What kind of pots for hotrails

risingforce

risingforce

New member
As you guess I will change my strat's pickups with hotrails like Maiden's Dave Murray. But I have no idea what kind of pots should I use. 250 or 500 k pots ? If you gimme some opinions, I'll be very preciated.

Thanks
 
Re: What kind of pots for hotrails

The theory says 250K for single-coils and 500K for humbuckers (hotrail included).
But the experience and rule of thumb can say also anything different!
It depends a lot on if you like darker or trebly tone, and if your guitar is darker or trebly (the fretboard wood maybe has the biggest influence).
The 500K (or higher) pot will give a more trebly fresh tone, while a lower pot (such 250K, but you could use also something in between) will give a slightly darker tone. Do not expect a very big difference anyway. The hotrail pickup is anyway rather dark, so maybe 500k is ok. Enjoy and experiment anyway! Do not forget that you could also add a resistor to the pot to change the value...
 
Re: What kind of pots for hotrails

This is interesting and easy to remember. I've never explored this terrain in all the years I've been playing.
 
Re: What kind of pots for hotrails

I put one in the bridge of my strat and I used a 500K volume pot. I didn't hook it up to a tone pot but it sounds good to me!

I haven't tried a 250K pot with the hotrails so I can't give you first hand experience of the difference between the two.
 
Re: What kind of pots for hotrails

Just be a little careful about using hotrails to copy Dave Murray. He used a DMZ super distortion and paf for all the classic Maiden albums. Look at the fender Dave Murray strat. Depends which of their albums have you favourite tones.
 
Re: What kind of pots for hotrails

Mark Le Comte said:
Just be a little careful about using hotrails to copy Dave Murray. He used a DMZ super distortion and paf for all the classic Maiden albums. Look at the fender Dave Murray strat. Depends which of their albums have you favourite tones.
Click to expand...

I don't care about it. I prefer Duncan pickups. Nowadays he is playing same songs with hotrails pickups.
 
Re: What kind of pots for hotrails

having my hot rails put in today on my strat, has a maple top and maple fret board, should go good I hope!:scratchch
 
Re: What kind of pots for hotrails

Lelik said:
The theory says 250K for single-coils and 500K for humbuckers (hotrail included).
But the experience and rule of thumb can say also anything different!
It depends a lot on if you like darker or trebly tone, and if your guitar is darker or trebly (the fretboard wood maybe has the biggest influence).
The 500K (or higher) pot will give a more trebly fresh tone, while a lower pot (such 250K, but you could use also something in between) will give a slightly darker tone.
Do not expect a very big difference anyway. The hotrail pickup is anyway rather dark, so maybe 500k is ok. Enjoy and experiment anyway! Do not forget that you could also add a resistor to the pot to change the value...
Click to expand...

Can you try a 1 meg pot in the bridge knob with a HotRail, (thinking '72 Custom Tele here - 2xtone/2xvol) to get a slightly more trebbly sounding, albeit hot tone from a Hotrail unit ?

Just wondering !


James
 
Re: What kind of pots for hotrails

I know everybody says that the pots will change the tone so I asked my tech, and he says when you roll back on the volume you can tell. but all the way there isn't much difference. Thats just what I heard.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top