Need an education on pots....

hareek

hareek

New member
Hey bros,

I'm a self admitted noob when it comes to pots and understanding how they work. To give a little background first, I have a '99 American Standard stratocaster and around '06, I replaced all of the stock single coil pickups with SD's. I have a Little '59 in the neck and bridge, and a duckbucker in the middle. That is all I've changed...everything else on the guitar is stock.

I've noticed on the neck '59, I have to pretty much turn the tone knob almost all the way to 10 just to get it to not sound so muddy. The bridge '59 sounds much better, although I am in the 6-9 range on that tone pot usually, but it still doesn't get as muddy as the neck.

My question is, should I have upgraded the pots from 250k to 500k, and if so which ones? I've tried doing some internet research and I think I basically understand that 500k has a greater "range of adjustment" than a 250k pot, but it seems that the volume pot plays a role in the sound as well, not just the tone? Is that correct?

Anyway I was hoping I could get a crash course in this area from you guys. I've tried playing around with the height of the pickups and pole pieces but that seems to have minimal effect on the muddy-ness of the humbuckers.

Thanks in advance!
 
Re: Need an education on pots....

Try various cap values on the neck tone pot. It's a cheap way to get some tonal differences. If that doesn't quite get you there, a 500k tone pot will help brighten it but it won't be a massive change like you may be expecting.
 
Re: Need an education on pots....

Jay 77 said:
Try various cap values on the neck tone pot. It's a cheap way to get some tonal differences. If that doesn't quite get you there, a 500k tone pot will help brighten it but it won't be a massive change like you may be expecting.
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Ok man you lost me at "various" haha! Are you saying I can adjust the range of the tone pot? Like whatever 10 is now, I can set that at a higher value, subsequently raising the value of all other positions respectively? Moving the range of 0-10 up the tone spectrum per se?
 
Re: Need an education on pots....

hareek said:
Ok man you lost me at "various" haha! Are you saying I can adjust the range of the tone pot? Like whatever 10 is now, I can set that at a higher value, subsequently raising the value of all other positions respectively? Moving the range of 0-10 up the tone spectrum per se?
Click to expand...

No, I mean try changing capacitors and their values. You'll usually see .022 on LP's and .047 on Strats. I believe the lower the value, the more treble that is allowed through. Hopefully some experts will chime in here.
 
Re: Need an education on pots....

Jay 77 said:
No, I mean try changing capacitors and their values. You'll usually see .022 on LP's and .047 on Strats. I believe the lower the value, the more treble that is allowed through. Hopefully some experts will chime in here.
Click to expand...

Oh gotcha. Yeah I'm looking at the wiring diagram now for my set up and I'm pretty sure this is matched exactly and it indicates the .047 capacitor. I'll double check it when I get home from work to be sure.
 
Re: Need an education on pots....

Well there's red brick, Maui waui, purple sticky......... Oh lol you ment guitars. All I really know is the higher the value the brighter sound
 
Re: Need an education on pots....

metalmachine said:
Well there's red brick, Maui waui, purple sticky......... Oh lol you ment guitars. All I really know is the higher the value the brighter sound
Click to expand...

I was wondering how long it would take for the ganja jokes after I submitted the thread and re-read the title haha!

But yeah I've been doing some more reading and it looks like the sound is brighter with the higher numbers as you said.

I don't know ever since graduating school in '07 I've found myself hardly playing, and before that when I did play I rarely used anything but the bridge pick-up so this has really become more of a recent thing I've paid attention to. I'll probably spend some time tweaking the amp settings and the pickup height before I start messing with re-wiring anything just to be sure.
 
Re: Need an education on pots....

I would think the little '59 would work well with a 500k pot since it is basically the '59 humbucker in a single-coil sized package.

Personally, I use a slightly higher than stock resistance potentiometer to help retain the high end.
 
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