We all know how great the filters are on basses, but I am thinking about guitar use. I would love to hear from some of you guitar players regarding your use of the filters. I was test driving a Tribute and had great fun with the variations, but I would like to hear insights from real world users- do you use the filter on, say, a Darling or a Further... or even CVQ on a Series, and how critical is it to your use?
I have Alembic PUs and guts, including filters and Q switches, in the following guitars:
Custom Further
'76 Series 1 MSG
'77 Series 1 12 String LSG
Custom with Warmoth Strat body and Modulus graphite neck
Fender American Tele
Highly modded Fernandes MH-110 Masterhand
I find the filter to be very useful in getting the tone I want. (This changes depending on who I'm playing with and the style of music I'm playing.) However, the filter does seem to be designed more for bass than for guitar. I find that the useful sweep for guitar is very narrow. Thinking of the filter sweep as 1-10, the useful settings for guitar are all found between 4-6 or 5-7 approximately. I have spoken with Susan and Mica on numerous occasions over the years, suggesting that a guitar specific filter that could expand the 4-8 sweep to 1-10 would be cool, but it hasn't happened. And, given the narrow sweep for guitar, a little rotation of the filter pot makes a huge difference in tone.
Bill, the guitar one