Potentiometer & Capacitor Advice for Single Coil Hofner Jazz Box

[Ampig]

I want to replace the non original and sketchy electronics in my newly purchased vintage Hofner. Looking for advice on cap and pot ratings that will work well with the Schaller single coils for a warm jazz tone. Think Grant Green's ES 330. Here's a pic of the guitar

[Little Jay]

I have no clue what those pu’s sound like, but I would just put 500k pots and .022uf caps. Works well for humbuckers and P90s. (Grant’s ES-330 would have had those values). For Fender-type single coils they typically use 250K and .047uf to get less highs.

If 500K/.022uf turns out too trebly you can simply dial the tone knob down.

[Bobby Timmons]

Good recommendation above.

I prefer a 250k linear taper volume and a 250k no load tone, linear or audio. The 250k volume makes it a bit warm and smoky but with the no load tone on 10 it will still get spiky if you need it. Can't go wrong with a 22nf cap.

[Ampig]

Thanks guys

[sgosnell]

Higher value caps will shunt more highs to ground, and I'm not a big fan of them, but it's a matter of taste. Caps are inexpensive, so it's not much money to buy one or more of several values and try them out, to see which you prefer. Potentiometers affect the sound slightly even when fully open, so a 500k will sound subtly different from a 250k. Not necessarily better or worse, and not a lot different, but a little. Again, which is better is entirely a matter of individual taste. They're a little more expensive than capacitors, but not much. Of course, if you can't do the work yourself, and have to pay someone else to do it, the cost goes up quickly because of the labor charges. I have more time than money these days, so I do some experimenting. I tend to use 500k ohm pots and .022 pF caps, but different guitars seem to prefer different values. I have no personal experience with your model.

[bluenote61]

For the volume pot, you have to think also whether linear or logarithmic pot types shall be used.
Log pots are known from Fender guitars, linear pots from e.g. Japanese guitars.
Log pots will decrease the loudness very quick, from 10 down to 8-9 will turn down to half of the output.
Its a philosophical question what serves better.
Tone pots are mostly log type.

[Ampig]

Higher value caps will shunt more highs to ground, and I'm not a big fan of them, but it's a matter of taste. Caps are inexpensive, so it's not much money to buy one or more of several values and try them out, to see which you prefer. Potentiometers affect the sound slightly even when fully open, so a 500k will sound subtly different from a 250k. Not necessarily better or worse, and not a lot different, but a little. Again, which is better is entirely a matter of individual taste. They're a little more expensive than capacitors, but not much. Of course, if you can't do the work yourself, and have to pay someone else to do it, the cost goes up quickly because of the labor charges. I have more time than money these days, so I do some experimenting. I tend to use 500k ohm pots and .022 pF caps, but different guitars seem to prefer different values. I have no personal experience with your model.

Do archtops typically require long shaft or standard shaft pots due to mounting directly through the top versus going through the thinner material of a pickguard like a strat?

[Bobby Timmons]

^ Your best bet is to measure how much pot shaft length you'll need and then check the pot spex that you're gonna buy. They vary. The 1 or 1.5 cm ones might be too short but there are some mega long ones that probably wouldn't work too well either.

Higher value caps will shunt more highs to ground, and I'm not a big fan of them, but it's a matter of taste. Caps are inexpensive, so it's not much money to buy one or more of several values and try them out, to see which you prefer. Potentiometers affect the sound slightly even when fully open, so a 500k will sound subtly different from a 250k. Not necessarily better or worse, and not a lot different, but a little. Again, which is better is entirely a matter of individual taste. They're a little more expensive than capacitors, but not much. Of course, if you can't do the work yourself, and have to pay someone else to do it, the cost goes up quickly because of the labor charges. I have more time than money these days, so I do some experimenting. I tend to use 500k ohm pots and .022 pF caps, but different guitars seem to prefer different values. I have no personal experience with your model.

Yeah, imo there's not really any need to go higher than 22nf. 22 sounds plenty bassy, going higher just sounds muddy.

For the volume pot, you have to think also whether linear or logarithmic pot types shall be used.
Log pots are known from Fender guitars, linear pots from e.g. Japanese guitars.
Log pots will decrease the loudness very quick, from 10 down to 8-9 will turn down to half of the output.
Its a philosophical question what serves better.
Tone pots are mostly log type.

You don't want to use log for the volume on a jazz guitar. Log rolls off most of the volume by 7 and is for guitarists using distortion who want to be able to 'clean up' their sound by rolling off the volume. A jazz guitarist playing clean would have the bottom half of the sweep be useless with a log volume. With tone, it's preference. Log turns down faster, linear more slowly.

[Ampig]

I decided to go the traditional route. Placed an order for four 500k ohm audio taper pots and .022 uF caps. Thanks to all for the input.

[Little Jay]

I decided to go the traditional route. Placed an order for four 500k ohm audio taper pots and .022 uF caps. Thanks to all for the input.

Should work!

All my DIY-guitars have 500K log pots and and .022uf caps.

I initially wired them ‘50ies style’ since that’s how my 1950 ES-125 is wired and I like it. But I found out modern log pots are not the same as the old ones and I did not get the same gradient transition as with the ES-125.

After some experimenting I settled for ‘60ies wiring’ with treble bleeds“Duncan style”) and to me that reacted most like the circuit in my ES-125 (I only chose 60ies because my tone pots were already soldered that way, modern would react the same way):