School me on POTS & CAPS

[Jersey Jack]

Being the Springsteen fanboy that I am, and hearing that Bruce uses Joe Barden pickups on his Tele, I was prepared to shoulder the burden of new debt and install Joe Bardens in mine.

But while scanning the JB website, I find that the pickups demand other upgrades. I really know nothing about pots and capacitors, and I have some questions. First, are these upgrades really necessary? How much are they likely to cost? Can I simply tell my local guitar tech to do them, or do I have to do research to find the best pots and caps, etc.?

This is really confusing! I thought swapping pickups was simply that....

Here what the JB website says about POTS:

Joe Barden pickups are designed to work best with 250k audio taper pots. Other pot values can be used and will affect tone slightly. 250k pots tend to give the guitar a warmer sound than pots with higher values. 500k pots are fine for darker guitars such as a Les Paul in which you would want to retain more highs. Teles and Strats are brighter guitars and benefit from the use of a 250k pot to add some warmth.

We recommend Audio taper pots to achieve more gradual audio reduction. Audio taper is more natural to the ear. Audio taper pots have most of its resistance in the last 50% of its rotation in contrast to a linear taper in which 50% of its total resistance is already achieved at the halfway point of rotation.

And then CAPS:

We recommend using a 120pf (pico farad) capacitor on the volume control and a .047uf (micro farad) for the tone control.

As you back off the volume slightly, the objective is to reduce volume, maintain tone and limit the amount of highs that get rolled off. Volume caps allow you to preserve more highs as the volume is rolled back.

[milocj]

If your current Tele is actually a Fender it is very likely that you already have the 250k audio taper pots and a .047 tone cap (and I would expect it on most clones, too). This is pretty normal for stock pickups on Teles, though I think some might use a .022 cap. The 120pF cap is a treble bleed and not all guitars have one installed. Not everybody likes the treble bleed "mod".

Basically, you probably already have most of this installed in the guitar and it could simply be a matter of swapping the pups. If you are having a tech do it anyway it would be very simple for him to change the values to those recommended by Barden, and I would expect him to have those parts in stock. They aren't anything exotic. If you needed any changes it would most likely be the two capacitors and they usually run less than a dollar each. Pots are usually $5 each, tops. The tech may charge you an extra $10-15 in labor if he has to swap both pots and the caps, but that's just a guess.

[cmm71]

You would be fine to just change out the pickups. If you're currently playing a stock Fender Tele then you already have quality 250K pots installed. Don't worry so much about audio pots vs linear taper pots, if you're playing a Fender you have the correct pots. As far as caps go I think you'll be fine with what you currently have. I think Fender uses .025(ish) caps stock in their modern gear, I usually use .047 but that's a personal choice. The 120 pf cap on the volume pot is for the treble bleed circiut, at least that's what I think they're referring to. I don't use that circiut and Fender doesn't install it on their stock instruments. That's completely optional.

You certainly did the right thing in going to the website and reviewing their install recomendations, but in this case I think you'd be good to simply swap them out.

[bossaholic]

Hey Jersey Jack, since you are a Springsteen nut (as I am), take your guitar over to Phil Petillo (he's over in Ocean, not to far from you) and have him do the work. He is Bruce's main man when it comes to his Esquire.

Talk about getting a Bruce vibe!!!!!!

[jefrs]

Pot are quite cheap, caps are even cheaper. There are two main makes of pot for guitar, CTS and Alpha.

CTS have a bigger nut and require a larger hole. Alpha are used on nearly all the better 'imports' and Gibson. CTS do not appear to be available as linear nor are as many lengths available as Alpha.

My preferred volume pot would be linear because it offers better fine control, B250k for single-coils, B500k for humbuckers and P90 types. For tone a log A250k with a 47nF for the tele, a 22nF may be preferred e.g. in a strat or with some humbuckers etc.

I too dislike the treble bleed 120pF (I have also seen reference to 220pF here), because it turns the vol into a form of tone control.

Experiment, everyone has a different idea of the sound they want.

[Jersey Jack]

Thanks, everyone, this is exactly what I was hoping to hear! I had feared that I was getting myself in a big project and even more $$$ than the Bardens already are!

My Tele is an American Standard, as of now perfectly stock, but soon to be Bardenized.

It's nice to know that some things are as simple as they seem.

And thanks to my fellow bossoholic for the Phil Petillo reference. I might just check him out.