Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

[75lespaul]

Sorry for the long post, but I'm all fired up.

Don't know if it's the guitars or the amps I'm using, but I went to Radio Shack and got me some 470K resistors and soldered them to the volume pots on my 75Les Paul and the new 81 Les Paul and DAAAAMMM do they sound better. First the 75; always been a bright guitar for the bridge pickup. I swapped out all the original electronics for brand new CTS 500k pots and .022 Orange Drops, A2P neck and Custom Custom bridge--both Custom Shop pickups with two rows of screws (Thanks JohnJohn)--but the guitar was still a bit bright. Enter Blueman335. I have been reading for YEARS about he always uses 250K pots in everything, but I feared change. I was a sheeple. The big machine said 500K in a Les Paul, and I shuddered to change. I even called three Guitar Centers to see if they had long shaft 250K push/pull pots and ALL THREE said "don't you mean 500K" when I said they were for a Les Paul.

Okay, here I come Radio Shack! I put the resistors in this morning and it just seems like there's more to it than a pot that has the tone turned down a bit. The guitar seems warmer and that bright top end is gone. It also has a fullness that I've never heard before. I was jamming on "Hot Blooded" from Foreigner, and my seven year old daughter who was home sick today even commented on how the guitar didn't "hurt her ears" anymore (let fly with the jokes, I can take it, lol).

Next came the 81. Jazz neck (Duncan Designed, best designed pickup in my opinion--can't hear the difference from the original like the other models), and Brobucker bridge. Again, just a little bit of a bright top end, so I swapped a UOA5 into the Brobucker and an A2 in the Jazz. Okay, so after breaking a few wires inside the Jazz somehow, ha ha, I fixed it, installed it, and soldered the resistors to the volume pots. Again---magic. The brightness at the top is now gone, and the neck pickup which was really bright, is now warm, full, and soooooo creamy with overdrive and distortion. The guitar doesn't sound quite as full as the 75, but the Brobucker sounds like it was made to be in this guitar. I may put the original magnet back in to see how it sounds with the 250K pot, but I think the UOA5 will stay. By the way, the guitar came with a mini toggle that was used to split the pickups, but I put in the push/pull tones for that and I wired the switch up for phase. Wow...what a guitar now, lol...WOW!

Good stuff. The other guitars with 500K pots that I'm keeping sound great as they are, so I won't be changing them, but if I can't sell the Purple Turser (which I'm hoping I can't, ha ha) I'll do the whole push pull tone and 250K volumes on that with a phase switch. I'm doing that now with the Chinese Gibson fake SG. I'd love to do it to the 75 with a push/pull volume for phase (don't wanna drill a hole for a mini switch in that guitar) but the pickups are single conductor.


T H A N K.....Y O U.....B L U E M A N 3 3 5 ! ! !

 

[blueman335]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

Thank you. I know that 250K's pots/470K resistors aren't for everyone, but if you like a warm, full-bodied bridge, you owe it to yourself to try them. I could never see the point in putting 500K's on bridge PU's, and then dialing down the tone pot to get rid of the excess treble. Why not just eliminate the excess treble up front? I've never had the treble on an amp set to '10', so there's always more there if I need it. And with a warm bridge, I add more treble at the amp, which benefits the neck PU.

To me, the old addage '250K's for singles and 500K's for HB's' is oversimplification. What's more important is the PU position, not the PU type. The neck slot is dark and bassy, the bridge is bright and sharp. If you put the same value pot on both PU's, you're moving both of their EQ's in the same direction. Do you really want to do that? Personally, I don't want a bright bridge or a dark neck. Neither is particularly desirable to me. So that means moving them in opposite directions so that their EQ's become closer together. Then it's easy getting one amp EQ setting that works equally well for both PU's. I've seen a lot of bands live, and with many guitarists, one PU is dialed in, and the other is way off: nice bridge and a muffled neck, or nice neck and a shrill bridge. They usually end up using only one PU all night. I put two high-quality PU's in my guitars;, I want to use both, a lot.

For my style, heavy British blues, midrange is crucial for sustain when bending, along with just enough treble for bite and crunch. Too much treble and it overpowers the mids; my sound is thin and my sustain is gone. Plus high frequencies disperse quickly in a live situation; what projects better in all directions is mids and lows. I'm the first to admit that my style and my approach isn't for everyone. But, if you have 500K's all the way around and aren't satisfied, think about your options. Maybe it's a warmer mag, maybe a warmer pot or resistor. Maybe a warmer mag and pot. Maybe you're like me, and prefer your PU's to be balanced with both tone pots on '10.' The important thing is what sounds best to you, forget the 'rules.' The better you like your tones, the better you play.

 

[75lespaul]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

And the last line sums it up FTW.

 

[guitarkid]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

Awesome!! I might have to give that a try.

 

[kevlar3000]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

Love me some 250k pots...

 

[rjudo]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

The important thing is what sounds best to you, forget the 'rules.' The better you like your tones, the better you play.

That really is it, right there.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

That is great for you, but man, that goes to show how subjective it all is! I don't know how you can stand them. I think carved-top Pauls (with the exception of chambered ones) really need 1M pots to pull the wet blanket off of the high end when using 500K pots.

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

I could never see the point in putting 500K's on bridge PU's, and then dialing down the tone pot to get rid of the excess treble. Why not just eliminate the excess treble up front? I've never had the treble on an amp set to '10', so there's always more there if I need it.

I'll have a go at that one. I simply like having the treble rolled off, and then being able to bring it back...sometimes I want to be sharp, and cut like a knife. I only do it about 5% of the time, but if I go to ten on the dial, and then it's warm and full, but not sharp, I can't achieve that same feeling.

I EQ for the neck, and then deal with the tone pot on the bridge. Again, what works for some will gum the works for others.

 

[vegetablejoe]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

May I know to which of the three lugs of the tone pots the resistors are soldered to?

(I assume it's for the tone pot.) I'd like to try that on my LP's Pearly Gates bridge which I frequently have rolled off to "3" ... also on my Epi Dot's GFS Mean 90's which have lots of treble but not enough grunt.

Thanks!

edit: Oops I went back and re-read, and OP said he used the resistors on the vol. pots. My apologies...

 

[75lespaul]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

May I know to which of the three lugs of the tone pots the resistors are soldered to?

(I assume it's for the tone pot.) I'd like to try that on my LP's Pearly Gates bridge which I frequently have rolled off to "3" ... also on my Epi Dot's GFS Mean 90's which have lots of treble but not enough grunt.

Thanks!

edit: Oops I went back and re-read, and OP said he used the resistors on the vol. pots. My apologies...

Hi vegetablejoe,

You can use them on the volume pots and the tone pots. I did the volume alone as this got me where I wanted to go, but I was ready to do the tones as well. You solder to the two outside lugs and leave the middle alone, so it's hot and ground.

 

[vegetablejoe]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

Thank you, sir!

 

[lex666]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

Glad you like it.

One of my Les Pauls came with BB Pro's with 250k pots. I think its sucking my tone. The BB Pro's should sound so much hotter. The 250k pots will be the first thing to go.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

That is great for you, but man, that goes to show how subjective it all is! I don't know how you can stand them. I think carved-top Pauls (with the exception of chambered ones) really need 1M pots to pull the wet blanket off of the high end when using 500K pots.

Maybe my ears are treble-sensitive, but I just can't handle a bunch of treble. Just too harsh and piercing for me. The audio equivalent of bright lights in the face. I love a bridge tone that's full and heavy on mids, so it hits like a hammer. Powerful. Obviously much of the world enjoys the sound of 'carved top LP's' with HB's that are found on so many recordings, so maybe your issue could be ear wax build up. :14:

A couple things I do which offset it a bit: I use 9's for strings, which are not as warm as the thicker gauges that some of you guys use. I also use a fairly thin pick (.88) that has sharp beveled edges, and that gives me some extra treble and bite. I use the long edge of the pick, not the tip. If I was using thick strings and regular plain picks, 250K's might be a little dark for me too. It all depends on lining up the variables, which include your amp and how you set it, and your playing style. For the way I do things, 250K's work great on the bridge, as do 500K's on the neck. They allow me to turn up the treble on my amp, so I can use the neck PU regularly (which I never did before). I EQ for the bridge PU, and that always gives me enough treble for the neck. Everybody's got to choose a method for themselves.

Rather than make sweeping generalizations like 'all HB's should have 500K's', players should learn what pot values do, and pick the ones for each PU that accomplishes what they want. There is no right or wrong decision. What works for one guy may not for the next.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

There is no right or wrong decision. What works for one guy may not for the next.

this is the whole trick. listen to what people have to say, learn what you can, but use your own ears to make your decisions.


i dont like 250k with buckers in almost any guitar, but i certainly dont like 1M either.

 

[JordanM82]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

Hmmm, I might be willing to try this in one of my guitars...

 

[blueman335]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

I thought pauls came stock with 300k pots.

Gibson has used 300K's at times, and other times 500K. From my perspective neither is ideal; you get one PU moved in the right direction, while the other gets more of what it already has plenty of.

 

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

I still always prefer 500k with my humbuckers and 250k with my single coil stuff...I just won't use 1 meg unless it's for the G&L PTB system bass pot.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

me too john

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

I'm surprised to see so much love for this set up...

The point of using 500k's then rolling the tone back a bit is to yield a greater range of tones plus a pickup loads differently with a 500k than it does with a 250k pot and to me for 99.999% of pickups, guitars, amps and situations a humbucker with 250k pots just sounds and feels "wrong" to me.

This 300k business is the same to me...the first thing I do with newer Gibsons that have the 300k pots is to rip that junk out and go 500k...sure there is more top end but that's what tone controls are for and while we're at it it's a guitar after all...clarity and top end detail is a good thing...

 

[75lespaul]

Re: Blueman has converted me! I love the 250k volume pots on my Les Pauls.

I just went with what my ears told me on this one. I've got 500K pots in my other humbucker guitars and they sound great, but these two needed some taming. To me, it's a different sound than just rolling off the tone pot. I've done that and while it improved some, the resistor and magnet changes seemed to do the trick. I would say that maybe I'm hearing the mag swaps more than the pots, but I didn't change the magnets in the black Custom. I couldn't picture using a 1meg pot either, but if I had a really dark guitar, I'd give it a whirl. Worst that can happen is I put it back the way it was.