Finally Going to Try the JB/Jazz Combo with 250K’s

[heavydutysg135]

Finally Going to Try the JB/Jazz Combo with 250K’s

I just purchased a 4-conductor Jazz to replace the 59 in the neck of my ESP and am replacing all the 500K pots with 250K (audio for the volumes and linear for the tone). Now I just need to wait for the pots and capacitor to get here so that I can wire it all up and try it out. I have always used and been very happy with CTS pots, but this time I decided to go with the high end (and much more expensive) Bourns potentiometers just out of curiosity. Anyway, I am really excited to finally get to try out Seymour’s “go to” pickup setup and figure that if it’s good enough for him then it will be good enough for me. I know that it is somewhat unconventional to run 250K’s instead of 500K’s with humbuckers; however, I really think that this will be the ticket to taming some of the upper midrange spike that the JB can have that can sometimes be unpleasant to the ear and open the pickup up somewhat. At this point I like to get the tone from the pickups and the gain from a cranked Marshall, so I don’t think that I will miss the extra output (and resulting compression) too much. I play jazz, blues, and rock and mostly use just my guitar’s volume and tone controls (and sometimes a clean boost) to go from clean to full out rock (through Marshall JCM 800’s) so I am hoping that this setup can deliver the versatility that I need (not too mushy sounding when the volume is rolled back and enough balls when the output is cranked) When I get everything wired up I will report on my impressions of the differences; hopefully I will not be disappointed.

David

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Finally Going to Try the JB/Jazz Combo with 250K’s

Re: Finally Going to Try the JB/Jazz Combo with 250K’s

I just purchased a 4-conductor Jazz to replace the 59 in the neck of my ESP and am replacing all the 500K pots with 250K (audio for the volumes and linear for the tone). Now I just need to wait for the pots and capacitor to get here so that I can wire it all up and try it out. I have always used and been very happy with CTS pots, but this time I decided to go with the high end (and much more expensive) Bourns potentiometers just out of curiosity. Anyway, I am really excited to finally get to try out Seymour’s “go to” pickup setup and figure that if it’s good enough for him then it will be good enough for me. I know that it is somewhat unconventional to run 250K’s instead of 500K’s with humbuckers; however, I really think that this will be the ticket to taming some of the upper midrange spike that the JB can have that can sometimes be unpleasant to the ear and open the pickup up somewhat. At this point I like to get the tone from the pickups and the gain from a cranked Marshall, so I don’t think that I will miss the extra output (and resulting compression) too much. I play jazz, blues, and rock and mostly use just my guitar’s volume and tone controls (and sometimes a clean boost) to go from clean to full out rock (through Marshall JCM 800’s) so I am hoping that this setup can deliver the versatility that I need (not too mushy sounding when the volume is rolled back and enough balls when the output is cranked) When I get everything wired up I will report on my impressions of the differences; hopefully I will not be disappointed.

David

Not really unconventional, just different. As humbuckers get higher in DC resistance, they respond less (it seems) to pot value changes, although it will make a difference.

Mainly you'll see the resonant frequency spike less in amplitude, giving the aural perception that there's more warmth, or that the other frequencies are coming into play more.

I wish they still had the "Potentiometer Values" page on the SD website in the tech tips area....

 

[heavydutysg135]

Re: Finally Going to Try the JB/Jazz Combo with 250K’s

Re: Finally Going to Try the JB/Jazz Combo with 250K’s

As humbuckers get higher in DC resistance, they respond less (it seems) to pot value changes, although it will make a difference.

Well the JB definately has a high DC resistance at 16.4, but it seems that the Jazz neck is fairly low (or at least normal) at only 7.7. I am not at all worried about the JB in the bridge loosing some highs, but am just hoping that the neck does not get too muddy. I am sure that it will be fine but that is my concern.

Mainly you'll see the resonant frequency spike less in amplitude, giving the aural perception that there's more warmth, or that the other frequencies are coming into play more.

That's what I am hoping for! I feel that I can get somewhat of an idea of how it will sound by turning the volume and tone down a bit, and I really liked what I heard so it should be good.