Rothwell Audio Products Hot Little Knob

Great sounds right away with this. Easy to fit - was my first soldering job and I managed it OK, so it can't be hard. Explanatory leaflet tells you all you need to know, even if it leaves you wondering quite how it's working from a technical point of view. Easy to use - in the down position you get all the standard guitar sounds, then in the up position, you get the special sounds. Very practical design - Rothwell is a guitar player - allows you to use the selector to switch from standard neck sound, to neck+middle and bridge in series, to bridge and middle in series with a bass cut (good for edgy rhythm sounds), to bridge and middle in series with full bass. Works well live. The only thing I think I'd change is that with the circuit engaged the darker sounds are all with the tone control on 10 - that's counterintuitive, and if you want to switch quickly between the normal sounds and the altered sounds you might find it a pain to keep winding the tone up and down. But in fact I find I don't bother with the normal sounds except the neck, so it's not a problem for me.

Gives a strat an entirely new dimension without a lot of fuss or expense. Apart from a big beefy set of strings, I can't think of an easier way to get an extra whack of tone from your instrument than this. Far cheaper and easier than replacement pickups (although some good new pickups will sound even better with HLK). It fattens up the bridge pickup sound especially, giving a really punchy tone that pushes the amp a lot harder - it also gives you tone control over the bridge p/up, which is useful. The position with all three pickups gives some nasal, almost out-of-phase humbucker-like tones - very interesting out of a strat. And another nice thing about it - it's not obvious why your strat sounds so different, which can be fun...

It's a little circuit attached to the lower tone pot. No batteries, nothing to go wrong.

Very helpful - Andrew Rothwell is a player as well as an audio engineer.

I rate this very highly. It's a fantastic extension of a strat's capabilities, without fitting anything drastic like humbuckers, active circuitry etc. I'm just about to fit my second strat with one too. Wish there was something similar for Teles!

Not really an effect but where else can I review it ?
This is a passive replacement tone circuit for a strat type guitar. It replaces the middle pickup tone control with a combined push-pull switch and tone board. The effect is to be able to access additional pickup selections that aren't normally available and to control the bottom end of the added combinations. I bought this after seeing a review in guitarist magazine and after fitting it I bought another to go on my fat strat copy. It took about an hour to fit which including restringing. The manual supplied is small but adequate and if you can use a soldering iron you will have no problem.

First bought for my US standard strat and I bought another for my fat strat copy. Fitting on the fat strat was more involved as it isn't designed for that but the results where worth the effort.

On the standard strat, when using my marshall 50 watt valve combo I can get an overdrive that was unavailable before. The hlk alows me to dial in an extra pickup which increases output and lets me drive the amps input much harder. The difference between this and just using a humbucker equiped guitar is that I can retain the clarity and tone of the strat whilst approaching the output level of a humbucker. There are sound samples available at the manufacturers web site at www.rothwellaudioproducts.co.uk

As reliable as any tone pot can be. Actually probably more reliable as they are good quality pots and the circuit board is well attached.

After reading the review in guitarist I had a look on the web site but didn't buy straight away. The day after I decided to buy online but my internet connection was down so I phoned and order through. The guy who took my call was friendly and helpfull and the order shipped the same day and was received the following day.

When I rang back a week later to ask about fitting one to my coil tapped fat strat he said that he had never tried it but it may add something. He then offered to let me return it for a refund if I wasn't happy with it even though it had been fitted. I haven't returned it.

A worthwile addition that adds a little extra to my strats. It probably three distinctive new tones which can be further altered using the bottom cut facility and in addition allows you to get more output than is normally available on a strat. When the knob is pushed to the off position your strat behaves as standard.

A nice addition to any strat especially if you like to play heavy blues but I also use it to add a little warmth to a sparkly strat tone that is great for jazz.