Make sure you have the right pots in your guitar.

[DonEsteban]

My main guitar is a Yamaha SA2200 that had both tone pots scratching since some time now.

In addition, the push pull single coil switch of the neck pickup began to produce dropouts.

So I ordered replacements and now yesterday mounted the new pots. To my amazement I found not 500 K but 250 K pots mounted, aha ... I thought. But I had ordered 500 Ks so I put them in anyway.

When mounting was done, I literally had a new guitar. The sound is so much fresher, so much more present, I never would've imagined it could make such a difference.

I thought I'd share this, maybe someone else also has mounted pots with the wrong values and wonders why the guitar never "lifts off".


We happy?
Yeah, we happy! (c)

[gianluca]

very interesting…
where can I read something about pots?
in what they make differrence?
very curious…

[deacon Mark]

If your guitar has the wrong pot.................it just will not sound as smoking good.

[Jimmy Mack]

I've had a couple of Gibson guitars that were underwhelming in their tone and "presence". And not lo-end Gibsons!!!

My LP '57 RI Custom had pots starting to fail ????? After only a couple of years. So I ordered new pots. Of course I ordered 500K ohm pots. That's what everyone recommends. Upon removal of the existing pots which were failing, I measured their values - ranging from 195K to 350K How awful is that!!!
The new pots at 500K made it a new and better guitar.
Same thing with a 1981 L5 CES, only not so bad. The pots were NOT failing. With new Seth Lover p/ups going in, I changed the whole wiring harness (pots and hook up wiring). Again, the existing pots measured around 300K ohms.
New wiring and p/ups brought new life to this classic beauty.

I recommend this upgrade to everyone highly.

[sgosnell]

The standard tolerance for potentiometers is 10%, some are higher. Thus a nominal 500k ohm pot could be anywhere between 450 and 550 and still be in tolerance. The higher the impedance, the more high frequencies are passed. A 250k pot that is actually 225, within tolerance, will sound more muffled than a 275k when both are full open, and you could easily get either if you buy a 250k pot, and lower quality items may be even further out. But roll that 275k off just a little, and it becomes 250, or whatever lower value you want. Just because one pot doesn't sound good in a guitar doesn't mean a different pot of the same nominal impedance won't sound good in that guitar. The reason for using 500k pots with humbuckers is to get more high frequencies, and for 250k with single-coils is to get less, especially from Strat-style pickups which are usually very trebly. Gibson long used 300k pots, neither fish nor fowl. I tend to use 500k pots for everything, because it's not terribly difficult to roll them back to a lower impedance, either for volume or tone controls. But sometimes a guitar will sound better to me with a different pot, sometimes a 250k works with a humbucker, or a 500k with a single-coil. Sometimes a 1Meg pot is called for. Experimentation can be helpful. Potentiometers, which are just variable resistors, are not generally expensive, and it can be illuminating to buy a few and swap them out. Rudimentary soldering skills are required, of course, because it can get expensive to pay someone to do it for you, because of the time involved. As everyone knows, time is money, but I have lots more time than money available.

[Jimmy Mack]

What sgosnell said is very "on the money".
My frustration arose when: a) the pots in my expensive Gibson LP were crapping out after only 2 years, and b) the values of the pots were "all over the place" only lower - not higher than 300K.
The pots in my '81 L5 were fine, and shielded! All around 300K, but I wanted more tone and snap, like I heard while playing a '68 L5 CES.

[73Fender]

And it’s easy to make any potentiometer a no load pot. There was a good instructional thread some years ago on the TDPRI forum from Rob Distefano (maker of Cavilier Pickups and a good honest nice guy guitar tech in Northern NJ). You bend up the retaining legs on the cover and remove it then scrape off a portion of the copper trace. You end up with no load at the highest clockwise rotation setting. I’ve done it a few times.

Also, some pots are available with more rotational (mechanical) resistance when you turn them. I had a Ron Kirn Tele with them. They have a nice feel.

[Toat]

That's interesting and who knows, maybe that's one small reason the SA2200 is so famous. As you observed it would have played a big role in shaping the tone, for better or worse depending on your preference.

I've actually been using 250k pots and .047 caps with a neck humbucker for years. But I'm definitely in the modern dark tone camp.

[icr]

I put 500k pots in all my solid and semi-solid body guitars. But for full-hollow guitars with humbuckers, I prefer 250-350k pots.

Also, this is a nice way to test. Solder this 150k resistor and switch between the existing 350k pot and ground. Now you can switch between 350k and 500k as you play, to see how the sound will change if you want to change pots.
You can't really leave this in place, because, with the switch in the 500k setting, you won't be able to turn to volume all the way off.

[Herbie]

There was a time when I had a Les Paul Std which sounded dull. I changed the pickups at least ten times before I learned about the importance of right pots. I measured the old ones and they were around 300 kOhm. I changed them to 500 kOhm ones and boy, it was a big improvement!

After that I have measured the pots and changed 300 kOhms to 500 kOhms.

Until I got the ES-175 Reissue 1954 with P90s. First I wondered how sweet did it sound thru any amp. Then I asked the Gibson Europe Customer Service about the details of the guitar and was surprised: vol pots are 300 kOhms and tone pots 500 kOhm.

So now I have two recipes: 500 kOhms for r’n’roll guitars with P90s and 300 kOhm for jazz guitars with P90s!

[icr]

Yes, good recipe!