Strat sized humbuckers, made for 250k or 500k pots?

Xeromus

Tone Ninja
Here's another question. Again it's in the title. I like my humbuckers wide open with a 500k. but I also like to split them. how will these strat sized buckers sound with 500k, and when they are split will they be too bright? meh meehh mmeeeehh?
 
Re: Strat sized humbuckers, made for 250k or 500k pots?

I like 500K with the Hot Rails and JB JR....but I'm sure they was intended to be used with the stock 250K pots in most all Strats. I think both the Hot Rails bridge model and JB JR. bridge model needs a little brighter tone (which is why I used a JB JR neck model as a bridge pickup when I used one for all those years) so these days if I'm wiring a guitar for three mini humbuckers I use 500K pots or if I'm putting one in a guitar with vintage type Strat single coils, I'll at the very least use a No Load 250K tone pot or connect the tone pot after the volume control (the 50's mod) to retain as much highs as I can. Lew
 
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Re: Strat sized humbuckers, made for 250k or 500k pots?

im not sure what the hard and fast rule is, but in general i like 250k with most lil buckers, the really hot ones (fast track 2, hot rails ect..) i like with the 500k, this is all just my preferance. i dont really like the sound of a lil bucker split by itself, in pos 4 on a strat its fine but by itself i think they sound too thin, a 500k is only gonna make that worse.
what setup are we talking about here?
 
Re: Strat sized humbuckers, made for 250k or 500k pots?

Well here's the dilemma, I really like s-s-h guitars, and I have two. I'm about to swap pickups. One of my favorite combos is cool rails, cool rails, and a full size distortion or jb bridge then I wire a switch to split them. position 2 and 4 I use mostly for funk and similar stuff. I've used the cool rails and lil 59 in an Ibanez S series with 500k pots and liked the result, but it was also a mahogany guitar. One of mine is basswood and the other swamp ash body. It's hard because I like buckers with 500k and use 250k with singles, so what do I do in a guitar that has both? It's like you have to sacrifice something which I'm not too pleased about, either restrict that bridge humbucker or rish the singles being too bright.
 
Re: Strat sized humbuckers, made for 250k or 500k pots?

I'd go with 500K fro all of the pots in your guitar. I had a JB Trembucker and pair of overwound Fralin Blues Special neck and middle pickups in my Strat. The Blues Specials when overwound are a little smooth and start to lose some of that glassy bubbley Strat tone...the 500K pots woke them right up again and made them sound more glassy and more like a vintage Strat single coil. Lew
 
Re: Strat sized humbuckers, made for 250k or 500k pots?

I'd go with 500K for all of the pots in your guitar. I had a JB Trembucker and pair of overwound Fralin Blues Special neck and middle pickups in my Strat. The Blues Specials when overwound are a little smooth and start to lose some of that glassy bubbley Strat tone...the 500K pots woke them right up again and made them sound more glassy and more like a vintage Strat single coil. Lew
 
Re: Strat sized humbuckers, made for 250k or 500k pots?

There should be a way to add a resistor (say 250K) in parallel with the 500K volume pot for those pickups that you want to drop down to a 250K load. My Fender HS Tele has 500K pots with a parallel resistor to drop the load for the single coil only.
 
Re: Strat sized humbuckers, made for 250k or 500k pots?

i'm odd lol all my strat size hum guitars (strat and tele's) have 500K volume pots and 250K tone pots....why, i don't know lol but it just works well for me for some reason. either way i say use 500K vol. pots on the strat size hums.

-Mike
 
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