Guitar wiring question: 1 meg volume pot into a 500K master volume pot?

FuelGTRX

FuelGTRX

Member
I can't seem to find any info on this, but I'm wondering how this will effect the tone. I'm working on a 2010 Fender 72' Telecaster Deluxe RI with 2 Fender WRHB pickups. Right now, I'm running it with a 500k volume and 500k tone on the bridge (50's wiring) and a 1 meg volume pot on the neck pickup (no tone control). I found the neck pickup to be too dark and bumping it up to a 1 meg volume pot with no tone did the trick. Anyway, I though about turning the disconnected 500K tone pot for the neck into a master volume. Mainly for controlling the overall output of both the pickups. What I'm worried is the 500K master volume rolling off the high end on the neck pickup. My question is, how will the 500K master volume pot affect the the tone of the neck pickup with the 1 meg pot?
 
Re: Guitar wiring question: 1 meg volume pot into a 500K master volume pot?

I have the master volume(neck&middle load), bridge volume & master tone( no load pot) in one strat. All 500k pots, modern wiring with hipass filter only on master volume. There is a point in the bridge pot volume rotation where I can hear a freq sweep happen, kinda like a wah pedal but not exactly. I never reach that point since I leave the bridge volume turned down little bit.

Not sure if that was helpful at all for ya lol But try the 50s wiring on master volume & modern wiring on bridge volume, you can covert the tone pot into a no load pot- look up for a instructions vid of it on YouTube. That should help in keeping the bridge from getting too bright & the no load tone at full rotation will be out of the circuit, so it won't contribute to the net load experienced by the pickups.

Edit: I found the master volume, bridge volume & master tone setup sounding much better than independent volume or independent tone controls when using the inbetween/shared positions.
 
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Re: Guitar wiring question: 1 meg volume pot into a 500K master volume pot?

I have one strat with 500k vol and 500k no load master tone.
Another with 500k vol and TBX which is 250k below detent and increases into 1 meg after detent - both work really well especially the tbx when I use single coils in series - essentially brightening a humbucker.


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Re: Guitar wiring question: 1 meg volume pot into a 500K master volume pot?

The 500K pot will act as a 500K resistor for the 1Meg pot (since a potentiometer is a variable resistor), putting you right back where you were, unless it's a no-load pot. In which case, as soon as you engage it, it puts the load on, beginning at a point below 500K, and your Neck pickup tone will drop somewhat sharply.

Given that a 1Meg pot is the same as running the pickup without a pot at all, you may consider a no-load 500K volume pot instead of the 1 Meg, or use the 1 Meg as the Master Volume.

However, you will get the same result: as soon as you take the neck volume off 10, you'll get a sharp drop below 500K which will be detectable.
 
Re: Guitar wiring question: 1 meg volume pot into a 500K master volume pot?

^Won't a no load volume pot cut the signal out when its turned down from 10?
 
Re: Guitar wiring question: 1 meg volume pot into a 500K master volume pot?

After reading up on it and getting advise from a few places, I've decided to use a 1meg pot for the master volume. I'll keep the neck volume 1meg and the bridge controls 500K. The 500K pots will continue to tame the brightness of the bridge while the 1meg master volume will allow the 1meg neck volume pot to brighten the neck pickup. I'll report the results.
 
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