Here is what Fender says about the Greasebucket: "The Greasebucket tone circuit adds a new dimension to your tone, the effect is that when rolled down, the tone pot reduces the high frequencies, but does not add bass."
Okay, it sounds like this is worth trying out. In fact, many pro players swear by this tone circuit, and it indeed produces a different effect than the standard tone circuit we all know. But don't take the Fender description literally—a Strat's standard Tone control does not add bass frequencies. With passive electronics, you can't add anything that isn't already there—you can only reshape the tone by attenuating certain frequencies, which makes others sound more prominent. Removing highs makes lows more apparent (and vice versa), and that's exactly what we have here: The standard tone control rolls off some high frequencies (depending on the capacitance of the tone cap), making the bass frequencies more prominent.
In addition, the use of inductors (which is what a pickup behaves like in a guitar circuit) and capacitors can create resonant peaks and valleys, further coloring the overall tone. Some people like this interaction, others don't—it's purely subjective and a matter of personal taste.
Anyhow, the Greasebucket tone control is a cool way to roll off the highs and lows in your guitar while preventing your tone from getting muddy. This is especially helpful for creating sparkling clean tones, but it's also useful for overdriven sounds.
To convert your Strat's normal tone control to Greasebucket specs, you don't need much: 0.1 μF and 0.022 μF capacitors (Fender uses ceramic-disc versions), and a 1/4-watt 4.7 kΩ resistor (Fender uses the metal-film type). If you want to convert both your Strat's tone controls to Greasebucket specs, obviously you'll have to double these parts.
The mod itself is relatively easy. Simply unsolder your tone pot and then connect the new parts as shown in the diagram. (Note that the resistor is soldered in series with the 0.022 μF cap.) The rest of the Strat wiring, including the volume pot, stays standard.
Fender's Greasebucket circuit in all its glory. (Seymour Duncan and the stylized S are registered trademarks of Seymour Duncan Pickups.)
This wiring diagram comes courtesy of Seymour Duncan Pickups and is used with permission.
This type of band-pass filter only allows certain frequencies to pass through, while others are blocked. The standard tone circuit in the Strat is called a variable low-pass filter (aka a "treble-cut filter"), which allows only the low frequencies to pass through while the high frequencies get sent to ground via the tone cap.
The Greasebucket's bandpass filter is a combination of a high-pass and a low-pass filter. This circuit is designed to cut high frequencies without "adding" bass. Mostly it has to do with that 4.7 kΩ resistor wired in series with the pot, which prevents the value from reaching zero. You can get a similar effect by simply not turning the Strat's standard tone control all the way down. The additional cap on the wiper of the Greasebucket circuit complicates things a bit, because together with the pickups, it forms an RLC circuit (a resonant circuit comprising a resistor, an inductor, and a capacitor), but that's outside the scope of this column. But the Greasebucket has its own special sound, and I can only encourage everyone to try it. You'll be surprised at its flexibility and tone.
If you're adventurous, you can personalize the Greasebucket circuit with additional mods. For example, you can try different tone-cap values and materials. The 0.022 μF cap connected to the tone control is the standard configuration we all know from our Strat's tone control. But, as we've discussed several times in previous columns, there are tons of alternatives. You can try other values from 2200 pF up to 0.1 μF, and also different types of new, used, or new-old-stock (NOS) caps—such as metal film, film, paper in oil, waxed paper, and silver mica. Your choices are virtually unlimited.
We'll discuss more Strat mods—such as the Fender S-1 switching system—in the coming months, so stay tuned.
[Updated 9/24/21]
Just as people come into the
world naked, so do guitars.
A child is nurtured, taught,
and made ready for life before
starting out to make their way
in the world. Guitars know no
such preparation—or do they?
Somewhere out there, a 1952
Les Paul wears a crescent-moon-shaped
scar in its gold top. The
guitar was already 16 years old
when that two-inch dent, exactly
the size of a school-locker padlock,
was forever imprinted on
it. That mark was, and probably
still is, a reminder of an argument
I had with a band member
about a girl. It’s not only my
story—it’s the guitar’s story, too.
I had a very emotional bond
with my guitar, and sometimes I
wonder what else that gold top
has seen over the years.
Can a luthier’s creative energy somehow permeate an instrument
as he shaves, shapes, and transforms raw wood into a guitar?
Every guitar has a personality. Maybe you’ve never thought of it exactly that way, but you’ve noticed. It’s reflected in the way an instrument behaves when played as much as it is in the way it looks. Some are easy partners, while others spar with the musician— daring you to take a careless step in search of an imagined note. We might feel that a guitar is willing or stubborn—physical manifestations of the guitar’s design and construction expressed in human terms. A long scale will feel stiffer than a short one. String spacing choices at both the nut and bridge can radically affect feel. But, beyond the typical neck-dimension and shape issues, there are other imponderables. The very best instruments invite a closeness between guitarist and guitar that is hard for a non-musician to understand—and hard for a builder to explain. Can a guitar have a soul? Is there a spiritual essence or energy within a well-traveled instrument?
Recently, I blogged about restoring a pair of 1960s vintage Marshall 4x12 cabinets. During the process, we found shards of beer-bottle glass lodged in the vinyl covering that I attributed to a long life in clubs and bars. That mental picture got me thinking about the idea of essence. Vintage instruments are said to possess a mojo that goes beyond pure age and break-in time. Could it be life experience— a sort of wisdom?
Just as people are the sum of their experience intermingled with their genetics, can a guitar absorb the totality of its practical contact with the world? Perhaps this can lend some credence to the idea that a guitar whose life is constrained to its case cannot speak as fluently and effortlessly as those that are well traveled and truly road worn. Certainly this is the marketing angle behind new guitars that are scratched and dented to appear old and wizened. That’s not to say that stage-prop relic jobs are completely devoid of a worldly education borne of dues-paying exposure to the world. It’s just that they’re a bit like a well-dressed grad, stumbling to find their professional footing and establish a comfortable identity.
On the flip side, another bit of mythology to consider is the concept of the luthier-built instrument. Often I find that a guitar that’s slowly finessed to completion by a pair of gifted hands will possess an unexplainable natural response to the player’s touch, as though it were anticipating and guiding the playing. Certainly this can happen occasionally with mass-produced items—just as a creative genius can certainly escape from the doldrums of a test-driven educational system. In many large factories there may be no shortage of knowledge, but perhaps it’s the kindness of an individual luthier’s intent that births the most sensitive of the breed. Not just the material selection, but the actual act and process of building could be adding to the essence of the guitar that is to be. I view this as the “pre-story,” and for me it adds a lot of value to an instrument.
In an interesting and sympathetic vein, just as hopeful parents might play Mozart to their infants in the womb, there are encouraging studies about subjecting tonewoods to vibration in preparation for use in musical instruments—usually violins. Studies suggest that vibration affects the equilibrium of moisture content in wood, decreasing weight while retaining or even improving the modulus of elasticity. Urged on by this information, some violinmakers employ a sound-barrage chamber to pre-season their woods.
In the same way, perhaps the nightly exposure to long sets and loud amplifiers could be part of the key to a guitar’s worldliness. I have a friend who works as a tech for some very high-level players who swears that placing a guitar in front of a speaker cabinet for a week’s worth of gigs improves its sound. There are also small electrical vibrators that can be attached to a guitar’s strings to “open up” the sound of an instrument. I guess this could be viewed as a sort of “intellectual” learning—like reading about something as opposed to actually doing it.
Beyond these physics-backed scenarios, I keep returning to the concept of the guitar’s life story and its impact on essence. Maybe it’s just a romantic notion that untold years of busking, blues bars, studios, and pawn shops might somehow embed a guitar with a soul that can help you express your own feelings—but it’s one that I like. Maybe someday I’ll be reunited with that goldtop and we can discuss it.
Jol Dantzig is a
noted designer, builder,
and player who co-founded
Hamer Guitars,
one of the first boutique
guitar brands, in 1973.
Today, as the director of
Dantzig Guitar Design, he continues to
help define the art of custom guitar. To
learn more, visit guitardesigner.com.Bootleg, Volume 2: From Memphis to Hollywood
Columbia/Legacy
Bootleg, Volume 2: From Memphis to Hollywood
takes you back to the ’50s and ’60s, when
Cash lived in the studio. During these two
decades, he released 20 studio albums producing
plenty of B-sides, demos, unreleased songs,
and alternative takes filling two CDs—1950s
and 1960s—with 57 songs, including 16
never-heard recordings.The first disc showcases a young, impressionable Cash recording gospel (“Belshazzar”), rockabilly (“You’re My Baby”—later made famous by Roy Orbison), heartbroken blues (“When I Think of You”), and country (“Brakeman’s Blues”—a Jimmie Rodgers cover) in a style that demonstrates great empathy for the genre rather than a reliance on his own charismatic persona—a talent he demonstrated in later recordings, particularly his American albums. The 1960s disc oozes with Cash’s room-filling, baritone swagger particularly on the hilarious “Foolish Questions,” the poignant “Five Minutes to Live,” the self-deprecating “The Losing Kind” and the slow, prison ballad “Send a Picture of Mother.”
The boom-chick-a-boom rhythm associated with Cash, guitarist Luther Perkins, and bassist Marshall Grant, is on parade throughout both discs and the musical transitions Cash endures. Production gets slicker on the second disc thanks to Columbia Records and producer Don Law. But the first one—loaded with 14 demos—has a garage-recording charm, complete with Sun Studio and Sam Phillips’ signature reverb. The 1950s disc starts with a 15-minute segment from a KWEM radio program—complete with Cash selling home improvement goods—that aired in May 1955.
While not nearly as accessible as other posthumous hit-laden collections, Bootleg, Volume 2: From Memphis to Hollywood captures a historically important musical and transformation of a young Cash from his frenetically ragged roots to one of American music’s most important lyrical philosophers.