Author Topic: quicky question - volume pot 500 or 250 (Read 3826 times)

Modular1 · « **on:** May 12, 2008, 05:32:56 PM »

im gonna be fitting my american strat with a humbucker (holy diver hopefully) bkp and im buying some of the bits ready. its gonna be in a brand new scratchplate with just a volume control to begin.

which pot should i get? 500 or 250?

badgermark · « **Reply #1 on:** May 12, 2008, 05:45:33 PM »

500k- the HD is pretty thick sounding already, a 250k pot might make it too muddy.

Modular1 · « **Reply #2 on:** May 12, 2008, 05:52:53 PM »

cheers :)

tremblox · « **Reply #3 on:** May 14, 2008, 10:45:40 AM »

Quote from: Modular1

im gonna be fitting my american strat with a humbucker (holy diver hopefully) bkp and im buying some of the bits ready. its gonna be in a brand new scratchplate with just a volume control to begin.

which pot should i get? 500 or 250?

You could put a 500K in but I'd be concerned about what happens to the S/C tone s- you might find them too shrill and sctachy. If not then all's well. On my HSS strat (Mules n Apaches) I got a 250K pot, opened it up and by carefulyl filing the track I got it up to about 330K (I think). This seemed to me to be a great compromise for the HB and the S/Cs. (Didn't Gibson pots used to be somewhere around this value ??). Because pots and resistors are so cheap it's very easy to do tests of this kind and to get the compromise that's best suited for you.
All the best

tremblox

badgermark · « **Reply #4 on:** May 14, 2008, 11:52:33 AM »

When I had a HSS strat with holydiver and slowhands I had two volumes, the pickups got wired to the pot, then the output lug of the pot went to the switch. Two volumes (left the middle position straight to switch then output) was a great thing to have. Plus everything sounded as it should.

Modular1 · « **Reply #5 on:** May 14, 2008, 04:33:50 PM »

Quote from: badgermark

Plus everything sounded as it should.

what was the pot resistance? 250 or 500?

badgermark · « **Reply #6 on:** May 14, 2008, 04:54:36 PM »

250k for the singles, 500k for the 'Diver.

Zaned · « **Reply #7 on:** May 15, 2008, 06:49:20 AM »

Straight quote from Chris Kinman's website (tone workshop section)

"Otherswise you have to understand these very different types of pickups require different value Volume pots for optimum performance. However if you really want to do this and have optimum performance from both types of pickups you have to accept this situation and be prepared to provide separate volume pots for them. One solution is to fit a dual ganged Volume pot that has one 250K track and one 500K track (Stacked or Dual Concentric 'A' curve pot 500K/250K is available from Allparts (USA) Part ID EP4585-000). Another way to do this is to reassign the middle Tone pot to become the second Volume pot and then make the remaining Tone pot operate on the single coils only (don't make it common to all pickups as it will muddy the humbucker even more). I will provide a special Wirogram for these configurations only to Kinman customers.....(Customer Service >Contact Us).
"