Wiring for Bridge Tone pot mod

[Frenchie]

Hi folks!

I'm attempting the 'quieting the beast' mod on a MIM Strat and the Bridge tone pickup mod.

Let me start off by saying thanks for posting that stuff for hacks like me to try.

I want the bridge pickup to maintain most of it's brightness with the tone on 10. When I add a .022 cap will it darken the tone for the bridge? Will a .01 cap be a better choice for the bridge, and keep the .022 for the neck/mid?

Oh BTW my 01 MIM strat has 3/4 of the pickguard covered with ultra-thin foil, and I cannot see any conductive paint in the cavity. It has 3 indivuidual 'bucker-sized routings plus the control cavity.

Thanks!

[RandomHero]

Hey Frenchie!

You are right about the caps; the smaller the value of the cap, the less treble it will bleed off your tone.If you want you bridge pup to maintain as much sparkle as it can, you'd be safe to start with the smallest value you have on hand, but depending on the values of your pots and the resistance of your pickups, there may be no perceptable notice as far as the first couple of low-capacitance values go.

Another thing you might try to preserve your treble is to use 500K pots if you don't already have them, as 250k pots tend to bleed a bit more treble no matter what.

[GuyaGuy]

as long as we're covering some of the basics here, let me ask this.
what is the benefit of limiting the trebles w/ a 250K pot or higher-valued cap? now, keep in mind, i don't understand why people play humbuckers at all because they negate a large portion of the sound of the guitar along wit the hum. but even with single coil pups, why put a permanent limit on the full sonic spectrum of your guitar? it seems like you're just choking off the tone of your guitar. why not just roll off the treble?

[Frenchie]

Well, the only reason I'm planning on putting the cap in on the new bridge tone pot is because the instructions say to do that.

[RandomHero]

That's a good point, I never understood why manufacturers even made single coil equipped guitars with 250k pots. IMHO it's much better to start with too much treble and roll it off as you please.

Humbuckers have heavier mids than single coils and -much- different distortion characteristics, making them more suitable for certain styles. I personally prefer 'buckers to single coils in most sounds, but I don't like a H/H guitar without a coil cut for when the inspiration strikes.

[GuyaGuy]

random hero, either i accidentally log on when you happen to be logged on or you're just permanently on this site. i get a response from you seconds after i do a post. when do you sleep? ;D

i'm sure there are some that find SCs with wide-open 500k pots TOO bright--even tele players or danelectro-lovers. but in general, i agree with you: start high and roll to taste. maybe most players don't find the sound of open-wide 500K pots useful and prefer having the reference point of 10/"can't turn no more" for their standard tone, if you dig.

which brings me to my next question...

would a 500K pot at 5 sound the same as a 250K at 10? cuz i was thinkin that a blend pot would be useful there, so you could feel it "clicking" in place at the detent of a 500K blend pot, the center being the equivalent of a wide-open 250K.

i don't know how precise the sweep is. guess it depends on whether it's linear or audio?

[Frenchie]

I should have asked the question before I bought all my parts.

Now you have me thinking I should go get some 500K pots.

Should both the vol and tone be 500K?

[GuyaGuy]

well, it's possible that 250Ks are perfect for you. try em out and see. pots are pretty cheap. 250Ks are pretty much standard for single coils because they limit the trebles on an otherwise treble-happy pickup. here's a simple test to see which you prefer: hookup yr guitar through the 250K pots, then bypass them, hooking the pickup directly to the output jack. that will give you and indication as to what the 500k pot would sound like with volume at max.

[Frenchie]

Is there any easy way to experiment with this stuff without soldering the output jack on, and putting all the strings back on?

Do you guys use another guitar's stings near the guts of the modded guitar to check this stuff out?

[RandomHero]

A very good ear can tell the tone difference if you so much as tap a screwdriver on the pickup and twiddle the knobs. Unfortunately, with a strat, there's not much getting around stringing it back up to test the electronics in it for the full sound, that I know of. =(

[bam]

uh, Frenchie, unless I'm mistaken, the stock cap values for a MIM and US Standard Strats are .022..

and Guya, remember, audio taper pots' value in 5 is not equal to half its value. (i.e. a 500k pot's value in 5 is not 250k)..

(but in blend pots, it's another story.. there is a thread back then in GN1 which discussed about blend pots, and unfortunately I'm not interested enough in them )

[JohnH]

To try the sound of a 500k pot, when you have 250k's fitted, why not temporarily connect a 220k or 270k resistor between the pot and the wire to ground? It will then not go to zero volume, but you'll hear the difference in sound. Easy to restore when you have tested.

One thing about the higher value pots, I reckon that you'll be more subject to treble roll-off as you reduce volume, due to cable capacitance.

My guitar actually had 100k's, for volume and tone pots (original equipment on my 76 Shergold), with its two humbuckers. Together, thats a 50k load on the pickups. When Id realised about pot values and tone, i thought that id try a switch to totally bypass the volume and tone pots. This added some brightness, but to my ears, i could only notice the difference with a single pickup series wired. My single coil and combination or parallel settings, being of lower impedance, had no change to the sound that I could hear. I also found that i actually didnt like how it changed the humbuckers, too shrill and uneven across the notes. So I removed the switch, having learnt alot. Luckily I had not yet drilled a hole for it.

[GuyaGuy]

bam said:

Guya, remember, audio taper pots' value in 5 is not equal to half its value. (i.e. a 500k pot's value in 5 is not 250k)..

(but in blend pots, it's another story..

yeah, what i meanter say was that i wasn't sure if a linear pot at "5" actually was half its value. i know they are in theory. but i'venever used one.

frenchie (or should i say "freedomie?), if i were you, i'd just throw in the 250Ks, play em a month, and if you feel you could use a wee bit more treble or brightness, then eventually get around to swapping em. it's possible you won't even notice a big difference if you do swap.

[Frenchie]

Thanks Guyaguy. Think I'll do that. That blend pot interests me as well, but I better just try to get it working before I tackle something else.

What I really think might be cool is the treble tone pot, bass tone pot like a G&L S500.

[bam]

.. means extra electronics inside .. :lol:

[x189player]

RandomHero said:

Unfortunately, with a strat, there's not much getting around stringing it back up to test the electronics in it for the full sound, that I know of. =(

Sure there is- hold the pickups up to another, fully strung guitar. Or hold the strings of another guitar over the pickups, if that's more convenient.

[Frenchie]

;D Well I just finished the QTB and bridge tone mods.
Interesting results. I ended up putting a cap off of each tone pot. I didn't want to roll off too much off the neck, so I put a .01uf on the neck and a .022 on the bridge. I had planned on putting a .022 on both but I broke my second cap that I bought.

I don't notice much of a difference hum-wise, but I noticed that the guitar doesn't hum with my hands off the strings. I guess that means I did it right?

With no load on the mid RWRP pickup, it is now my brightest one in the guitar. The tone on the bridge works well, but I feel it bleeds off too much treble with a 250K audio pot and a .022 uf cap.

I think I will have to try the 500K pots with the current caps and see what happens.

The hardest part I had with the whole exercise was getting the old wires off of the top of the pots, and out of the pot arms. It think solid core wire, (what I used to wire everything with) is much easier to work with than stranded.

All in all, a good learning experience!

Thanks for all the input!

[GuyaGuy]

good to hear you had positive results. that hum when you're not touching strings or bridge is the main hum you wanna get rid of. your body normally acts as ground so the mod relieves your body from some of that responsibility.
for removing wires, you should look into gettin a desolderer or using wick to desolder. makes it a bit easier and protects your parts!

[bam]

Congrats ! :wink: