H/S/S strat Volume Pot 250 or 500K?

[tremonti]

I have a strat that has a neck and middle Lace Chrome Dome single coil pickups....just added a Parallel Axis Seymour Duncan original humbucker in the bridge. Have 1 volume and 1 tone and a 5 way switch....also have a mini coil tap switch for the humbucker. Currently using 250k pots for both the volume and tone.....sounds good....but humbucker could be a little more open sounding(a tiny tad muddy)...tried a 500k volume pot....and singles were way too bright. I know singles should use 250k's and humbuckers 500k's(usually).

How do I get the humbuckers to read 500k and the singles to read 250k??? Searched the web.....heard about a mega switch...but I already have a mini switch and everything seems to show position 2 with those as splitting the humbucker....I already have that with the mini toggle. Anyone have diagrams and details? I really want to get this guitar done today....fast help would be appreciated!!

 

[baimun]

Is it a traditional strat pickguard with 3 pots? If that's the case, use a 500K for the master volume, then a 500K tone pot for the humbucker and a 250k pot for the single coil tone.

 

[tremonti]

No....it has 1 volume and 1 tone.....tried using a 500k volume and a 250 tone....but the singles were too bright....much happier with both being 250k...but just want a little more brightness with the humbucker

 

[dazco]

I use HSS strats exclusively and i always use a 250K. Even the HB sounds better IMO with a 250k. Not only when dimed, but because the taper of a 250k is far better if you twiddle with your volume a lot to clean up. In that case it's a no brainer IMO.

 

[buddastrat]

I've always liked the taper of a 250K too Dazco. The experts told me I'm nuts and should be using a 500K and can get the same taper. I haven't found it true.


I like using 250K for both bucker or singles, but with a bucker, I don't use a tone which will load the signal and that keeps some more highs.
Figure it's close to having a humbucker wired to a 500K volume and 500K tone, the load would be 250K.

 

[BCJek]

How about your 500K paralleled with another resistor to give you ~300K?

The 500k pot with a 750K resistor soldered across the outer lugs of the pot will give you a 300k pot, although I'm uncertain what it will do to the taper.

Michael

 

[baimun]

I wonder if anyone makes a 375K pot? That would be the ticket for this scenario.

 

[RvChevron]

Mods can we make this diagram sticky?? Seems there's a lot of people in need of it.

From Suhr:

This is the be all end all HSS wiring (when using just one volume pot) that solves the 250K vs 500K issue.

When using single coils settings, the pickups "see" an around 250K load from the volume pot due to the 470K resistor wired across the hot and ground, standard 500K when using the bucker alone. Now the bucker setting breaths and the single coils settings sound just right (not too bright). The 470K resistors get switched in and out automatically.

Also when using the bucker alone, there are two .047uf caps wired together in parallel for a .0235uf value, standard .047uf when using single coils settings.

You'll need one of these in place of the stock 5 way:

 

[dazco]

he experts told me I'm nuts and should be using a 500K and can get the same taper. I haven't found it true

Problem with "experts" is that they tend to think there is no such situation where anything is subjective....they know all. seriously, it's sad but a lot of so called experts are really the worse people to take advice from because they believe they know whats best for you with no regards for the fact that we all have different tatses in things. I recall a story at a local music store who deals with a repair place owned by a well known luthier who once had a column in GP. Someone brought the store a guitar he wanted refretted with jumbos. This well known person told him he should have vintage frets put in it. He told him he didn't want that, he wanted jumbos. The repair guy apparently "knew better" and refretted the guy's guitat with vintage frets anyways ! Thats why i say, experts are often the last people you want to ask. Thier egos are often too big to accept the fact that certain things they feel are best should be gospel for everyone.

250k pots are best for a lot of people in a HSS strat. I'd go as far as to say most prefer it.

 

[tremonti]

RvChevron....it looks as if there is 2 5 way switches in the above scenario....am I incorrect?

 

[RvChevron]

RvChevron....it looks as if there is 2 5 way switches in the above scenario....am I incorrect?

Nope. Just one super 5 way switch (4 pole).

 

[tremonti]

So RvChevron I can have all 5 positions of the 3 pickups via this switch and use my coil tap toggle switch to split humbucker?

 

[RvChevron]

So RvChevron I can have all 5 positions of the 3 pickups via this switch and use my coil tap toggle switch to split humbucker?

With this diagram the humbucker is automatically splitted in position 2 (mid/bridge) combo.

The wiring/diagram will need to be modified if you want coil tap in position 1 instead of just bridge humbucker.

 

[tremonti]

Anyone know what I would need to do to do it my way? Thanks!

 

[candid_x]

No....it has 1 volume and 1 tone.....tried using a 500k volume and a 250 tone....but the singles were too bright....much happier with both being 250k...but just want a little more brightness with the humbucker

My HSS 1 vol/1 tone (passive p'ups) uses 250K pots, stock from Music Man.

 

[Structo]

One correction, when caps are in parallel the values are added.
When they are in series they are halved.

Just the opposite of the resistor series/parallel rule.

 

[RvChevron]

One correction, when caps are in parallel the values are added.
When they are in series they are halved.

Just the opposite of the resistor series/parallel rule.

Depends on how you look at it but in electronics terms:

Series linking always = sum of the two

Parallel linking always = roughly a quarter of the sum of the two.

It just happens that capacitor and resistor have exactly the opposite way of linking.

 

[tremonti]

1) Does putting a .001 cap on the 250k volume pot I have on it now....for treble bleed when turning down...effect the resistance on the humbucker when on 10? Asking because if so I'll take it off.

<separate question>

2) What about using a 500k pot for volume and putting a resistor on each of the single coils directly....and then the humbucker would just get the full 500k without the resistor on it....wouldn't this work? If so....what resistor would I use? How would I wire it?

 

[buddastrat]

Problem with "experts" is that they tend to think there is no such situation where anything is subjective....they know all. seriously, it's sad but a lot of so called experts are really the worse people to take advice from because they believe they know whats best for you with no regards for the fact that we all have different tatses in things. I recall a story at a local music store who deals with a repair place owned by a well known luthier who once had a column in GP. Someone brought the store a guitar he wanted refretted with jumbos. This well known person told him he should have vintage frets put in it. He told him he didn't want that, he wanted jumbos. The repair guy apparently "knew better" and refretted the guy's guitat with vintage frets anyways ! Thats why i say, experts are often the last people you want to ask. Thier egos are often too big to accept the fact that certain things they feel are best should be gospel for everyone.

250k pots are best for a lot of people in a HSS strat. I'd go as far as to say most prefer it.

I hear ya. My last Fender CS strat had a 250K pot in it for the HSS. It sounded great. Fender puts them in just about all their HSS. I remember thier Lonestar strats with HSS and it used a 250K and some people still were saying the humbucker was bright. The 250K seems to give more control, like you said, to clean up nice.

 

[RvChevron]

1) Does putting a .001 cap on the 250k volume pot I have on it now....for treble bleed when turning down...effect the resistance on the humbucker when on 10? Asking because if so I'll take it off.

<separate question>

2) What about using a 500k pot for volume and putting a resistor on each of the single coils directly....and then the humbucker would just get the full 500k without the resistor on it....wouldn't this work? If so....what resistor would I use? How would I wire it?

The bright cap only retains the high end when turning down the volume pot. It doesn't affect the resistance of the pot, it may affect the tapering of the pot.

For 2) You can try wiring one end of a 470K resistor to the hot of the neck single coil and the other end to ground.

This will make position 5 and 4 to see a roughly 250K load.

Position 3,2 and 1 will get straight to the 500K volume pot.

If you wire two resistors, one for each single coil, when using in between positions, the load value will be lower than 250K and may makes things too darker since you will have two resistors in parallel to the hot and ground. But you can try and see.