Sonic Guitars: The lack of tone knobs?
 

Since tone is such a vital and meticulous element of Sonic Youth's guitar-driven sound, why do their current guitars have no knobs to operate it? Are they modified to a set tone? I noticed that Lee and Thurston's signature Fender guitars lack the knobs as well.

Any thoughts or answers?

much love.:o

Removing the tone control improves the tone. It's like the tone goes to 11 !!

To piss people off.

They would probably rather rely on other ways (amps, etc) to control it.

All 3 guitar techs interviewed in the zine w/ the SY signature guitars suggest that they remove the apparently complicated electronics from Jazzmasters to avoid them failing on stage. I guess the idea is that if all you have is a volume knob, there's less circuitry to malfunction. I forget, do they even have pickup selectors?

i would have to agree with the above assessment, as well as the previous post about the tone improvement without the tone pot, well its actually an improvement in volume... as there is some theoretical loss of volume by having extra wiring and components to travel thru by having a tone section. i for one rarely touch the tone knob on a guitar and leave it at max., that is why i've started removing the tone pot and by-passing them and having a only a volume knob on some of my cheaper axes (all-parts jazzblaster and a jagmaster).

As far as I know, none of the jazzmasters have pickup selectors.

EDIT: Ok, actually, it looks like some of them may.

There is a simple reason why it is smart to remove all these things on guitars (pick up switches, tone knobs, phase switches, etc): Good players don't use them anyway!

this is the sort of sober analysis I come here for every day, and I always feel rewarded.

Most audio nut jobs suggest bypassing the tone selection on your stereo as well, to keep things the most natural sounding....