Tone Pot On Guitar

[Structo]

I have a dual humbucker guitar. (Schecter C1 Classic) that has
Seymour Duncan JB and Jazz pickups.
It has 500K pots, one volume and one tone with a 5 way blade switch.

For a very nicely built guitar (Korean) the pots are the POS import type 16mm.

Really not surprised.
The tone pot has never worked very well at all.
Basically on or off, with very little in between.
The tone cap is one of those little green chicklet film caps.

I ordered a couple new full size CTS pots for it.

For some reason I ordered an audio taper for the volume and linear pot for the tone.
I hope that wasn't a mistake but I thought maybe a linear pot would work better for the tone.

I also ordered a .022uF Vitamin Q tone cap.
Never tried one of those so what the hey. $14

Did I make a mistake by ordering a linear pot for the tone control?

[Andy Le Blanc]

It depends on how you use it, most tone issues are volume or gain related.
as far as a pure instrument tone, what it less brite, roll back the gain a touch.

Tone pot taper can be either, if it's cap to ground after the R they're usually linear.
If it's R to ground and the cap is dressed from the hot side to the wiper use audio.

[Andy Le Blanc]

its not cast in stone, but usually.....

[Structo]

I guess at this point I don't understand why the tone pot was acting like a tone switch, rather than a gradual tone shift.
The guitar came with a .022uF cap rather than the typical .047uF in most humbucker guitars.

I had one of those .022uF Russian PIO caps that I put in it.
Too dark!
But still has an abrupt on/off.

I don't find myself using the tone controls on guitars very often.

In fact I may install a blower switch on this guitar.

[Andy Le Blanc]

cheez pot with a nappy taper probably.

Is the switch in the schecter scheme a standard 5-way?

[BTF]

If it makes things any better, back when he was technical editor for Guitar Player Magazine, Craig Anderton used to recommend a linear taper pot for tone duty and a log for volume- this was due to differences in how the human ear hears tapers relative to frequency cutoff and volume differences. Actually, unless you're sweeping the pots back and forth, for tone control I doubt you'd notice a big difference. The main gist I think would be that a particular frequency roll-off would be at different points on the knob.

Regards, BTF.

[Structo]

No it's some weird kind of five way super switch, single wafer.
But not the normal kind of super switch I have on a couple strats.
At least it isn't one of those cheap box switches that break after 6 months...

To tell the truth, these blade switches have always confused me somewhat.
I would have to sit down with a meter to map out what switches what.

You can see the maps of the pickup splitting on the drawing.
It really is a nice playing guitar.
I bought it brand new in 2004.
Paid around $600 for it.

Not too many quality carved top, neck thru guitars can be had for so little $$$.

In fact I was looking at Schecters website and they no longer make neck thru guitars.
Some are bolt on necks and the better ones are set neck now.

Also the poly on it isn't the typical 1/16" crap you see on most imports.
I chipped a little off on the lower bout and it's pretty thin.

I just wish they would have splurged a little more on the pots.

The knobs are also kind of strange, they are solid heavy metal with set screws but they have splines cut into them so they mount on splined split shaft pots.

Like I said, about the only thing I'm not too wild about is the "Vine of Life" inlay on the fretboard, which is a bit over the top for me.
It actually sat in it's case for a couple years when I was building strats again. But recently I was hankering for some humbucker tone so I dug it out of the case and put some new 10's on it.
It really is a great playing guitar and with the Duncans, it sounds great too.

[img:326:1000]http://www.woodbrass.com/images/woodbra ... C+3TSB.JPG[/img]

[briane]

Youll find a big diff with those CTS pots...When I switched over every single guitar became much quieter.

I found only xicon and the mojo vitamin Q caps to be really quiet. OD, mallory, ceramics all had a very loud humm to them.

[Cliff Schecht]

I've got a Dean Evo 7 string guitar that I almost bought at a pawn shop (they wanted too much), saw it disappear from the pawn shop and reappear at a Guitar Center a good $200 cheaper. I bought it on the spot. The guitar is an all mahogany neck-thru beast that weighs more than my ES335. I love the neck on the guitar though, it's huge with big ol' fat frets and plays quite well, especially for it's size. The only downside is that the pickups are weak as shit and I could never afford to replace them with units that the guitar deserves. Maybe someday..

[Structo]

Cool!
So maybe I did good to order that Vitamin Q tone cap.

I know several years ago when I built a Strat I installed a Hovland Musicap.
I couldn't believe the difference between that and the orange drop I had in it before.
I swear even with the tone pot on 10 I could hear a difference.

[Bob-I]

I swear even with the tone pot on 10 I could hear a difference.

Of course. The pot, unless it's the type that switches out of the circuit, still is 500K across the cap.

Some folks like to disconnect the tone pot to get the brightest tone possible. Personally I like the tone pot even though I seldom use it.

[Andy Le Blanc]

The insertion loss keeps the top in check.

[billyz]

I recommend the Audio Taper for the tone pot. Much smoother rolloff than a Linear Taper pot. I recently picked up a 2007 59 historic les paul. The controls were Weird. I could not understand what was going on. So I took them out and measured them. All 500k Linear taper, tone and volume. Actually it worked better on the Volume controls. The tone controls would do just what you described . Nothing until the very last and then bam , all rolled off.

You do need a good taper though. CTS are better than most but not as good as the old set of Centralab pots I put in it. It is all about the taper I think. Also, I wired in a Cornell dublier Greenie , in the vintage style wiring.

Basically you have the tone cap coming from the switch (output) side of the volume pot. Also connect to the outside leg of the tone pot with the center leg grounded. I tried just moving to the switch side of the Volume pot and left the tone pot side alone . It sounded just as good as the full vintage wiring to my ears. But I ended up doing the full rewire just in case my ears missed something.

Bottom line it made a real improvement to the tone control function which I use a lot.

[Andy Le Blanc]

Thats a cool ref. Little things in circuit dress really do make a difference.

I think I have a few of those tubular cap type in the bone yard, have to
check and measure them.

[Structo]

Thanks that was a good read.
I think I used to know a lot of that stuff but it has faded with time.

Too bad that SingleCoil place is in Germany.