1 Meg Pots: Noisy?

[Silence Kid]

I never noticed it... But damn are 1 meg pots noisy with singles. I don't play my Jaguar very often in my home, but I took it out the other day. My wiring or something introduces a lot of noise lately, and the difference in noise is pronounced between the "rhythm" circuit which uses fifty-k volume and the 1 meg "lead" circuit. I explored for ground issues to be sure, but I have ground continuity to all million metal parts of the guitar, pickup claws, strings, etc.

I have two other guitars with 1-meg (a standard wired Jazzmaster and an HS config.) and to my alarm, in the context of the wiring of my house, they are both incredibly noisy... Until you switch to the lower value pot "rhythm" circuit or use the humbuckers.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: 1 Meg Pots: Noisy?

So I have my main ax plugged into my practice amp. HS Strat with Distortion and Cool Rails. I have the clean channel dimed. There's no noise even though I have a 500k volume with no tone pot. I then roll off the spin a split on each pickup... no noise. When I use the gain channel, a little bit of buzz comes in as would be expected. The same amount for humbucker as split. You should be able to get your guitars quiet for low to medium volume clean playing regardless of the setup. The main things are having ground wires soldered to all your electronics including the switch and a ground wire attached to your bridge. Bonuses are: solder the dam ground wire to the bridge, run another ground wire into the body, and shield.

 

[Securb]

Re: 1 Meg Pots: Noisy?

I have 1 Megs in my Iceman with the Dimebucker/Jazz combo. It is a super quiet guitar even when the coils are split. I can split both and knock it out of phase and still quiet as a church mouse.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: 1 Meg Pots: Noisy?

Sounds like those guitars have humbuckers; on my Jazzmaster with the humbucker there's really zero noise. The sixty cycle hum kicks in BIG time when you switch to the neck pickup with 1 meg pots, and goes down a lot when you switch to the 50 meg. tone control in the rhythm circuit. Predictably, rolling back the tone decreases noise.

I agree good shielding will eliminate most of the noise even in a single coil guitar, but relative to the 50k vs. 1 meg pots selectable in a Jaguar or Jazzmaster you can tell there's a lot less noise. As for grounding on my Jaguar, it has a ground wire soldered to the bridge, which is soldered to just about every metal part on the guitar, including brass shielding plates in the cavities and the thick metal switch plates etc. so in theory it's pretty well shielded.

 

[Joey Voltage]

Re: 1 Meg Pots: Noisy?

So, here's the thing, any resistive element will be susceptible and do have inherent tendencies towards noise production of their own. Resistor noise typically falls into three categories, thermal, shot, and contact noise. In a guitar you are not really going to have too many of these factors to worry about, as temperature is ambient, there's next to no current flowing through the resistor (pot), and bandwidth isn't rediculously high, however that said, the input terminals of amplifying devices, such as the grid electrode of a triode are super sensitive to noise pickup, especially since they typically exhibit a very high impedance, with out getting too deep into it, the larger resistance of the volume pot can exacerbate any noise pickup coming in via the cable, atmosphere, you name it, and the amplifier does what it does best, and amplifies it.

Of course this doesn't mean that this is your problem, but it is certainly a possibility. Do you have access to a buffer or something that could drive your cable at a low impedance?

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: 1 Meg Pots: Noisy?

Of course this doesn't mean that this is your problem, but it is certainly a possibility. Do you have access to a buffer or something that could drive your cable at a low impedance?

Funny that you mention that; there's more noise plugging the guitars straight into my Champ, than through my pedalboard.

 

[Mincer]

Re: 1 Meg Pots: Noisy?

Well, I think a pot with a high value would naturally let in more highs (especially as a tone pot), so any present noise at that frequency would be louder.

 

[Joey Voltage]

Re: 1 Meg Pots: Noisy?

Well, I think a pot with a high value would naturally let in more highs (especially as a tone pot), so any present noise at that frequency would be louder.

It doesn't let in more highs more than it makes the resonance peak more pronounced giving a stronger spikier sound at that frequency. As a tone pot, the higher value mostly prevents extra loading on the volume pot.

 

[Mincer]

Re: 1 Meg Pots: Noisy?

Right, but what I hear is a 'clearer' sound. Which isn't always great. If there is noise at that frequency, we hear it as 'louder'.