Which pots/caps for Tele with neck humbucker?

[solderboy]

For a Keef-style Tele, with a single coil in the bridge and a humbucker in the neck, which tone caps and pots have you used?
I know "normal" is 250K/.047uf for single-coil, 500K/.022Uf for hummers.
Simple 3-way switching/1 Volume/1 Tone will suffice.

[jimijames]

Re: Which pots/caps for Tele with neck humbucker?

See, the only thing is a neck humbucker and a tele bridge pickup are two very different animals. You're going to want a lower cap for the neck humbucker just because that allows more treble frequencies through - for the bridge you're going to need something that takes more of an edge off.

That being said, I think .047 caps take off a little too much treble even for a tele bridge style pickup. I have a Jerry Donauhe bridge A2, 7.8k (so not the brightest tele pickup to begin with) with 500k volume and tone pots with a .022 cap and it has a very useable tone sweep. The tele that's on has a neck humbucker (A2, 7.1k) with 500k volume and tone pots and a .015 cap and the range is great too, even when split.

You can always roll down the tone control and take treble off for the bridge, but you can't add treble to a dark neck pickup. That's why I think you could get away with 500k volume/tone and a .022 cap. While it's going to be difficult to be able to set the controls the same for both pickups you will be able to get great sounds out of each one. Alternatively, you could go for a 250k tone pot, which would tame some of the treble coming out of the bridge pickup at the expense of the neck pickup. If it's a bright neck pickup anyway (like the Jazz or something) you'll be fine. If it's darker (like the A2pro) it might be an issue.

Also, welcome to the forums. I forgot to ask whether your tele had an all maple neck or a rosewood fretboard. That's going to be a big factor too.

[solderboy]

Re: Which pots/caps for Tele with neck humbucker?

Forgot about the neck. It's going to be maple, either a newer stock "C" shape American Standard, or a fatter "D" shape, which actually has more "snap". And the body is ash, which is brighter and snappier as well.
I'll have to check out the Duncan Jazz neck, especially if it's brighter than typical humbuggies.
I have the Seymour Vintage Stack and Hot Stack options for the bridge, plus a Fender NoCaster bridge to play with.
Thanks for the info, it's a big help.
Yup, I'm new here, but an old fart IRL.

[elelpe]

Re: Which pots/caps for Tele with neck humbucker?

I've used:
JD - Jazz with 250k v/t + .015 cap and 500k v/t + .022 cap
JD - '59 with 375k v/t + .015 cap and 500k v/t + .022 cap
APTL1 - Jazz with 250k v/t + .015 cap and 500k v/t + .022 cap
APTL1 - '59 with 375k v/t + .015 cap and 500k v/t + .022 cap
Nocaster - Jazz with 250 v/t + .015 cap
Nocaster - '59 with 375k v/t + .015 cap

As you can I see I begin with not so bright tele bridge pickups. Jazz reacts well with 250k or 500k v/t. '59 is too dark with 250k v/t and Nocaster is too bright with 500k v/t. The surprise part is I could get pretty good volume balance from APTL1 and the humbuckers with height adjustment. With its A2 magnet, I could set it very close to the strings and the humbuckers flush to pickguard.

Those were my experiments/experiences with sc/hb combo in a tele. My tele has ash body and maple neck and 1 volume/1 tone.