HSS volume pot 250 Kohm or 500 Kohm

[fatboy135]

Hi again, my ibanez rg560 is in process to be electronical update, well it has 3 pot against the 2 classical pot in ibanez, one of that pots is the tone, and I will replace it with a fender TBX, the other pot wil be replaced by an EMG afterburner booster and the third pot is the volume, and I don´t know what pot will be better. The matter is I will use one single pot for two kind of pickups, the single that will be maybe the ssl1 and the ssl3 and one humbucker. The classical setup says to use 500 K for humbuckers and 250 K for singles, but I have one pot only for volume, well I´m looking for a two concentric pots in one, one with a 250 and the other with a 500, well does anyone knows where could I find them??? If there is not possible to get one of this, what could you recomend to me a 250 or 500???'

[Robert Delahunt]

I've had a HSS guitar before. Tech Tips has a feature at the very bottom on how pots affect the tone of single coils and humbuckers. Basically, the humbucker is less picky about pot choice, so go with 250k for the sake of the single coils, that's my opinion. On my Ibanez, 250k pots with Alnico II Pro Staggered pickups and a Custom Custom sounded really good, even if it was (yuck) a soft maple body Ibanez.

[TheArchitect]

I prefer 250k for all pickups generally speaking. There can be and are exceptions

[rumbleinbriton]

Has anyone who has experimented with a 500k pot in a HSS strat give their opinion of how just the neck pup alone sounded? That's usually a dark sounding pup w a 250k, so I'm thinking a 500k pot might brighten it and make it sound maybe like a typical middle strat pup w a 250k?



Also that techtips page that Twinreverb refers to has 2 good diagrams of a regular and "hot" single coil pup with curves for various pots:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/figure1.shtml

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/figure2.shtml


Do diagrams like that also exist for various HB's?

[Mr. B]

I have 2 HSS strats. One runs 3 250k pots with a dimarzio Virtual hot in the bridge and sounds great (my favorite). The other runs a 300K volume and one 500 and one 250k tone with a Demon in the bridge. I find that if i stray too far from the 250k volume, the single coils just don't sound right.

[Mr. B]

Oh. Almost forgot. I have another HSS Fender Deluxe strat that already has the problem solved. The older Vintage Noiseless single coils run on 500k pots with the DH1 humbucker.

[ArtieToo]

Basically, the humbucker is less picky about pot choice, so go with 250k for the sake of the single coils, that's my opinion.

I agree. Using one 250k pot will be a better solution than trying to wire a twin-pot.

[Robert Delahunt]

I agree. Using one 250k pot will be a better solution than trying to wire a twin-pot.

Yeah too bad they don't have a "smart" volume pot that would turn into a 500k when you're using the bridge humbucker by itself

[erikm5150]

You can use resistors, so that the HB sees 500k and the SC's see 250k.
This is the type of wiring that Anderson and Suhr use for their HSS guitars.
This is the best solution IMHO.
I have a schem, if anyone wants it, just PM me.

[fatboy135]

well the issue is that I will also install the tbx control of fender, this is a high pass/ low pass filter of first order 6db/oct that allows to me control absolutly the tone of my guitar ( i used it before on a washburn and it sounds real great )

[Robert Delahunt]

If you had a superswitch installed, you could leave the pots 500k, and then solder in parallel 500k resistors on switch positions that were for single coils. That way you'd essentially have 250k pots whenever a single coil is selected...

[rumbleinbriton]

solder in parallel 500k resistors on switch positions that were for single coils

By that, do you mean across the terminals like a treble bleed mod?

[ArtieToo]

You can do this using a standard 5-way, as long as you don't mind going with a master tone control:

[rumbleinbriton]

Thanks! (that was quick)

[ArtieToo]

Thanks! (that was quick)

A lot of these questions keep reappearing. I have a lot of this stuff tucked away in my "archive".

Btw: You can still keep dual-tone controls. Just connect one where the resistor connects for the neck/middle, then connect the other to the unused lug on the right, for the bridge pup.

[erikm5150]

hey ArtieToo,

is that a resistor on the left side in that diagram?

[ArtieToo]

Yes. I'm an "Artie" . . . not an artist.