tone pots
- Thread starter nepalnt21
- Start date
Artie
Peaveyologist
Re: tone pots
Think of the cap as a high-frequency "leak" to ground. The pot is a resistor. It "resists" the flow of the signal, (high-frequencies), to that leak. The more blockage, (resistance), the less highs leak out.
"Out" . . . in this case, meaning to ground. Not making it to the amp.
Think of the cap as a high-frequency "leak" to ground. The pot is a resistor. It "resists" the flow of the signal, (high-frequencies), to that leak. The more blockage, (resistance), the less highs leak out.
"Out" . . . in this case, meaning to ground. Not making it to the amp.
BlueGuitar
New member
Re: tone pots
As Ryan pointed out that applies to linear pots which generally aren't used in guitars. The taper of audio pots will vary (anywhere from 8% to 20%) but the typical replacement pot uses a 10% taper, which means that a 500k pot set to 5.5 will have a resistance to ground of approximately 50k.
Not picking nits as your answer to nepalnt21 was basically correct.
ArtieToo said:
As Ryan pointed out that applies to linear pots which generally aren't used in guitars. The taper of audio pots will vary (anywhere from 8% to 20%) but the typical replacement pot uses a 10% taper, which means that a 500k pot set to 5.5 will have a resistance to ground of approximately 50k.
Not picking nits as your answer to nepalnt21 was basically correct.
Artie
Peaveyologist
Re: tone pots
I confused the issue a bit by speaking in terms of the "knob", rather than the resistance. Steve and Ryan are correct about the linear pot not being at half resistance, while at "5".
So here's an easier way to think of it. Lets assume that the cap value stays constant for this example. The only thing we're going to change is the pot value, and lets use three popular values: 250k, 500k, and 1 meg. (1000k)
All of these pots will be identical when on "0". Linear or audio taper. :laugh2:
They will all sound identical - with quite a bit of the highs rolled off.
As we start to turn the tone knob "up", we will start to add in more highs.
Lets say we hit the 250k point. On the 250k pot - thats all folks. You can't go any higher, ie., you can't dial in any more highs. On the 500k pot, we can keep turning some more. We dial in more high end til we hit 500k. Now the 500k pot has hit its limit. With the 1 meg pot, we can continue dialing in some more.
Thats it in theory. From a practical standpoint, you hit some upper limit where you won't notice much return for dialing in more resistance. For many people, that practical limit is 500k. Thus, 250k and 500k tone pots are popular.
Hope that makes more sense.
I confused the issue a bit by speaking in terms of the "knob", rather than the resistance. Steve and Ryan are correct about the linear pot not being at half resistance, while at "5".
So here's an easier way to think of it. Lets assume that the cap value stays constant for this example. The only thing we're going to change is the pot value, and lets use three popular values: 250k, 500k, and 1 meg. (1000k)
All of these pots will be identical when on "0". Linear or audio taper. :laugh2:
They will all sound identical - with quite a bit of the highs rolled off.
As we start to turn the tone knob "up", we will start to add in more highs.
Lets say we hit the 250k point. On the 250k pot - thats all folks. You can't go any higher, ie., you can't dial in any more highs. On the 500k pot, we can keep turning some more. We dial in more high end til we hit 500k. Now the 500k pot has hit its limit. With the 1 meg pot, we can continue dialing in some more.
Thats it in theory. From a practical standpoint, you hit some upper limit where you won't notice much return for dialing in more resistance. For many people, that practical limit is 500k. Thus, 250k and 500k tone pots are popular.
Hope that makes more sense.
