My little sound experiment with a Neck bucker and some pots

[Stevie 202]

I recently did some experimentation with wiring and pots on my MIM Std Tele.
For you old hands this is probably not news but I thought I’d post for the newbs and ‘semi-newbs’ among us.

I put a SD ’59 humbucker in the neck and an SD Alnico pro II in the bridge of my tele and used the original 250k pots with a .042uf cap.

It sounded pretty good. The ‘bucker had a nice woody sound, still had a bit of snap and the bridge pup had some nice spank. All’s well.

THEN I got to reading about 500k pots with a ‘bucker for more sparkle, so I found the wiring diagram for a Fat Tele and set to work.

I put in 2 CTS 500k pots, a .022uf cap and a 270k resistor on the bridge pup.
Result? The humbucker got really bright; almost single-coil territory and the bridge pup became ice-pick shrill. I then took out the 270k resistor and replaced it with a 500k resistor. STILL way too shrill.

I then changed out the 500k tone pot for a 250k so I could get better control of the ‘ice-pick’ factor. Better, but not best.

Yesterday I replaced the 250k pots and the .042uf cap. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the best setup for this axe.

Some thoughts about this exercise;

It is not a universal rule that ‘buckers need 500k pots. There are other elements that come into play as well.

In my case, the guitar is very bright to begin with and the vintage style bridge with 3 barrel brass saddles makes it even brighter.

There is also the human factor; my old, tired ears do not respond well to those frequency ranges and I prefer slightly less EDGE on my tone.
(YMM most definately V)

It was a fun and interesting exercise and I got to practice my soldering skills too!

Now I can re-wire one o’ them bad boys blindfolded!
Cheers

[mellecaster]

Stevie....I had almost the same exact results....which proves, don't believe everything you read on the World Wide Web....
Only thing I did different, was to purposely wire them out of phase, for a Nice Middle switch sound (just to be different)...but I agree, the 250K pots work quite well w/ the SD 59.

[Stevie 202]

mellecaster,


Nope, don't believe everything on the WWW.

Main thing I learned is to DIY and see what my EARS are telling me.....


BTW- When i first put the '59 in it was out of phase with the stock pup. I almost left it that way.......it WAS kinda cool sounding.


Cheers

[mgwhit]

Thanks for posting this! I've been contemplating a build with the '59 and was stumped about what pots to use in a two-knob set-up. The best thing about 250K's is that you can use the Fender no-load pots. That might be an easy way to get a bit more brightness out of the humbucker.

[okie]

I'm running SD SH-1N '59 in neck, Broadcaster in Bridge, 250k pots, 0.047 cap, vintage bridge and brass saddles. Pretty much same set-up as yours and works for me too.

[Stevie 202]

Originally Posted by mgwhit

Thanks for posting this! I've been contemplating a build with the '59 and was stumped about what pots to use in a two-knob set-up. The best thing about 250K's is that you can use the Fender no-load pots. That might be an easy way to get a bit more brightness out of the humbucker.

I thought about doing this as well untill I realized that I actually like the tone of the '59 the way it is.
(Kinda 'woody' but not 'muddy' LOL! does that make sense?)

YMMV.

[w0odman]

Well you might also try using 500 k pots and a .047 cap. Using a .022 also does a little to brighten things up. On my tele with two humbuckers I have a 1meg Tone pot, a 500k pushpull Volume and a .047 cap. So don't be afraid to really mix things up.

[Stevie 202]

Woodman,

I've got two complete control assemblies that I swap back and forth and I might just try some other combos down the road.
If nothing else, it's sure a lot of fun!

Cheers