Bit of help please.

[dc01]

Hi all.

Ive had my 63 Veneer board pick ups in my strat for around 6 weeks now and I have a few questions. Not sure if something is faulty or I just need to do more tweaking.
Bit of background first.. My guitar is a 62 Hot Rod reissue strat and my main amp is a 65 Twin Reverb Reissue.

I ordered the 63 Veneer board set (with baseplate on brigde), loaded on a pickguard and all standard wiring except for tone 2 to control bridge pickup.. I ve left it a while to get to know the pups and there character with much tweaking and balancing of pick up height to get and even sound.

As time gone on I ve noticed that the volume pot that came with loaded pickguard from Tim is very sensitive with a very steep taper. As I roll off the guitar vol from 10 I have no amp sound by 5 on the knob? So between 1 and 5 on the guitar volume control it does nothing.  Is the normal for the pots that BKP use?

Also im having a lot of trouble getting a nice balanced volume across the pick up position. Especially in postions 2 and 4.
I used fender spec for vintage pick ups on the neck, then adjusted neck pick up to taste. Then I adjusted the remaining pickups by ear from there. This is how Ive done every strat ive had and always had good results. So in positions 1,3 and 5 I have a very nice even balance in volume and tone. But in 2 and 4 there is a significant volume drop. Almost like a blanket has been thrown over the amp. And because of the volume pot taper Im running it at 10 most of the time as its so sensitive. So this leaves me no margin to boost the vol a touch when switching pick ups between songs. When I rehearsed the other eve I sounded good in the mix when on the neck pup or middle or bridge. But as soon as I went to 2 or 4 I was gone. Again is this normal for BKP pick guards/controls.

Im seriously considering swapping the pups into my original guard as that had no such issues. I like the 63s but loosing patience with the control and volume issues.

Would I notice difference if I were to fit the 63s to my original guard. That has 250k pots while the BKP ones are 280K.

Sorry for the essay.
Thanks in advance.

[timmy_b]

That doesn't sound normal to me. did you order the set stock polarity or RW/RP?

[timmy_b]

.....either way, your best course of action is to give us a call during working hours to discuss the problem

+44 1326 341313

The workshop is open mon-fri 8am-5pm

[dc01]

Yes there RW/RP.

[timmy_b]

Ok, well in which case you should see a large drop in noise for positions 2 and 4 but not output..

Best talk it through with Ben or Chris over the phone, they will be the best guys to isolate the problem and get it set straight

[dc01]

Cheers Tim. Ill give them a ring on Monday.

The hum cancelling is fine.

Any thoughts to my concerns regarding the vol pot taper?

[timmy_b]

The 280k pots do use our custom audio taper, which will cut quicker as you travel to zero when compared to a linear design, but you should still have plenty of useable travel, i've never had a problem with the same taper.