange even more caps on a 6- or even 12-way rotary switch. The basic wiring is the same as the simple 2-capacitor wiring. But while the rotary switch is helpful for finding the values that suit your setup and taste, it's not very practical for permanent use.
Bass with less bass? While a switch to remove varying amounts of treble frequencies sounds useful to a bassist, it's harder to imagine what happens if we do the same for the bass range. True, it doesn't appear very useful at first, but then again, even the weirdest sound might meet the requirements of a specific song! Also, with the current popularity of lowered tunings and distortion pedals for bass, such bass-cuts can clean and clarify muddy low end.
To cut bass frequencies, all we have to do is rewire the capacitors from parallel to serial. Also, while higher-value parallel capacitors remove more treble frequencies, the opposite is true for bass: lower serial values mean greater bass frequency cuts. Using an extra DPDT switch and some wiring, it's easy to expand the rotary switch circuit to a switchable bass-cut/treble-cut wiring with a quick bypass (Fig. 2).
Assuming you've found your favorite capacitor values for both bands (and omit the rotary switch), you end up with independent treble and bass controls. To some extent, that's similar to the controls of an active system, yet the results sound very different. While the active tone control bends the spectrum by changing the amplitude of a given frequency range, the passive control almost cuts off the frequency range at its ends. Another difference: The passive control can reduce frequencies, but never increase them.
Passive treble and bass controls still leave us with a question: How can we control mids? More on that next month, along with some wirings that were once so popular, they earned their own names.
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Price unveiled her new band and her new signature model at a recent performance at the Gibson Garage in Nashville.
The 6-string was inspired by the J-45 she bought at Nashville’s Carter Vintage Guitars after she was signed to Third Man Records, where she made her 2016 ice-breaker album, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. But her affection for Gibson acoustics predates that, going back to when she found a 1956 LG-3 in her grandmother’s home. The guitar had been abandoned there by her songwriter great uncle, Bobby Fischer.
“I played it for years before I found my J-45,” Price recounts. “At Carter Vintage, I tried a lot of guitars, but when I picked up that J-45, I loved that it was a smaller guitar but really cut through, and I was just really drawn to the sound of it. And so I went home with that guitar and I’ve been playing it ever since.”
“Having a signature model was something I had dreamed about.”
Of course, Price was also aware of the model’s history, but her demands for a guitar were rooted in the present—the requirements of the studio and road. The 1965 J-45 she acquired at Carter Vintage, which is also a cherry ’burst, was especially appealing “compared to a Martin D-21 or some of the other things that I was picking up. I have pretty small hands, and it just was so playable all up the neck. It was something that I could easily play barre chords on. I could immediately get everything that I needed out of it.”
If you’ve seen Price on TV, including stops at Saturday Night Live, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, you’ve seen her ’65. And you’ve also seen, over the years, that part of the soundhole’s top has been scraped away by her aggressive strumming. It’s experienced worse wear from an airline, though. After one unfortunate flight, Price found her guitar practically in splinters inside a badly crushed case. “It was like somebody would have had to drive over this case with a truck,” she relates. Luckily, Dave Johnson from Nashville’s Scale Model Guitars was able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
After that, an alternative guitar for the road seemed like a requirement. “Having a signature model was something I had dreamed about,” Price says. Friends in her songwriting circle, including Lukas Nelson and Nathaniel Rateliff, already had them. Four years ago, a tweet asking which women they thought should have signature models appeared, and one of her fans wrote “Margo Price.” Smartly, Price tagged Gibson and retweeted. Codey Allen in Gibson entertainment relations spotted the tweet and agreed.
The double pickguard was chosen for Price’s J-45 because of its symmetry, as a nod to the Hummingbird, and due to her heavy strumming hand.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
“The neck is not quite as small as my J-45, but it is just a bit smaller than many J-45s fives, and very playable no matter what size hands you have.”
“And so we began our journey of building this guitar,” Price says. “I debated whether it should be the LG-3, which I still have hanging on my wall, or the J-45. I went to Montana and visited their [acoustic] factory and sat down with Robi Johns [senior product development manager at Gibson acoustic], and we ultimately decided that the J-45 was my guitar. Then we started talking about the specs. We did pull from the LG-3 in that the body of this signature guitar is a bit smaller. It still has a really loud, clear sound that rings through. The neck is not quite as small as my 1965 J-45, but it is just a bit smaller than many J-45s, and very playable no matter what size hands that you have.”
The pickup that Price selected is a L.R. Baggs VTC Element with a preamp, and she took a prototype of the guitar on the road opening for the Tedeschi Trucks Band. “I am used to playing with a really loud band, with drums and sometimes a couple electric guitars, and I wanted to make sure that this guitar just cut through,” she says. “It was really important to me that it be loud, and it cut beautifully. It’s got a mahogany body and scalloped bracing, which makes it very sturdy. This guitar is a workhorse, just like me.”
The Margo Price J-45’s most arresting characteristic, in addition to its warm sunburst finish, is its double-sided pickguard with an etching of a quartet of red-tailed hawks in flight. It’s practical for her strumming style, but it’s also got a deeper significance.
“We talked about all sorts of things that we could put on the pickguard, and I’ve always been a big fan of the Hummingbird, so what we did is a bit of a nod to that,” Price continues. “I’ve always been drawn to red-tailed hawks. They are supposed to be divine messengers, and they have such strength. They symbolize vision and protection. I would always count them along the highway as I’d be driving home to see my family in Illinois.”
Birds of a feather: “I’ve always been drawn to red-tailed hawks,” says Price. “They are supposed to be divine messengers, and they have such strength. They symbolize vision and protection.”
Photo courtesy of Gibson
With its comfortable neck, slightly thinner body, and serious projection, Price notes, “I wanted my guitar to be something that young girls can pick up and feel comfortable in their hands and inspire songs, but I didn’t want it to be so small that it felt like a toy, and that it didn’t have the volume. This guitar has all of those things.” To get her heavy sound, Price uses D’Addario Phosphor Bronze (.012–.053) strings.
Price says she and her signature J-45, which is street priced at $3,999, have been in the studio a lot lately, “and I have a whole bunch of things I’m excited about.” In mid March, she debuted her new band—which includes Logan Ledger and Sean Thompson on guitars, bassist Alec Newman, Libby Weitnauer on fiddle, and Chris Gelb on drums—in a coming out party for the Margo Price Signature Gibson J-45 at the Gibson Garage in Nashville. “I’ve been with my previous band, the Price Tags, for more than 10 years, and it’s definitely emotional when a band reaches the end of its life cycle,” she says. “But it’s also really exciting, because now, having a fiddle in the band and incredible harmony singers … it’s a completely different vibe. I’ve got a whole bunch of festivals coming up this year. We’re playing Jazz Fest in New Orleans, and I’m so excited for everyone to hear this new iteration of what we’re doing.”
With its heritage cherry sunburst finish and other appointments, the Margo Price Signature Gibson J-45 balances classic and modern guitar design.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
