mid control versions - rocket

[andrew]

I have seen different versions of a variable mid control for a Rocket. Does anyone have a favorite version and perhaps point me to a layout? Thanks for any help.

[Mark]

What versions do you have Andrew?

What are your criticisms of the various mid controls.

[andrew]

Hi Mark, thanks for the reply. I have had no experience with any of the different wiring methods. I just found a variety of them under "Rockster Lives" in the Trainwreck Discussion.

[M Fowler]

I usually just add 25kL pot with wire from bass pot wiper to mid pot wiper, and then outer terminal on mid pot to ground.

rj usually adds a 5k resistor from mid pot to ground.

Mark

[RJ Guitars]

Ha - I see Dr Fowler beat me to it... he has built a few Rocksters but I'll post up my note I just wrote just to confirm that Mark can say what I say just as clearly with a whole lot less words and pictures...

Hi Andrew, The Rockster is the Rocket preamp into an Octal output section, so if we look at the Rocket schematic we can see where these options were derived from. The original Rocket just used a fixed value of 10K Ohms on the tail of the tone circuit. Depending on your amp and guitar setup, that may not be the ideal amount of mid you want so some of us decided to add a 25K pot in place of the mid resistor. However, because with a pot you can actually go to zero ohms, that really isn't within the reasonable range you want. Thus, the 25K pot with the 5K tail resistor. This would give you a minimum of 5K ohms to ground on the mid control, which will actually sound a whole lot like the fixed 10K value. This is how I did it, others have also done various versions but I think ultimately I think they all work similarly. rj

[Mark]

I know with AC-30's people did replace the tone stack with a different one to get something they were more comfortable with. Though that probably isn't the option you're after.

I'd have a look at Duncan's tone control simulator and see if you get the changes to desired frequency from the 25K pot, the other option is looking at the slope resistor. I haven't experimented with either of these resistors so I can't comment on the effectiveness.