Pots for SMB-4A Humbucker Pickup

T

TB2Me

New member
Hello, I'm interested in the SMB-4A humbucker pickup (Music Man) and was looking at the wiring schematic shown on the SD web site. It show the use of 250K pots and .047 cap value. Don't humbucker pickups usually have 500K and .022 value caps? Thanks for any explanation.
 
welcome to the forum!

for bass, i usually use 250k pots. there is no reason you cant use 500k but most bassists dont need a brighter tone from the instrument. thats a great pup by the way. when i was making basses, i used to use that pup with a series/split/parallel switch
 
Stingray pickups are in parallel and not series. That means they are bright and relatively low resistance. So a lower value pot keeps them from sounding too bright. The pickups provide the tone but the preamp delivers the output. Instead of a series humbucker which provides the tone and output.
 
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Hello, what about using a .022 cap value on a 250k pot instead of a .047 value (wrt SMB-4A)? Im new to understanding guitar wiring and find all of it nteresting. Thanks for providing any insight.
 
the cap value changes the frequencies that are rolled off. a .047 will roll off more than a .022. im going to make up these numbers to but to clarify what i mean, .047 will roll off starting at 1.5k and .022 will start rolling off at 2.5k. again, those are not the actual knee frequencies (cant remember the actual values off the top of my head) but hopefully it demonstrates what im talking about

and while this is a humbucker, its also a bass. the 500k rule is really for guitars
 
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