Quintet Tone Curve Module
Installation Instructions
®
TheTHD 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 differ-
ently 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.
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 simu-
late the sound of an acoustic guitar.)
There are five different circuits in the Quintet, each
with its own effect on your pickups. You can install
the unit in such a way as to use all 5,just a few or only
one. It’s up to your taste what works best in your
guitar. This,naturally,means that there are a number
of ways to install the Quintet, depending upon how
you want to use it. In any event,there 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 Quintet
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. Pad H 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 treble-
bypass 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.
Connecting To Get The Quintet's 5 Sounds:
The 1st sound requires the Quintet to be in series
with the pickup, using Pad A as the input and Pad
Bas the output. This connection 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 requires the Quintet to be in parallel
with the pickup,using Pad C as the connection to the
“hot”or positive of the pickup.This connection 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 requires the Quintet to be in parallel
with the pickup,using Pad D as the connection to the
“hot”or positive of the pickup.This connection 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 requires the Quintet to be in parallel
with the pickup,using Pad E as the connection to the
“hot”or positive of the pickup.This connection 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 requires the Quintet to be in series
with the pickup,using Pad F as the input and Pad G as
the output. This connection 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 Pad H 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
100KΩin value. An audio taper pot will work, but
won’t be as even in effect as a linear pot. See the dia-
gram for wiring instructions. If you are going to use
an external intensity pot,it is best to set the trim-pot
™
THD Electronics, Ltd. • 3510 6th Ave W • Seattle,WA 98119-1513 • USA
20 Hz 20 kHz
6 dB
-14 dB
0 dB
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 low-output
pickups, but the Quintet will still be quite effective,
even on vintage-output Stratocaster® andTelecaster®
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.You can pick a single sound that you like best from
the Quintet, wire it in with no switch, and use the
tone control as an intensity control in reverse so that,
like normal, with the tone control all the way up,the
sound is unaltered, but as you turn the tone control
down,rather than just reducing high frequencies,you
are dialing-in the curve that you have selected. This
is a VERY cool and subtle use of the Quintet.
6. Find your two favorite settings on the Quintet,and
use a push-pull or push-push pot to select between
them, and use the pot itself to dial in the intensity
of the effect.
7. Replace one control on your guitar with a 5-posi-
tion rotary switch to permit you to select any of the
settings on the Quintet, and a second control to
determine the intensity of the Quintet's effect on
the pickups. This is especially useful on guitars that
have four knobs.
8. On an Esquire®-style guitar, the three-position
blade switch can be replaced with a 5-position switch
to allow you to select which of the Quintet's settings
are in the circuit. This can give remarkable flexibility
to a single-pickup guitar.
9. Be sure the secure the Quintet within the guitar
so that it does not flop around and get damaged.
Some simple ways to do this are to glue it in place
with rtv-silicone adhesive (much like window caulk),
double-stick foam squares like those used to glue
mirrors to the wall. Alternatively, you can wrap the
quintet in foam rubber and tuck it into a nice, snug
spot inside the cavity of the guitar.
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 affili-
ated with Fender Musical Instruments or Gretsch.
