THD Electronics Quintet Tone Curve Module User Manual
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20 Hz 20 kHz
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-14 dB
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Quintet Tone Curve Module
With Built-In Switch
Installation Instructions
The THD Quintet™ Tone Curve Module is a new
type of tone control designed to install directly into
any electric guitar or bass with passive magnetic
pickups. The Quintet will give 5 new sounds from
each of your existing pickups combinations. As it
interacts differently with different pickups, it will
give a different sound to a humbucking pickup
than to a single-coil, and different sounds to two
different pickups of the same type (single-coil,
humbucking, etc...) if they are of different designs
or have a different number of turns of wire.
The Qui ntet with a built-in 5-position rotary
switch gives the 5 tones only. Bypass, if required,
would have to be accomplished by an external
switch, such as a push-pull pot for the volume
control. This is useful so that you can pre-set the
Quintet for the sound you want, and then just use
the push-pull pot to activate it.
Conversely, the Quintet with a built-in 6-position
rotary switch gives the 5 tones plus a hard-wired
bypass position.
Please Note: The Quintet will not work properly
with active or Piezo pickups. (Piezo pickups are
used in most acoustic guitars and in the bridges of
some solid-body and hollow-body electric guitars
to simulate the sound of an acoustic guitar.)
There are five different circuits in the Quintet, each
with its own effect on your pickups. Here are a few
basic rules to the installation:
1. The Quintet should be installed between the
pickup and the volume control of the guitar.
2. If your guitar has the volume control before the
pickup selector, then you can either use one Quin-
tet for each pickup or you can rewire the guitar to
have the pickup selector before the volume control
and one Quintet on all pickups.
3. The Quintet requires a proper ground connection to work. The GND pad needs to be connected
to ground either directly or through a potentiometer to control the intensity of the effect of the
module.
4. When installing the Quintet, care should be
taken when soldering to not “bridge” the terminals
with excess solder, and to not overheat the “pads”
on the board or they may come off, making it more
difficult to get a good solder joint.
5. Multi-strand, insulated wire should be used, no
larger than 20 gauge and no smaller than 24 gauge.
Solid core wire is not recommended.
6. We highly recommend that you install a treblebypass network from the full clockwise terminal to
the center (wiper) terminal of your volume control.
This should eliminate any loss of treble as you turn
the volume control down. We feel strongly enough
about this that we have devised our own favorite
combination of capacitor and resistor and have
included one of these networks with the Quintet
free of charge.
The Quintet's 5 Sounds:
The 1st sound reduces the bass, gives a slight boost
at about 700Hz, and a cut at about 2000Hz. This
setting is useful for making a pickup sound a bit
brighter and clearer, like taking a pickup from series
to parallel coil wiring. It also makes a neck pickup
more useful for leads.
The 2nd sound gives a boost at about 500Hz, and a
cut at about 1800Hz, with a slight treble reduction
above about 4000Hz. This setting will make a Strat®
pickup sound more like a Filter'Tron™ type.
The 3rd sound gives a substantial boost at about
400Hz, and a cut at about 1200Hz, with a slight
rise at about 2100Hz and a slight treble reduction
above about 3900Hz. This setting has a huge effect
on the midrange character. It will make a Strat®
pickup sound more like a Telecaster in-between
setting.
The 4th sound gives a boost at about 300Hz, and a
substantial cut at about 800Hz, with a slight rise at
about 2200Hz and a slight treble reduction above
about 4500Hz. It will make a humbucker pickup
sound more like the in-between setting on a guitar
with two P-90 pickups.
The 5th sound reduces the treble, gives a boost at
about 320Hz, and a cut at about 1200Hz, a small rise
at 2200Hz, and a drop off as the frequencies go up
from there. This setting makes most bridge pickups
sound like they are in the neck position.
(Please note, all frequencies listed are approximate and
will vary among different pickups and pickup types.)
A few thoughts on installing the Quintet:
1. The trim-pot on the Quintet board that is labeled “More” with an arrow pointing to the right
determines the intensity of the changes that the
Quintet makes to your guitar’s sound. If you chose
to connect the Quintet's GND pad directly to
ground rather than through an externally adjustable potentiometer, you can use this trim-pot to
set the level of the effect. Turning the trim-pot
all the way clockwise gives the maximum effect.
Conversely, turning it all the way counter-clockwise
minimizes the effect. We recommend that you start
with the trim-pot all the way clockwise and back it
off only if the effect is too strong for your taste.
2. You can connect the Quintet to ground through
a potentiometer to act as an “intensity” control for
the unit. This should be a linear potentiometer
roughly 100KΩ in value. An audio taper pot will
work, but won’t be as even in effect as a linear pot.
See the diagram for wiring instructions. If you are
going to use an external intensity pot, it is best to
set the trim-pot on the board to the full clockwise
position.
3. The more inductive the pickup is, the greater
an effect the Quintet will have. Higher-output
pickups tend to have more inductance than lowoutput pickups, but the Quintet will still be quite
effective, even on vintage-output Stratocaster® and
Telecaster® pickups.
4. If you use an active buffer, booster or tone control on your guitar (as opposed to active pickups),
always put the Quintet before the active circuit.
5. Be sure the secure the Quintet's potted section within the guitar so that it does not put unnecessary stress on the board or the switch. Some
simple ways to do this are to glue it in place with
rtv-silicone adhesive (much like window caulk), hot
glue or double-stick foam squares like those used
to glue mirrors to the wall.
Quintet is a trademark of THD Electronics, Ltd. The THD logo is a registered
trademark of THD Elec tronics, Ltd. Esquire, Strat, Stratocaste r. Tele and
Telecaster and are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments
Corporation. Filter'Tron is a trademark of Gretsch Guitars. THD is not affiliated with Fender Musical Instruments or Gretsch.
THD Electronics, Ltd. • 3510 6th Ave W • Seattle, WA 98119-1513 • USA
T: 206.781.5500 • F: 206.781.5508 • www.thdelectronics.com • info@thdelectronics.com
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