Antiquity II Mini Tele Neck Pots

[Funkyard]

Are the Antiquity Mini II for tele neck meant to go with 250K pots? Thanks

[Clint 55]

Re: Antiquity II Mini Tele Neck Pots

It's up to you. I have a 500k volume and no tone with my minis. It does open them up a lot. I'm sure 250k pots would sound good for a warm sound. 300k would probably be plenty bright if you want a bright sound.

[jeremy]

Re: Antiquity II Mini Tele Neck Pots

you mean the antiquity ii mini humbuckers? i like em with both depending on what bridge pup its paired with and how much high end ya want. with a jd in the bridge id use 250k pots, with a qp in the bridge id use 500k pots

[ItsaBass]

Re: Antiquity II Mini Tele Neck Pots

With all pickups, the higher value your volume pot (and tone pot, to some degree), the less top end leaks past the maxed out pot to ground, and the higher frequency your pickup's e.q. spike/peak will shift to. Vice versa with lower valued pots.

It's best not to think of it in terms of what pots are "correct" for what pickups. What pot will suit one best completely depends on each player's preferences. Just learn what different pots do to tone, and choose your value for each application at hand.

You use a lower valued pot if you want more "built-in" top end leakage at 10, and a slightly lower frequency e.q. peak from your pickup. You use a higher valued pot if you want less top end leakage and a slightly higher frequency e.q. peak.

A higher valued pot can always be dialed back to have exactly the same effect as a lower valued pot on 10 (even easier to do if the pot is linear). But a lower valued pot cannot be "dialed up" past 10 to have exactly the same effect as a higher valued pot on 10. So, within a reasonable range, a higher valued pot is inherently more versatile, objectively speaking.

Taking this general thinking to a more specific level, if you have a master volume with two pickups, each of which would be ideal with a different pot value, then it's common sense that you choose the higher valued pot of the two different ideals, instead of the lower valued pot. The reason is that you can always install a simple cap/resistor doodad in the circuit that can fine tune the "too bright" pickup down a bit in tone; but if you opt for the lower valued pot, you cannot install anything that will push the "too dark" pickup up in tone.

In general, for the reasons just explained, I believe that guitar manufacturers have settled on pot values that are too low, almost across the board. The Fender circuit designers who created the original Jazzmaster wiring understood this, and implemented "improvements" with the new guitar in 1958 (and kept them for the Jaguar a few years later). At times, they applied the basic philosophy to Teles as well (i.e. 1 MOhm pots). But tradition/habit and musical trends trump the engineers' "ideal" electronic design most of the time, so we still have the traditional pot values on most guitars.

All this being understood, in practice, it's all based on trial and error. You have to start somewhere, and just see how it sounds. The easiest and most logical place to start would be with the stock wiring. That way, if it sounds fine, you're already done. Makes more sense than starting with a mod, possibly realizing it doesn't suit you, and then returning to stock.