Resistor or lower value pot?

[Rex_Rocker]

So I had a friend over, and he brought his Les Paul Studio which has a 498T in the bridge position. We A/B'd with my Tribute which has a 500T, and we both liked the 500T's tighter low-end and higher output, but we both agreed that the 500T could get a little harsh at times. My Les Paul is running a single 500K volume pot. His Les Paul has the usual 4-knob layout, so his 498T is probably seeing two 500K pots. Maybe even 300?

Anyways, I wanna tame my 500T slightly, but I don't want to completely neuter it either. Not sure if I should go for a 250K pot, as IME, those have a tendency to do that to humbuckers, especially ones with DCR, or find another in-between value. I know they do make 300K pots too, right? Or is it 330? 350? Or I remember seeing 450K pots at some point too?

Or maybe I should add a resistor rather? If so, where?

Not sure how to proceed here.

[Teleplayer]

Changing pots isn't necessary IMO. It is easier to add a fixed resistor in parallel with the bridge humbucker. I would try a 510k ohm to simulate the load of a tone control. 1M would be a half-way step if you only want a subtle adjustment. As for physical location, the resistor can be soldered on one side of the toggle switch between the pickup hot wire to ground.

Some Gibsons have 300k pots, which are normally linear taper. Linear taper volume is fine for me, but I don't know if that is what you are used to.

[Rex_Rocker]

Changing pots isn't necessary IMO. It is easier to add a fixed resistor in parallel with the bridge humbucker. I would try a 510k ohm to simulate the load of a tone control. 1M would be a half-way step if you only want a subtle adjustment.

Gibson have 300k pots, which are normally linear taper. Linear taper volume is fine for me, but I don't know if that is what you are used to.

I'm not used to turning down the volume knob down ever, LOL. I just have it there because pickups without pots have a tendency to sound really harsh, kinda like I'm finding right now, LOL. I have a noise gate and a tuner. Whenever I feel like muting, I just stop playing, and whenever I REALLY don't want to make any noise, I activate the tuner. I do so a lot more commonly than turning the volume control down.

OK... so how should I do it in parallel? On my Fender, I wired it a certain way from the blade switch to ground. Not sure here, as the switch is not a blade switch and it's wired all the way on the other side of the guitar, LOL. But I do have 1 Meg resistors around from when I loaded down the neck pickup on my Strat.

[Rex_Rocker]

OK, so I figured it out. I solderd one of a 1 Meg resistor's leg to the joint between the bridge pickup's hot wire and the cable where it connects to the toggle switch, and then other leg to ground on the pot. Is this how it's supposed to be?

Whatever I did, it seems to have worked! Under gain, the pickup slightly fattend up a bit. I like it. It almost solves the probme I was having where the Evolution was too fat too.

[Teleplayer]

OK, so I figured it out. I solderd one of a 1 Meg resistor's leg to the joint between the bridge pickup's hot wire and the cable where it connects to the toggle switch, and then other leg to ground on the pot. Is this how it's supposed to be?

Sounds good - From the hot wire to ground is correct! It should not affect the neck pickup. However taking some brightness of the bridge pickup away can improve the balance between neck and bridge positions. It helps once the EQ in the signal chain is re-adjusted to suit.

[Chistopher]

Note that this change will have slightly adjusted the taper of your pot. Not very noticeably, but more severe adjustments will create a more obvious effect

[marcello252]

1 Mohm is correct, better than 510K that would had made the volume pot a 250K...

[Rex_Rocker]

Will it have an effect on the middle position on the switch? I noticed it sounds different, but I'm not sure if it's because the bridge pickup just sounds different, or if there's something else going on.

[freefrog]

The resistive load of the bridge PU necessarily affects the middle position. And a 1M in parallel with a pickup has largely the same effect than a tone pot permanently lowered... :-)

I also find the 500T a bit harsh sometimes, BTW. So I understand the idea of this topic.

Enjoy!

[Rex_Rocker]

Yeah, I like harsh, LOL.

Or at least I thought I did, but comparing it to other more "normal" setups (I mean, most people use volume and tone pots, right?), I kinda realized I overdid it. I mean, before the 500T, I was running Fishman Fluence Classics which are known to be bright, and my initial impession when I had the 500T in there was "woah, this is aggressive", but I just kinda went with it.

I like how it's working now with the 1Meg resistor and the 500K pot, though. I guess I'll try to A/B it next time to see if I need to water it down even further, but I still want it to be aggressive. Otherwise, what's the point of having the 500T in there anyways. But right now, I feel like it's working better with the Evo Neck that I have in there too.