Tone Pot Values

[The Usual]

I am having trouble with the search function today so I'll just ask.

I recently swapped my neck volume pot in my '86 SG from 250 to 500K and it really opened up the pup. I didn't unwire my tone pots, but they are measuring around the 100K mark. It's a pretty warm SG. What value of tone pots are recommended?

What is the impact of various tone pot values? More sweep? Do they actually do a lot? I remember some folks saying that they don't make much of a difference.

Also, is there any merit to just working with 1meg audio pots and just adding resistors to them to get them to where I want them?

 

[supernosher]

Re: Tone Pot Values

Woah there! Of course different values make a difference! No they don't change the sweep, each one turns the same amount.

What kind of tone are you going for in this SG?????

And, no adding resistors to a 1meg pot will not get you 500k or 250k. 1meg is the largest value you would use. If you bought a 250k and added a 750k resistor in series between the ground tab and the guitar's ground, then you would in essence have the sound of a 1meg tone pot, but the sweep would only go from 1meg to 750k, not 1meg to 0 ohms, like a real 1meg pot would sweep.

Also, you can get the sounds of a 500k pot from a 1meg pot set to the middle; Why no one does this is beyond me.

 

[The Usual]

Re: Tone Pot Values

I guess I don't really understand the whole pot thing. For some reason I thought that 2 1meg pots wired together would get you to 500k. I thought that there was a method where you could play with values using 2 pots, and once you find what you like, use resistors. I also thought that that method decreased the value of the resistors. I don't know why.

So what you are saying is the lower the resistance, the muddier the sound? That doesn't make sense to me, so I am missing something.

I am still wondering what the tonal difference is between a 250K tone pot and a 1 meg tone pot. Why do people change out tone pots? Does it open up the sound like changing a volume pot, or is the change somehow different?

 

[supernosher]

Re: Tone Pot Values

Yeah, see you've done a real-life experiment and can see for yourself what it does. Changing the tone pot will do the same thing as the volume pot did.

The reason a higher value (resistance) pot makes things louder and brighter is because the way guitar pickups are wired. The higher the value the pot, the further away the voltage generated by the pickups is away from ground. When everything goes to ground @ 0 ohms, you get no sound. @ the other end of the spectrum is loud.

 

[The Usual]

Re: Tone Pot Values

I am still lost, but I appreciate the effort. I haven't actually done the test yet, so I don't have experience with changing tone pot values, just volume. I guess I'll have to just give it a go. I have a 1 meg pot kicking around so I'll try that first. 100K to 1 meg ought to make the lesson pretty clear!

So there's no way to change a 1 meg pot using resistors to make it work from 0 - 500K?