Use stacked 500k/250K tone pot for HSS?

[Dave Z]

I'm looking at the 5-way diagrams for HSS wiring, intend to use the Fender 5-way superswitch and do the auto-split trick in pos 2 and tone1 for neck and middle (jumpered) and tone 2 for bridge. <diagram> But then I saw this and thought, well what if I had a separate tone for the middle pickup by using the 250K on this double pot? It is on the same shaft as the bridge tone (this is not a concentric dual pot) so whatever the tone control is set to sets both Mid & Bridge pups. Anyway, it looks like you can do 3 tone ctrls on a 5-way superswitch, right? Just remove 1 jumper.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Use stacked 500k/250K tone pot for HSS?

I don't see that having a dual tone pot the way you describe is going to give you any advantage. In fact, when you are in position 2 (bridge + middle) this may even be a disadvantage since you won't have separate control of the tones of bridge and middle pups (when you turn the bridge tone down, you are also turning the middle tone down the same amount). For all practical purposes, you will function as if you only had one master tone control (except in position 4, which wouldn't be as important as have individual tone control for bridge bucker and middle single coil)

 

[Dave Z]

Re: Use stacked 500k/250K tone pot for HSS?

I don't see that having a dual tone pot the way you describe is going to give you any advantage. In fact, when you are in position 2 (bridge + middle) this may even be a disadvantage since you won't have separate control of the tones of bridge and middle pups (when you turn the bridge tone down, you are also turning the middle tone down the same amount). For all practical purposes, you will function as if you only had one master tone control (except in position 4, which wouldn't be as important as have individual tone control for bridge bucker and middle single coil)

Thanks for the sanity check. Normally there is no tone for the bridge in a strat setup, or same tone for bridge and mid. My idea was to give the bridge a humbucker-appropriate tone control (500K) in bridge position when switch is at pos 5, and wire the 4 position to the split bucker, middle pickup and middle tone -- which as you pointed out, on the same shaft. Seems like the advantage over stock wiring is:
vs. use same pot for mid & bridge wiring - brighter tone control for pos 5 (humbucker) using 500k pot
vs. no tone for bridge wiring - you have a tone control for bridge.
I'll do a wiring diagram up tonight if my #1 does not grab all my time.

 

[vanlandau]

Re: Use stacked 500k/250K tone pot for HSS?

I mifhy be relaying information here but i would just wire stock strat wiring no tone at the bridge and 250 for the b splt+m. Maybe do a master tone and a neck blend

 

[Mincer]

Re: Use stacked 500k/250K tone pot for HSS?

I did tone on neck & middle, tone for bridge on mine.