tone shaping my JB

[Supernautilus]

A while ago I changed the volume pot for my JB to 250K, which smoothed the EQ curve a little and took a bite out of that obnoxious upper midrange spike. I definitely prefer it this way compared to 500k. The downside is a bit less bite. Which I kinda miss. And I’ve been thinking of ways to address this.

I ordered some 300K volume pots, which should be coming soon. I don’t know how much difference that will make, but I’m curious to see. I also ordered some no load tone pots, which I hope will let me claw back a little more top end. I considered a mag swap but I feel like anything else other than A5 would not be as chunky as I want it. This is my metal guitar after all.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on any of this?

 

[htrd]

No load tone pot will negate your previous volume pot change, bringing back both bite and hi mid spike.

Lower pot resistance is damping your resonance peak, making the pickups a bit quieter and darker, but the overall resistance is you volume pot in parallel with tone pot (and with parallel with your amp/pedal input impedance, but we will omit this for the sake of simplicity), so 500K||500K = 250K, same as 250K volume and no load tone pot.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Rough cast A5. If thats not enough try the 300k pots

 

[Aceman]

Perhaps the JB is the wrong pickup. Chunk and Bite for metal? A Custom would be my first call there.

Are you in a band or a bedroom? JB is notorious for not being popular outside of a band/mix.

As for the A2 - it's $1 to find out. I think it would preserve the chunk just fine. Can't say about the bite being enough. A JB2 fan will have to chime in with direct experience.

But - I applaud the lower cost efforts first.

 

[AdrianSD]

You can try hex head poles, Full Shred style, for the wounded strings, or an A8 magnet, or both. What about the amp, does it have presence knob?

 

[Edgecrusher]

Perhaps the JB is the wrong pickup. Chunk and Bite for metal? A Custom would be my first call there.

*Listens to Symphony of Destruction*

Seems to have plenty of metal chunk and bite.....

 

[freefrog]

A while ago I changed the volume pot for my JB to 250K, which smoothed the EQ curve a little and took a bite out of that obnoxious upper midrange spike. I definitely prefer it this way compared to 500k. The downside is a bit less bite. Which I kinda miss. And I’ve been thinking of ways to address this.

I ordered some 300K volume pots, which should be coming soon. I don’t know how much difference that will make, but I’m curious to see. I also ordered some no load tone pots, which I hope will let me claw back a little more top end. I considered a mag swap but I feel like anything else other than A5 would not be as chunky as I want it. This is my metal guitar after all.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on any of this?

If it was for me, I'd try something else than the usual variations on the overall resistive load. Examples:

*Various capacitive loads due to different lenghts and/or brands of cable. I use Sommer LLX (the lowest capacitance on the market AFAIK and not even expensive, at least here in Europe). See this chart, whose values are on par with lab measurements done here: http://www.shootoutguitarcables.com/guitar-cables-explained/capacitance-chart.html

NOTE - If you want more bite, lower capacitance can directly affect what is perceived as "compression". It's never told online but it's easy to check experimentally.

*Shorter screw poles are easy to mount and might please you.

*Varying the flux by swapping the magnet or "airing" the pickup might be interesting too, of course.

=Easiest solutions. Non limitative list.

Now do what you want and be happy.

 

[Aceman]

*Listens to Symphony of Destruction*

Seems to have plenty of metal chunk and bite.....

Yes, but based on what the OP wants and says...

JB worked, in THAT guitar, with THAT rig. In THAT song/band context. Not even gonna discuss overall production.

Obviously NOT working for this situation.

 

[Chistopher]

Pick closer to the bridge

 

[GuitarDoc]

You can try different pots, magnets, mod the pup, etc. But in the end it's still gonna be a JB. Been there, done that.

Get another pup that you will like.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Yes, but based on what the OP wants and says...

JB worked, in THAT guitar, with THAT rig. In THAT song/band context. Not even gonna discuss overall production.

Obviously NOT working for this situation.

Point is simple. JB is capable of tight crunchy metal given a suitable amp/pedal set up. I don't think its so obviously not working, He's fiddling with pot values and considering a mag swap. That's a far cry from obviously having a wrong pickup.

 

[Aceman]

Point is simple. JB is capable of tight crunchy metal given a suitable amp/pedal set up. I don't think its so obviously not working, He's fiddling with pot values and considering a mag swap. That's a far cry from obviously having a wrong pickup.

I agree, and for cheap easy to check.

But at some point, you have the wrong pickup. Based on what he wants - that's my opinion.

 

[Clint 55]

Point is simple. JB is capable of tight crunchy metal given a suitable amp/pedal set up. I don't think its so obviously not working, He's fiddling with pot values and considering a mag swap. That's a far cry from obviously having a wrong pickup.

I know, they're ridiculous sometimes.

Absolutely try swapping the pots. 300k volume with the no load on 10 is decently bright. If you cock the tone to 9 it knocks down the brightness a little. It should work.

I'm usually an advocate of mag swaps, but I agree that might not be what you want. They will all kind of change the character from an up front chunk. A4 and A6 knock down the treble and smooth it a little bit without fattening it too much, but they do change the overall character.

 

[RanchManSandy]

idk man I would probably just try a different pickup

what tolerances are these pots? Most are like 20%, so any rando 250k and 300k could easily overlap actual values

 

[Artie]

Keep in mind that "consumer" grade pots are typically +/- 20%. So your 250k could be anywhere from 200k to 300k. You should measure what you have, and what you receive, with a meter before making tonal judgements.

I've actually had a good CTS 500k pot that measured 384k. WAY out of spec.

Sandy beat me to it.

 

[Supernautilus]

Hey thanks for all the responses, you guys rock.

RE: alternate pickup
Yeah, I've considered trying both the SH-5 and SH-6 as options. Perhaps in the future, but for now I'm trying to make the JB work. Besides, I do like what the pickup does. I love that JB grind, especially when chugging drop D riffs. It's so gnarly.

RE: mag swaps
As I said, I'm worried that a different mag will take away the good stuff or even make the bad stuff worse. For example, wouldn't the mid forward nature of an A2 mag make that upper mid spike worse? Or is that a different frequency range? That's what would concern me.

RE: resistance and resonance peaks
I understand the concept of total resistance of pots in parallel, but I was under the impression that it was primary the volume pot value that affected the pickup's resonance peak. Hence my plan to keep the low value volume pot but go with a no load tone pot. But am I misunderstanding how that works?

 

[Supernautilus]

Oh also, I understand that pot values can be inaccurate. Which is partly why I said I didn't know if 300K would be much different than 250K. It may not be.

In any case, rest assured that I always keep a meter handy and I check everything I use. So I'll have to see what these 300K pots read as when I get them in.

 

[freefrog]

I was under the impression that it was primary the volume pot value that affected the pickup's resonance peak.

The amplitude of the resonant peak is set by the overall resistive load.

A 500k volume pot full up + a 500k tone pot set @ 166k shape the resonant peak in the same way than a 250k + a 250k tone control, both @ 10/10 (there are "nuances" due to harmonics, themselves shaped by the component behind the tone pot, IOW by a tone cap in most cases... but these nuances don't alter the resonant peak itself, unless some non typical components are used).

 

[Supernautilus]

The amplitude of the resonant peak is set by the overall resistive load.

A 500k volume pot full up + a 500k tone pot set @ 166k shape the resonant peak in the same way than a 250k + a 250k tone control, both @ 10/10 (there are "nuances" due to harmonics, themselves shaped by the component behind the tone pot, IOW by a tone cap in most cases... but these nuances don't alter the resonant peak itself, unless some non typical components are used).

Ah, ok. I totally misunderstood this then. So there is no functional difference between 250K volume / 500K tone and 500K volume / 250K tone when it comes to the resonance peak? Is that what this means?

In that case, what are the reasons one would prefer one setup vs the other?

 

[freefrog]

Ah, ok. I totally misunderstood this then. So there is no functional difference between 250K volume / 500K tone and 500K volume / 250K tone when it comes to the resonance peak? Is that what this means?

In that case, what are the reasons one would prefer one setup vs the other?

Question 1: yes.

Question 2:

1)Ease of use: if one prefers a tone pot permanently set @ precisely 166k + a 500k volume, it makes more sense to have two 250k full up.

2)Taper and its effect on tone: the higher the resistance of a volume pot, the darker/duller the tone might appear once this pot lowered (because it puts more resistance between pickup and output).

HTH.