THD Electronics Quintet Tone Curve Pedal User Manual

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Quintet Tone Curve Pedal

The THD Quintet™ Tone Curve Pedal is a
new type of tone control pedal designed
to 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 Quintet Pedal has a 5-position rotary
switch which allows you to select among
the 5 tone curves and an Intensity control
to let you tailor the amount of change that
the pedal makes when you activate it.

As the Quintet Pedal needs to directly
interact with the coils of the guitar's pick­ups, it needs to be the first item in the sig­nal chain after the guitar or bass itself. Any
other effects that you may use have to go
after the Quintet Pedal or the Quintet
will not function properly if at all.

Also, the lower you turn down the volume
control on your guitar, the less the effect
of the Quintet Pedal. For maximum ef­fect, turn your guitar's volume control all
the way up.

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 solid­body 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.

The Quintet's 5 Sounds:

The 1st 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.

The 2nd 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 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
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 5th 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.

(Please note, all frequencies listed are approximate and
will vary among different pickups and pickup types.)

A few thoughts on using the Quintet:

1. The more inductive the pickup is, the
greater an effect the Quintet will have.
Higher-output pickups tend to have more
inductance than low-output pickups, but
the Quintet will still be quite effective,
even on vintage-output Stratocaster® and
Telecaster® pickups.

2. The Quintet Pedal is excellent for
tuning the way a Fuzz Box or Overdrive
Pedal responds to your guitar. To get the
most out of your Fuzz or Overdrive pedal,
put a Quintet Pedal before it. You will

Instructions

Revised 01/01/08

love what you can do with the distortion
characteristic.

3. The Quintet Pedal is entirely passive
and does not use a battery, so it will never
run down or leave you stranded.

4. The Quintet Pedal does not care which
jack is the input and which is the output.
If it is inconvenient to connect it using
the jacks as labeled, feel free to switch the
cables. It doesn't matter at all.

5. The Quintet Pedal will not work after
a wireless system, as the wireless will
act as a buffer and will eliminate the
Quintet Pedal's ability to couple to your
instrument's pickups.

Quintet is a trademark of THD Electronics, Ltd. The THD
logo is a registered trademark of THD Electronics, Ltd.
Esquire, Strat, Stratocaster. 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 • [e-mail]