Should I pair a no-load tone pot with 500k, 1 meg or 2 meg volume pot?

[P-Ride]

Hey, I'm about to order a no-load tone pot for my PRS SE Custom 24, along with a push/push pot for volume, for splitting coils.

The push/push pots seem to come exclusively in 250k and 500k variants.

Should I be considering a 1 meg or even 2 meg volume pot to pair with my no-load tone pot?

Thanks

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Should I pair a no-load tone pot with 500k, 1 meg or 2 meg volume pot?

You should be fine with a 500k volume pot. I have 1 meg pots in the strat in my pic and I don't really notice that much of a broader range of frequencies compared to the 500k. There could be a slight difference. Not as noticeable compared to the jump from 250k to 500k. Of course if you want to be sure that the full range of harmonics gets thru, you could always go for a 1 meg pot and then use a separate switch to split the humbucker. I would recommend an audio taper pot because I have liner taper and rolling the volume back from 10 to only 7 or 8 darkens it a ton.

 

[Artie]

Re: Should I pair a no-load tone pot with 500k, 1 meg or 2 meg volume pot?

Should I be considering a 1 meg or even 2 meg volume pot to pair with my no-load tone pot?

Don't do a 1 meg pot or a 2 meg pot. Also, don't do a no-load tone control. You're chasing vapors.

None of those things will make a sonic difference.

IMHO.

Artie

 

[thanaton]

Re: Should I pair a no-load tone pot with 500k, 1 meg or 2 meg volume pot?

Hey, I'm about to order a no-load tone pot for my PRS SE Custom 24, along with a push/push pot for volume, for splitting coils.

The push/push pots seem to come exclusively in 250k and 500k variants.

Should I be considering a 1 meg or even 2 meg volume pot to pair with my no-load tone pot?

Thanks

The point of a no load pot is to get a higher Q factor via less parallel resistance across the pickup. If you have a 500k volume and 500k tone per usual, the total parallel load is 250k, because parallel resistance divides. The no load tone would therefore leave a total of 500k parallel resistance, twice the resistance that is normal, for a higher Q and a brighter tone. A 250k pot would set you back to where you were without the no load pot. A 1 meg pot would just be rather extreme combined with a no load pot.

I'm not fan of no load pots, because they don't transition at all from "load" to "no load". For most pickups on the market, a 1 meg pot is nearly "no load" by itself, because it's such a high resistance relative to the pickup. I'd recommend leaving one stock 500k volume pot, and installing a 1 meg tone pot in order to get a brighter sound while retaining a smooth tone control.