Do 250K Pots Clean up better?

[vanlandau]

Silly question, I have a fuzz with a load control for input impedance, and when i turn the control down it cleans up quicker a bit like a fuzz face or classic treble booster circuit, i wondered if you used 250k volume pots instead of 500k does this help also?

For humbuckers

 

[AlexR]

Re: Do 250K Pots Clean up better?

Hmmm. Tricky question.

On the face of it, no. But that assumes completely identical taper - and I don't think thats the case. Also, the different value pot will make the pickup respond differently, which may or may not affect the way the signal hits the fuzz/boost.

The third part is that as you turn down, I think there is a bit of resistance track in the pot that the signal going to the output goes through too. So this value could well also have an effect.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Do 250K Pots Clean up better?

Hard to answer because in the real world, most of the time you have a 500K pot, its on a pickup that's higher in output and that has a different inherent e.q. than the pickups that usually come with 250K pots. So you can't just pick up a Strat and then a Les Paul and then make a meaningful judgment of what 250K and 500K respond like across the board.

Theoretically, with the same exact taper, and all other things being equal, a 500K pot should clean up more noticeably than a 250K, because at 10, the 500K will be causing the pickup to output a slightly fuller and hotter tone. Therefore your starting point at 10 is brighter and hotter than with the 250K. When you have more to lose, you notice the loss more.

That being said, you probably won't feel or hear much difference in how fast they clean up in the real world. The main difference you'll hear will be with the pots on 10.

 

[Teleplayer]

Re: Do 250K Pots Clean up better?

When you switch the load control on the fuzz, its probably reducing the brightness and output of your signal. That type of effect is similar to rolling off the tone control. So the answer to your question is a Yes, maybe, or possibly no. To clarify, I think there would be no additional effect than what you can already do with 500k volume and tone controls.

 

[VinceT]

Re: Do 250K Pots Clean up better?

As an aside, fuzz tends to play nicer with single coils than humbuckers in terms of cleaning up when the guitar is turned down. To my ears, that’s something to do with bass content of the signal - for example, when I use the bass contour on my Reverend to roll off the bass, my fuzzes (Fuzzface, Big Muff, Tone Bender circuits) will generally clean up as if I were rolling off volume.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Jacew]

Re: Do 250K Pots Clean up better?

Hard to answer because in the real world, most of the time you have a 500K pot, its on a pickup that's higher in output and that has a different inherent e.q. than the pickups that usually come with 250K pots. So you can't just pick up a Strat and then a Les Paul and then make a meaningful judgment of what 250K and 500K respond like across the board.

Theoretically, with the same exact taper, and all other things being equal, a 500K pot should clean up more noticeably than a 250K, because at 10, the 500K will be causing the pickup to output a slightly fuller and hotter tone. Therefore your starting point at 10 is brighter and hotter than with the 250K. When you have more to lose, you notice the loss more.

That being said, you probably won't feel or hear much difference in how fast they clean up in the real world. The main difference you'll hear will be with the pots on 10.

I think you're on the right track. There's too many variables to say sure about it, but I suspect most of the time 500k does clean up better. If not for any other reason, because brighter tones tend to sound "cleaner" even if they really aren't.

 

[Artie]

Re: Do 250K Pots Clean up better?

When you switch the load control on the fuzz, its probably reducing the brightness and output of your signal. That type of effect is similar to rolling off the tone control.

I was thinking along these lines too. Fuzz and distortion clip the signal, creating a quasi-square wave. This generates its own high frequency harmonics. By rolling back the guitars highs, you let the clipping provide the high frequency content. To me, it's just a cleaner, smoother fuzz tone. Kinda like the "woman" tone.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Do 250K Pots Clean up better?

When you switch the load control on the fuzz, its probably reducing the brightness and output of your signal. That type of effect is similar to rolling off the tone control. So the answer to your question is a Yes, maybe, or possibly no. To clarify, I think there would be no additional effect than what you can already do with 500k volume and tone controls.

It’s probably adjusting the input impedance. Fuzzes and overdrives that clean up well (I mean really well, not like a Tube Screamer) have an unusually low input impedance. This allows the output impedance of the pickups to couple with the input of the pedal. A pedals that do this that I’m aware of are the Fulltone ‘69 and the Mad Professor Sky Blue.

It’s a great question, if a different pot would affect this. It seems like it would have some effect, I wonder if lower or higher would be more effective.