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Pot value change, tone or volume?

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  • Pot value change, tone or volume?

    Hi!
    I have HH strat. I have custom pickup. Neck is PAF roughcast Alnico 2 7,4k. Bridge is higher output PAF roughcast Alnico 5 12k. I like this set.
    I have 500k volume and 500k tone pots with 716p Orange Drop 0,033uF. I liked this sound, but now is to icepicky for me. I need more palm muting bass.
    So i think about one pot change to 300k. Should I try the tone change or volume change first?
    If i change cap from 0.033uf to 0.047, this give me effect (on point 10 tone pot)?

  • #2
    Re: Pot value change, tone or volume?

    I recommend 300k for volume and 300k tone and convert it to a no load. That way you can have the option for the extra brightness with the tone out of the circuit. 33nf should be a plenty bassy cap value.
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    • #3
      Re: Pot value change, tone or volume?

      There's two simple experiments you can do before you make any major wiring changes:

      Tone: The tone control is wired as a 2-terminal rheostat. Just turn it down to approximately 7-ish. If that sounds how you like, you effectively have a 250k pot. The range 6.5 to 7.5 will approximate 250k to 300k. If you don't mind having your tone control rest at 7-ish, you can just leave it alone. Then you can always dial in that little extra brightness when you need.

      Volume: Temporarily solder a little jumper across the #2 & #3 terminals. (The non-ground terminals.) This will "lock" the volume control at full, but as you lower it, you'll hear the effect of volume pot loading. Again, if you prefer the tone when at 7-ish, that is effectively a 250k volume pot. When you find a sweet spot, cut the wire soldered to the 3rd terminal, and measure the pot resistance. That's the approximate pot value you want.

      Does that make sense?

      Artie

      BTW, I'm assuming you have "log" pots. If you have linear, those "7-ish's" above become 5-ish's.
      Last edited by ArtieToo; 01-26-2020, 07:38 AM.

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      • #4
        Re: Pot value change, tone or volume?

        Some good advice above from Clint and ArtieToo. On a slightly different line of thought, I was intrigued to see if the OP's question about which of the two pot's value had more of an impact on tone, had ever been discussed and answered before on the forum, because it is an interesting question. And found this older thread. And, per the last reply in that thread, someone with good authority at Dimarzio said it's the volume pot. But only subtley more, so Steve recommended to the OP in that thread to change both pots, which coincidentally turns out to be a nice confirmation of Clint's recommendation above.



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        Sanford: "The hardest part about tone chasing is losing the expectations associated with the hardware."

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        • #5
          Re: Pot value change, tone or volume?

          I've always found that thevolume pot seems to have the biggest change. It changes the character of the pickup . . . from more aggressive and peaky to more mellow. The tone pot is just a treble roll-off.
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          • #6
            Re: Pot value change, tone or volume?

            Originally posted by ArtieToo View Post
            There's two simple experiments you can do before you make any major wiring changes:

            Tone: The tone control is wired as a 2-terminal rheostat. Just turn it down to approximately 7-ish. If that sounds how you like, you effectively have a 250k pot. The range 6.5 to 7.5 will approximate 250k to 300k. If you don't mind having your tone control rest at 7-ish, you can just leave it alone. Then you can always dial in that little extra brightness when you need.

            Volume: Temporarily solder a little jumper across the #2 & #3 terminals. (The non-ground terminals.) This will "lock" the volume control at full, but as you lower it, you'll hear the effect of volume pot loading. Again, if you prefer the tone when at 7-ish, that is effectively a 250k volume pot. When you find a sweet spot, cut the wire soldered to the 3rd terminal, and measure the pot resistance. That's the approximate pot value you want.

            Does that make sense?

            Artie

            BTW, I'm assuming you have "log" pots. If you have linear, those "7-ish's" above become 5-ish's.
            Great advice, there.
            I am just more practical, and would just leave the tone down a bit. But some people have an issue with the knobs not being at 10 all the time, for some reason.
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            • #7
              Re: Pot value change, tone or volume?

              for capacitors here's a great A/B between various values to see what will work best on passive guitars. The same can be said about basses too. However if the entire guitar is all ice pick perhaps a more mellow/warmer set of strings. One electric guitar in my collection is too bright so instead of getting my soldering all hot and bothered ... which is a terrible, terrible pun. I've used pure nickel strings to solve this.

              However for basses flat wounds or similar.

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              • #8
                Re: Pot value change, tone or volume?

                Perhaps you tried this already, but I suggest to do as much as you can with the pickup height. If you want a heavier tone you can raise the bass side of the bridge pickup slightly, and perhaps also slightly raise the screw on the A and D poles on the humbucker.

                On a single volume guitar, swapping the volume pot cause a problem because it will can make the neck pickup sound like mud. I would normally buy some fixed resistors from an electronics shop (1W metal film) in 510k, 750k, and 1M values. Then solder the resistor from the pickup hot wire at the selector switch to ground. That way it only affects the pickup when it is selected as the resistor is wired in parallel.

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