using different pots (250K/500K) on a guitar

O

OverlookFran

New member
when i built my Tele, i used 250k pots for the Lace pup in the bridge, and 500K for the burstbucker in the neck. the volume difference is wayyy too drastic for me when i switch from neck to neck+bridge or just bridge. this was all done on a recommendation from the company.
should i use the same "K" for all pots? is this common practice? or is it fine to use different ones?

thanks
 
The 250 for the SC and 500 for the hummer are pretty much standard. The ohms will effect the frequency more than the volume. You might try playing with the pickup height - like lower the hummer/raise the Lace.

Remember, the hummer is getting two coils worth the windings sent to the amp - so it's higher output. Something else you might try is turning down the volume on the hummer - but you probably can't do that on a tele... or can you?
 
i made my own tele custom, so both pups have their own tone and volume knobies. i have to turn down the humbucker real fast if i made a switch mid song. actually, i raised the lace bridge pup up as far as i could without it bangin the strings...it sill just sounds like such a drastic volume change...then again...i probably wired it wrong. haha...even though it works. the guitar still sounds awesome. im happy as hell with it.
im playing the guitar in this photo: http://www.overlookband.com/photos/arlenesgrocery/fullimages/DSC00051_f.jpg
 
OverlookFran said:
i made my own tele custom, so both pups have their own tone and volume knobies. i have to turn down the humbucker real fast if i made a switch mid song. actually, i raised the lace bridge pup up as far as i could without it bangin the strings...it sill just sounds like such a drastic volume change...then again...i probably wired it wrong. haha...even though it works. the guitar still sounds awesome. im happy as hell with it.
im playing the guitar in this photo: http://www.overlookband.com/photos/arlenesgrocery/fullimages/DSC00051_f.jpg
Click to expand...


this might be a dumb question, but why don't you just leave the humbucker turned down so that it's always equal to or just louder than the singlecoil?
 
....I guess we all like the security of knowing that both PUs are balanced volume wise with them both turned all the way to their stops. And guitar knobs get knocked out of position easily, so perhaps not the most practical solution.

Sounds like having pots of the same value may be your answer. How about swapping the pots over to see if the volume difference is inverted? In which case you know the problem is with pot values, me thinks.
 
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hehe...i work the volume knobs like a madman live, and yes, duct tape rules. i was wondering mostly here if it was common practice, seeing this was my first electric i built, to use all pots of the same ohm value. my burstbucker is worlds louder than the supposedly HOT lace bridge. ive played many guitars that had single and hums and the switch didnt pose as drastic of vol change. i guess my choice of pups dont compliment each other well...but i feel theres more to it than that--which is why i began this silly post.
thanks
 
500k for humbuckers is standard, and 250 for single coils. This does not, however, make a huge difference in volume. The volume difference is coming from the fact that you have twice as many pickups in a humbucker than in a single coil. They are, by their very nature, louder.

A 500k pot is usually a little brighter than a 250k pot, which is why 500k pots are usually used for humbuckers, which have a darker sound by their very nature. Humbuckers pickup a larger length of string, which means there are more frequencies which have wave lengths shorter than the area which is picked up, which means there is more phase cancellation of high frequencies. This is why single coils have the characteristic bright sound. They pickup a smaller area of the string, so there is less phase cancellation. They also, however, have a lower output. This is also why stacked humbuckers do not sound like full sized humbuckers, by the way.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
A cap is just going to bleed off highs. A small resistor might do the trick, but I have no idea which one. You could, perhaps, set the levels the way you want them, and measure the difference in resistance.

Caps on the volume pot are actually quite common. It is called a high pass cap. It goes between the input and the output, and what it does is get rid of the treble bleed when you turn down the volume. I, personally, don't like them, as they seem to make the guitar too bright to begin with. It stays just as bright, but I would rather have the tone change when I use the volume.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
The high pass cap is a very small cap by the way, though I don't remember the range of values used. Check the Bartolini web site, it says on there.


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"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
I put a bypass switch on the hi-pass cap on my MIM strat. You get a little flavor of tele with in "on" and back to the strat with it bypassed. That way you're not locked into one sound.
 
Problem With Lace Sensor

stratocaster american standard 1997, original pickups swapped with lace sensor: red at bridge, silver middle, blue at neck.
problem: the combination middle + neck sounds very very very thin, no volume...hardly hearable compared to the other 4 positions which are ok.
Please help me out.
paolo, Italy.
 
Light said:
The high pass cap is a very small cap by the way, though I don't remember the range of values used. Check the Bartolini web site, it says on there.


Light


"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Click to expand...

.001uF if I recall. (or maybe .01uF.....its been a few months lol)

I used it on a volume pedal I built. It just lets a few more highs make it to the amp since normally the sound gets darker as the volume is rolled off.
 
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