Treble Bleed Mod Done on Various Guitars

The "treble bleed" mod is one I have had stock on a few guitars for years now (my Ibanez Jem and Ibanez JS both have factory installed treble bleeds). What this mod does is to preserve the treble frequencies in your guitar signal as you turn down the volume knob. Most potentiometers without this mod will cause the sound to get bassy and muddy as the volume is decreased.

The mod couldn't be simpler to perform and the parts are quite inexpensive. I used a 500pF silver mica cap in parallel with a 220K resistor (carbon film, metal film, etc. it doesn't matter) across pins 1 and 2 of each of the volume pots I wanted to modify. I have installed this mod on both my Les Pauls (bridge and neck volume pots), as well as on my Ernie Ball Music Man Steve Morse guitar, my Carvin DC135 and Peavey Wolfgang.

I can now turn down the guitar's volume while playing with high gain on the amplifier and "clean up" the tone significantly. If I am using a lot of gain, the tone may never quite clean up all the way, but it certainly reduces the distortion a great deal which leaves me with more of a crunch tone than a full-tilt lead tone. This is very useful... it's almost like having the gain knob of your amp right on the guitar!