Little tone control

[Skagit_Prince]

Hey all

I have an 04 MIM strat. Came with David Gilmore EMG's....not the sound I was looking for. I traded them off for want amounts to a Everything Axe set. The problem is that tone does a massive change from 0 to 1 then nothing after that on either knob. Emailed the gentleman who built the set and he told me to change from the .022 to .047. I did and it made it worse. I checked the schematic and the only things I see diffrent is that this has

1 500k pots instead of 250k
2 the jump wire to control tone on the bridge was added. I removed it and It made no differnce in the tone control
3 the duckbuker is wired green and bare to ground, white and red together, and black to the switch. Instead of green bare and white to ground, red and black to the switch.

Before I go crazy can someone please help me. I would like to have better control over the tone.

Thanks in advance
Richard

 

[skynyrd]

Re: Little tone control

I would check the pot out closely,, make sure the center lug is soldered back against the pot casing and the capacitor is running to the first leg and no conecction on the 3rd. Could also be a bad pot as well, just because a pot is new doesn`t mean it will work flawlessly. A friend of mine has the same issue with his Corbin LP, he is running .022 orange drop caps,, another thing is check the resistance on the pot with a multimeter and see how the resistance changes as you turn the pot down, might find a big jump around 2 down to 0.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Little tone control

if everything else is wired correctly its the taper of the pot that you dont like.

the duckbucker is wired in series rather than parallel which is fine and probably matched outputwise better.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Little tone control

Two possible issues with the pots.
1) The taper is linear rather than audio. (B500k versus A500k)
2) If the two tone pots share a single capacitor, the way that these are interconnected is crucial to correct operation.

A photograph of your electronics would help.

 

[Artie]

Re: Little tone control

Can you clarify: "Zero" on a tone control generally means all the way down. So, you have the highs rolled all the way off, and then when you turn the knob to one, all the brightness comes back all at once?

 

[Skagit_Prince]

Re: Little tone control

Can you clarify: "Zero" on a tone control generally means all the way down. So, you have the highs rolled all the way off, and then when you turn the knob to one, all the brightness comes back all at once?

Yep, that is what it does. On both pots

 

[Skagit_Prince]

Re: Little tone control

Two possible issues with the pots.
1) The taper is linear rather than audio. (B500k versus A500k)
2) If the two tone pots share a single capacitor, the way that these are interconnected is crucial to correct operation.

A photograph of your electronics would help.

Bingo!!!! They are both B500k's. Actually so is the volume pot, but it seems to work rather well.

So all I need to do is change the pots to A500K's? Or is there a wiring fix?

Thanks

 

[Artie]

Re: Little tone control

I don't think having a linear pot is your problem. I use them all the time. Especially if it happens 0-to-1. 10-to-8 maybe. It almost sounds like a previous owner made a no-load pot, but it did it backwards.

You really need to measure the ohms throughout the full sweep. Make sure it doesn't "open" at some point in the travel.

 

[Skagit_Prince]

Re: Little tone control

Two possible issues with the pots.
1) The taper is linear rather than audio. (B500k versus A500k)
2) If the two tone pots share a single capacitor, the way that these are interconnected is crucial to correct operation.

A photograph of your electronics would help.

icture:

View attachment 24953[/ATTACH]

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Little tone control

The cap is connected wrongly.

It is essential that a single, shared capacitor be connected in this order.
1) Grounded on the chassis of the middle pot
2) Soldered to the grounding lug of the centre pot. (You have this right.)
3) A bridging connection to the centre lug of lower pot.

 

[Skagit_Prince]

Re: Little tone control

Every thing is wired correctly per SD. There is no "taper" to speak of. 2 diffrent opinions on B500K or A500K. All the pots check out. And a partridge ina pear tree :naughty:
Gues I will go back to the origanal plan and just start swaping parts. Now I just need to find the parts.

Thanks for the effort everyone. If and when I find the answer I will post it

Skagit

 

[Skagit_Prince]

Re: Little tone control

Just pulled an A500K out of an old epi special layen around and put it in the strat. Yep......nice taper and full tone control. We have an answer.