Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Tech => Topic started by: mikey5 on September 26, 2008, 12:54:24 AM
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Hi this may be dumb but I am not totally clued in on the purpose of Pots for pickups. What are they and what are the best ones to buy, and how do they affect guitar pickups and what other equiptment goes into all that. I am attempting my first installation
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Pots is short for potentiometer. They are the knobs that control volume and tone and are wired into the circuit. They come in different values of resistance which has a bearing on the tone and operation of the volume.Roughly they come in two main values- 250k generally used for single coil pickups ( Stat and Tele types) and 500k for humbuckers. The higher the value, the brighter the sound. I am sure that others with a better knowledge than I can probably add a whole explanation and/or contradict me if I am wrong. I just know the basics to get me by.
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That's exactly right Mr Beatle. There are loads of different values but those two are the most common in passive guitars. Brand wise most people stick with American made Alpha or CTS pots. Tend to have the smoothest taper, rolls down smoothly with no extra noise.
Also two main types, linear and log. Log or audio tapers are used for volume, linear for tone.
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i'd try to avoid Alpha brand personally, CTS are far better.
Obviously you cant always fit the larger cts brand into every guitar (95%+ are fine tho) so you're stuck with alpha on unbranded.
The size of the part that the vol & tone knob fits over is important to check also. With cts you can have split or solid shaft versions. Not all vol knobs fit either type, although you can get small brass inserts if the split type is too small for (usually fender) style knobs.
Danny Gatton famously went through loads of tone pots before he found one that had the right taper for him. I could understand some getting frustrated with that kind of attention to detail, but when you hear the guy play you have to bow down!!
they dont call him 'the humbler' for nothing!
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CTS 4x 500K. I'm using audio tapers for both volume and tone.