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Guitar volume control with detent?

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detent
6K views 15 replies 6 participants last post by  HowardWow1997 
#1 ·
The electric guitar's volume control has acted as an On/Off switch for most of my guitar playing life. However, I have recently changed some things and now when I "roll the volume back on the guitar" the signal goes from usefully distorted to usefully clean and vice versa. I realize most of you are probably thinking "welcome to Guitar 101 (Remedial)" and you would be right.

The "usefully clean" tone is awfully close to rolling the volume control completely off. It would be convenient to have a tactile marker, like a minimally resistive detent, on the guitars volume control to let the player know where the boundary between "1" and "Off" lies.

Do any production model guitars have a feature like this, that you are aware of?
 
#3 ·
I was thinking about this last night... and wondering how you could do it. If you knew the resistance of the pot at the "sweet spot" where it cleans up the way you like, you could add a resistor of that value between the grounded leg and ground. So when you rolled it all the way down it would not completely shunt the signal to ground. If you did want the ability to shut the volume all the way off you could use a push/pull pot to kill the volume. Just brainstorming here... but its a thought.
 
#5 ·
You guys have good ideas. The detent would be analogous to a "rumble strip" on the highway. It tells you, "past this point there is no more road." The detent would tell you, "past this point there is no more sound." Out of all the senses, "feeling" that point on the guitar's volume control would be the most reliable way of doing this.
 
#6 ·
Hmmm... I know what you mean, but you would have to custom build a pot like that... Not that it couldn't be done though! A recessed spring loaded ball bearing under the volume knob and small hole drilled in a pickguard (for the detent) would do the trick, if a person wanted to experiment with the idea. You would just have to play with the rotational position of the pot and get the detent in your sweet spot.
 
#10 ·
What comes to mind is the little metal indicator things (idk what the technical term is) under some Gibson top hat knobs...



If you could glue something to the metal piece (or just bend it so it touches, or make a similar type of piece, etc.) so there would be constant contact with the knob, then file out a small indent on the knob itself, the sweet spot could be felt and you could still turn it all the way down. Not the most scientific approach for sure, but all my caveman brain can muster up.
 
#11 ·
I was thinking along these lines too. If I had a Gibson with those knobs, a homemade solution could probably be reached. That is a good example of putting information on the volume controls in an accurate way. My idea was to use the sense of touch to provide all the information rather than take my eyes away from the fretboard. Since my hand will be turning the volume control anyways, that subtle "bump" would effectively do that.

Tactile controls could be rather useful in other ways too. Luminlays were invented because venues can be dark. Our sense of touch does not need light or even sound to be useful. Thought for food.
 
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