Strat & JB Mini Tone Pot - 250 or 500?

[Andy M]

Fender Strat with a JB Mini in the bridge. Was fitted with a 500k push-pull tone pot to give coil tap, but I want to replace it with a normal pot - no coil tap. My local guitar store only has 250k pots in stock, both Fender and other brands. Should I wait until they get stock of 500k pots, or is it OK to use a 250k?

In case anyone asks... The push-pull pot has become unreliable, loose and inaccurate. Also I don't use the coil-tap position as it basically, well, to be polite, doesn't sound very good (sucks).

Any advice appreciated.

Cheers, Andy

 

[Andy M]

Re: Strat & JB Mini Tone Pot - 250 or 500?

Also, in case it's relevant, the middle & neck pups are Fender custom shop 54s. The first tone pot is 250k and operates on them both, so the second tone will be exclusive to the JB bridge.

I'm just wondering how it will affect the sound when I select bridge and middle position with this arrangement.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Strat & JB Mini Tone Pot - 250 or 500?

if you change the 500k to a 250k youll lose a little bit of high end

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Strat & JB Mini Tone Pot - 250 or 500?

The 250k tone pot will work fine. If you need more treble, you can turn it into a no load tone pot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN3SlH-cEAg

 

[Andy M]

Re: Strat & JB Mini Tone Pot - 250 or 500?

Thanks for the replies guys.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Strat & JB Mini Tone Pot - 250 or 500?

The wiring diagrams all show 250k tone pots, as they are supposed to drop right in a normal Strat. However, instead of splitting the JB Jr, you might try it in parallel before you get rid of the push/pull...you may like the sound better. I think the smaller humbuckers sound better in parallel than split.

 

[Andy M]

Re: Strat & JB Mini Tone Pot - 250 or 500?

That sounds like a good idea Dave. Would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of a wiring digram for that? Presumably you mean middle and bridge in parallel. I know how to do the normal Strat wiring, but I've never tried parallel before.