400k Pots

[Mr. B]

I wish someone made 400k pots for volume/tone. I have 2 guitars that are too bright with 500k's and I have to keep the tone knob rolled back all the time. Changing it to 300k changes the sound of the humbuckers too far, especially the neck. Right now I have the lowest value 500k's I could find, out of the seven or so I had on hand. A 400k would be perfect, but nothing like that exists.... does it?

[trevorus]

Re: 400k Pots

You can modify pots with resistors to change the effective resistance. A 2 mega-ohm resistor across the 500K volume pot would get you close.

[blueman335]

Re: 400k Pots

Are you using two 500K's and two 250K's? Have you tried one of each?

[Mr. B]

Re: 400k Pots

No. They are both 1 volume / 1 tone guitars. I've tried the resistor trick, but it doesn't work exactly the same.

[Adieu]

Re: 400k Pots

I wish someone made 400k pots for volume/tone. I have 2 guitars that are too bright with 500k's and I have to keep the tone knob rolled back all the time. Changing it to 300k changes the sound of the humbuckers too far, especially the neck. Right now I have the lowest value 500k's I could find, out of the seven or so I had on hand. A 400k would be perfect, but nothing like that exists.... does it?

Doesnt work that way. Wide open tone on 250, 300, 500, and 1 meg will sound IDENTICAL, barring crappy defective pots.

REASON: "tone 10" is actually "resistor set to zero". And you can ALWAYS dial in a lesser value of resistance on a higher value pot, so you CAN get the equivalent "full = tone 0" resistance 250, 300, 400 etc out of 500/1000

PS if its difficult to find the value, buy linear pots

[blueman335]

Re: 400k Pots

No. They are both 1 volume / 1 tone guitars. I've tried the resistor trick, but it doesn't work exactly the same.

I'm not a fan of 1 vol-1 tone guitars, but I do have a couple. I make both pots volume controls. If the control cavity's big enough, I'll drill a hole for another pot. That way you can give the neck one 500K vol, and the bridge one 250K vol and a 500K tone.

[AlexR]

Re: 400k Pots

Doesnt work that way. Wide open tone on 250, 300, 500, and 1 meg will sound IDENTICAL, barring crappy defective pots.

REASON: "tone 10" is actually "resistor set to zero". And you can ALWAYS dial in a lesser value of resistance on a higher value pot, so you CAN get the equivalent "full = tone 0" resistance 250, 300, 400 etc out of 500/1000

PS if its difficult to find the value, buy linear pots

There is still some signal sent to ground on the 'tone at 10' setting. Try disconnecting the tone circuit or putting in a no load tone pot, you'll soon see the difference. This is one of the reasons why there is actually a subtle difference with cap types and values even on 10.

[LReese]

Re: 400k Pots

There is still some signal sent to ground on the 'tone at 10' setting. Try disconnecting the tone circuit or putting in a no load tone pot, you'll soon see the difference. This is one of the reasons why there is actually a subtle difference with cap types and values even on 10.

+1

I've heard the difference going from 250K to 300K-ish (250K + 47K on the switch) on the tone. Trying to balance the tone on Strat combo positions.

[epi]

Re: 400k Pots

Maybe the answer is new pickups...

[LReese]

Re: 400k Pots

Maybe the answer is new pickups...

or just swap the magnets!

[GilmourD]

Re: 400k Pots

I'm a fan of the 500K volume and 250K tone combo.

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[Liko]

Re: 400k Pots

Doesnt work that way. Wide open tone on 250, 300, 500, and 1 meg will sound IDENTICAL, barring crappy defective pots.

REASON: "tone 10" is actually "resistor set to zero". And you can ALWAYS dial in a lesser value of resistance on a higher value pot, so you CAN get the equivalent "full = tone 0" resistance 250, 300, 400 etc out of 500/1000

Um, no and no. A tone setting of "10" puts the pot at maximum resistance, thereby doing its best to prevent the high frequencies taking the path through the pot and cap to ground and keeping them in the signal chain. A guitarist saying they're running "wide open" will typically mean volume and tone all set to maximum.

Given this fact, the pot's value does in fact make a huge difference. The average impedance of the input to the amplifier head is 1MΩ, so you are in fact losing quite a bit of the guitar's native high end through the tone circuit as the easiest path. At 250K that loss is 80%, and at 1MΩ, the highest-value resistor I've seen used in guitar wiring, the high-end loss only shrinks to 50%. So if you think a guitar is bright with 500K pots, imagine what it'd sound like if you used a pot that actually kept a majority of the high frequency signal.

You are right that you can always set a higher-value pot to a lower resistance. However, with audio tapers that sweet spot can be hard to find, and your suggestion of linear tapers is disingenuous; if you use them, you lose the tone all at once on the bottom half of the pot's values instead of more gradually through the entire available range, because the human ear perceives volume logarithmically; what we hear as twice as loud requires ten times the power. The difference between 500k and 400k is less than 1dB.

[GilmourD]

Re: 400k Pots

Um, no and no. A tone setting of "10" puts the pot at maximum resistance, thereby doing its best to prevent the high frequencies taking the path through the pot and cap to ground and keeping them in the signal chain. A guitarist saying they're running "wide open" will typically mean volume and tone all set to maximum.

Given this fact, the pot's value does in fact make a huge difference. The average impedance of the input to the amplifier head is 1MΩ, so you are in fact losing quite a bit of the guitar's native high end through the tone circuit as the easiest path. At 250K that loss is 80%, and at 1MΩ, the highest-value resistor I've seen used in guitar wiring, the high-end loss only shrinks to 50%. So if you think a guitar is bright with 500K pots, imagine what it'd sound like if you used a pot that actually kept a majority of the high frequency signal.

You are right that you can always set a higher-value pot to a lower resistance. However, with audio tapers that sweet spot can be hard to find, and your suggestion of linear tapers is disingenuous; if you use them, you lose the tone all at once on the bottom half of the pot's values instead of more gradually through the entire available range, because the human ear perceives volume logarithmically; what we hear as twice as loud requires ten times the power. The difference between 500k and 400k is less than 1dB.

Thanks for beating me to it. Adieu is good for posting something that is the opposite of the truth and acting as an authority.

[Mr. B]

Re: 400k Pots

Maybe the answer is new pickups...

No... I like the pickups. I've been through dozens and these are the ones I've settled on. They sound great with the tone rolled off about 1/3 of the way. I've tried 250k in both the volume and tone roll. I also tried it with 300k volume and 500k tone, and that was pretty close, but I didn't like the bridge quite as well with the 300k pot. It changed the EQ of the pickup too much. I still think a 400k value might be perfect. Maybe I will luck into a 500k pot that is WAY out of spec. I had a 250k recently that read 170k.

[GuitarDoc]

Re: 400k Pots

Thanks for beating me to it. Adieu is good for posting something that is the opposite of the truth and acting as an authority.

+10!