Kosh Naranek
New member
Recently I got another guitar, a Hamer Centaura, with a factory stock JB bridge pickup that sounded fantastic. The only other guitar I'd heard that the JB sounded good in is my Washburn USA MG-something or other.
I have several other guitars that either came with JB's or that I'd tried JB's in. All sounded terrible. A gaping void where the lower mid chunk should be. Ear piercing high end. A nice sound when playing jangly strummed parts, but totally wrong for chunky power chord riffs. I had yanked the JB's out of all of them.
I wanted to see if the value of the potentiometers really made that much difference. I knew it did with single coils. I have a guitar with three singles that I'd wired a 500k ohm pot into and it sounded stiff and thin. I put in a 250 kohm pot and it came alive. It sounds full and punchy now.
So on my Hamer 25th Anniversary Artist, from which I removed the stock JB but I still had it in my parts drawer, I removed the stock 500k ohm volume pot and replaced that with a 250 k ohm pot. I didn't change the tone pot because that one is shared by both pickups. I soldered in the JB, and when I plugged it in, I got a whole different sound!
It was really close to the crunchy, singing tone I get from my other two guitars that have JB's. A little warmer and fuller in the bass due to the Artist's mahogany construction and short scale length.
I think the JB was originally designed with players in mind who were putting bridge humbuckers in their Strats, and it sounds best with a Strat's wiring - 250 k ohm pots. The Pearly Gates Plus is another one that I have tried in a guitar with 500 k ohm pots and it had that stiff, thin sound. Probably sounds great in a Strat though.
Quite a revelation for me. I had not dabbled much into how pot values affect the tone of a pickup. I just generally stuck to the 250 for singles, 500 for humbuckers, and 500 for H-S-S rule. And I usually just left the stock pots in my guitars and never touched them.
I have several other guitars that either came with JB's or that I'd tried JB's in. All sounded terrible. A gaping void where the lower mid chunk should be. Ear piercing high end. A nice sound when playing jangly strummed parts, but totally wrong for chunky power chord riffs. I had yanked the JB's out of all of them.
I wanted to see if the value of the potentiometers really made that much difference. I knew it did with single coils. I have a guitar with three singles that I'd wired a 500k ohm pot into and it sounded stiff and thin. I put in a 250 kohm pot and it came alive. It sounds full and punchy now.
So on my Hamer 25th Anniversary Artist, from which I removed the stock JB but I still had it in my parts drawer, I removed the stock 500k ohm volume pot and replaced that with a 250 k ohm pot. I didn't change the tone pot because that one is shared by both pickups. I soldered in the JB, and when I plugged it in, I got a whole different sound!
It was really close to the crunchy, singing tone I get from my other two guitars that have JB's. A little warmer and fuller in the bass due to the Artist's mahogany construction and short scale length.
I think the JB was originally designed with players in mind who were putting bridge humbuckers in their Strats, and it sounds best with a Strat's wiring - 250 k ohm pots. The Pearly Gates Plus is another one that I have tried in a guitar with 500 k ohm pots and it had that stiff, thin sound. Probably sounds great in a Strat though.
Quite a revelation for me. I had not dabbled much into how pot values affect the tone of a pickup. I just generally stuck to the 250 for singles, 500 for humbuckers, and 500 for H-S-S rule. And I usually just left the stock pots in my guitars and never touched them.
