Hi there! I have a Strat with Little '59s in the bridge and neck positions, and an RWRP APS-1 in the middle. I left the 250k pots in place. Any thoughts on whether I ought to change to 500k? They sound reasonable to my ear, as they sit, just looking for opinions. Thanks!
Little '59 Volume Pot Value
- Thread starter magillver
- Start date
To my ears, the Little 59 doesn't sound as bright as its big brother even with 500k pots. 250k pots would make it lose a lot of the highs which it is already pretty weak on. I personally wouldn't consider running the Little 59 on anything less than 500k pots. But if it sounds good to YOU, then that's all that matters.
Teleplayer
Active member
I would change the tone pot to 500k. IMO, that is enough to open up the voicing of the lil 59. The 500k pot allows the flexibility to wind the tone back somewhere around 7, 8, 9 tenths to find the sweet-spot.
My feeling is that you can always roll off the tone if things are too bright with a 500k pot. But you can never make it sound brighter if you only have 250k pots. Most every humbucker (especially the "little" versions) can benefit from using 500k pots.
But it doesn't matter what I or anyone else likes. You say that the 250k pots in your guitar sound good to you. That's all that matters. There are no "rules". Everything we do (changing pups, magnets, pole pieces, wiring, etc.) is to find what sounds good to each of us not to follow any rules.
But it doesn't matter what I or anyone else likes. You say that the 250k pots in your guitar sound good to you. That's all that matters. There are no "rules". Everything we do (changing pups, magnets, pole pieces, wiring, etc.) is to find what sounds good to each of us not to follow any rules.
SweetClyde99
Active member
I found the Lil 59 a bit dark with 250K pots. It was much more balanced with 500K in the guitar I had it in.
GuitarStv
Sock Market Trader
I used to think that too . . . but then tried playing underwound (5.6k) single coils with 500k pots. There's not enough rolling off in the universe to make that a palatable sound.
I used to think that too . . . but then tried playing underwound (5.6k) single coils with 500k pots. There's not enough rolling off in the universe to make that a palatable sound.
What??!!!
All of the tone pots I have ever used in the past 60 years have enough roll off to make any pup sound like it's got 3" of insulation and a thick wet blanket over it. And with at least a .047uf cap it sounds like 6" of insulation.
All of my amps also have tone controls to add to that.
GuitarStv
Sock Market Trader
The pickups in this particular setup could definitely get muffled. Issue was that there was no happy in-between zone that I could find while playing. I use my tone and volume knobs a lot in a given night and it was all like - too bright - too muffled - way too muffled - too bright again - too muffled. Even when the treble was reduced, there was something really strange sounding in the mid-range that you couldn't get rid of with the tone pot. There just wasn't any happy middle ground on the pot that I could find where it was 'just right'. Treble bleed probably wasn't helping things either.
In general I'm not a fan of radically re-eqing an amp to suit a guitar. All of my guitars sound different (strat is bright, 335 is darker, etc) but they're all set up (via pickup swaps and wiring) to work well with pretty similar settings on my amp. With the 500k pots and those low output singles I was having to turn treble and presence off and the mids and bass way, way up. And although that was closer to fixing the brightness issue the amp overall then started sounding weird.
dystrust
Well-known member
Same here, at least with my primary amp. I try to balance the pickup sets in the guitars I play through that amp so that they all sound good without needing to touch the amp's EQ. For the amps I only pull out occasionally, it doesn't bother me to re-EQ for the guitar I happen to be playing at the time.
Clint 55
OH THE DOUBLE THICK GLAZE!
I 2nd the whatever sounds good to you. Fwiw, I've tried every value volume pot with little humbuckers and they all seem usable. 250k rolls off some high but not too much. They have enough midrange crunch to sound good with that value. To my ears 500k sounds the most balanced. While I also liked 1 meg because they're kind of compressed and don't have too much excess treble if you let it all thru with 1 meg.
That also happened to me. It was ssl1s with a 1 meg volume. It went from clank with the tone on high to muffled with the tone on low. Pretty funny.
I used to think that too . . . but then tried playing underwound (5.6k) single coils with 500k pots. There's not enough rolling off in the universe to make that a palatable sound.
That also happened to me. It was ssl1s with a 1 meg volume. It went from clank with the tone on high to muffled with the tone on low. Pretty funny.
The pickups in this particular setup could definitely get muffled. Issue was that there was no happy in-between zone that I could find while playing. I use my tone and volume knobs a lot in a given night and it was all like - too bright - too muffled - way too muffled - too bright again - too muffled. Even when the treble was reduced, there was something really strange sounding in the mid-range that you couldn't get rid of with the tone pot. There just wasn't any happy middle ground on the pot that I could find where it was 'just right'. Treble bleed probably wasn't helping things either.
In general I'm not a fan of radically re-eqing an amp to suit a guitar. All of my guitars sound different (strat is bright, 335 is darker, etc) but they're all set up (via pickup swaps and wiring) to work well with pretty similar settings on my amp. With the 500k pots and those low output singles I was having to turn treble and presence off and the mids and bass way, way up. And although that was closer to fixing the brightness issue the amp overall then started sounding weird.
Sounds like you were using the wrong cap value. What you described sounds like a .047uf cap (which is usually the recommended cap with singles). I have also experienced what you described when I have used a .047uf. I have never had that issue when I started using .015uf or even .010uf caps (yes, even on singles). Those will remove the highs without removing much of the mids, leaving you with an un-piercing yet clear tone...not that muffled tone that you described, which is typical with .047uf caps.
The Little 59, even though it's a single coil sized pup, should never be used with a .0470uf cap! It will definitely sound muffled/muddy. Even a .033uf is too much. I wouldn't even try a .022uf with it. That pup should be used with a .015uf or .010uf cap.
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GuitarStv
Sock Market Trader
This was in a strat with a .015uf cap on the bridge and mid and .022 in the neck. I never user .047s they're much too muddy at the bottom of the range for me.
Maybe .010 in both positions would have helped . . . but switching the pots to 250k fixed all the weird issues that were happening and made everything more usable right away.
dystrust
Well-known member
+1
I find .047 to be too much rolloff regardless of the pickup or pots in question. In most guitars I start off with a .022, except that I don't go larger than .015 for a neck position humbucker. On guitars with a master tone control, I typically start with .022 but will go smaller if that's too much rolloff.
