Dearmond Rowe Gold foil / harmony pot values??

[greggoad]

hi. ive ordered some Curtis Novak Dearmond Rowe gold foil pickups which I plan to put in a Gibson es135. I'm tired of my humbucker sound. I have some mounting rings to make them fit.

I've searched around and found that the old harmonys had 1 meg vol pots and 250k tone pots.

Does anybody have experience with these values? Anybody have experience with harmony guitars with this wiring scheme? Too bright? Just right?

I'm gonna have to make a wiring harness on some cardboard and do the nightmare fishing to pull everything back through this hollow body. I hope to get it right the first time.

I was thinking I'd go 500k pots all around unless somebody chimes in and says the 1 meg vol / 250k tone is the way to go.

Thanks!!

 

[Antigua Tele]

Rule of thumb, 500k for anything that isn't a Fender pickup with AlNiCo pole pieces. If the pickup has steel parts and any kind of metal cover, the higher resistance helps retain a good resonant Q.

 

[nic'o'caster]

1 meg vol is not ideal since the change of volume is too brutal. You could go with 250k but a lesser value will limit the possibilities. I'd recommend two 500k pots. Good luck with the harness installation, it's always a PITA...

 

[FlarbNarb]

I like 1M myself BUT you’d better be ready to become a skilled tone knob user. I do like being able to have my pickups absolutely wide open for certain things and 1M gives you that. In settings where I’m playing in a large ensemble, that cut is invaluable. Powering through various effects that can dampen definition, it’s a great thing to have on tap. In a small group or trio it can be much. But again, that’s what tone knobs are for.

 

[Peegoo]

@greggoad

Contact Novak and ask the question.

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www.curtisnovak.com

I built a gold-foil Tele a while back; each pickup has two alnico bars like a P90 but the mags are on the outside edges of the central, narrow (Fender-like) coil; I used 250K pots (both audio taper) and it works great. My experience is different from yours because these are not the same pickup but they are really bright sounding like a typical low-power gold foil. These pickups are from the 1960s.