Can someone explain sound difference when upgrading pots?

[wyattt]

I'm looking to get a 72 Tele Custom RI and I have been reading over the threads on it here and have seen some brief mention of pickup upgrades and changing out certain pots to 500k or 1meg.

Can someone explain to me what upgrading the pots will do on either pickup?

This will be my only HB equipped guitar and I have heard so so things about the neck pup. I'm an indie rock/worship music guy who likes bands like Death Cab for Cutie, Bon Iver, Sigur Ros/Jonsi, etc... I also appreciate the tones of The Rolling Stones, and Tom Petty. I'm getting ready to buy some new gear since mine was stolen from our home and will be getting an AC15C1 and a DRRI (or something similar) to play with this guitar. So I am not looking for super hard rock sounds or anything.

[sjtalon]

Well I wouldn't call it upgrade.

Normally the rule of thumb is 250 KΩ for single coils and 500 KΩ for Humbuckers.


The higher the value, the brighter or more open the pup will sound.

SO:
HB's are usually kind of darker so if you put a 250K vol. pot in they would be pretty muddy.

Some P90's (that's a different bird) have 1 Meg. pots to really open them up, like in a Jazzmaster.

[Zenzeypher]

Yeah it's more a change, neither better nor worse.

Just means you get more high end, any 500ks in single coils get whipped right out...sounds like a fat chick trying to eat diamonds.

[lckyjcky]

Additionally, most pots out there have tolerance levels ranging from 10% to 20% or more. It means your 250K pot may be anywhere from 200K to 300K in real value. When I was re-wiring my Agile Al-3000 LP clone, I had to buy a bunch (I had bought a bag-full of pots) and carefully select/match the values as close as possible. I know it's not necessary to do so, but I'm cool like that.

[electricjr]

What they said- your guitar has 500ks stock; switching to 1 meg (1000k) will make it brighter. If the guitar sounds good to you as is, don't feel you need to make any changes (easier said than done for us mod freaks). If you've got plenty of high end on tap with your DRRI and Vox, it may not be an issue to swap pots.

[wyattt]

Ok sounds good. Thanks!

[robt57]

I have 3 with no tone circuits at all. And always use a 1Meg Pot with P90s for the Vol.
I also like to use 500k when I have a tone in single coil guitars as well. Just to illustrate one persons preference.

In your guitar, if it was mice would have a .022 Cap on a 500k Tone Pot, and I eben like a .022 over a .049 with single coils Teles. I leave Strats stock. I do not have one Tele out of 6 with a stock tone circuit FWIW, but do have a Bone Stock Vintage setup clone Strat with Fender Pickups. Which I still lean towards in Teles and Strats, more so in Strats.

Just one player direction, so when you dial in your tools, don't rule anything out I say.