[Rabelais]

I want to get more oohmph out of my Super Distortion/PAF Pro combo. I know a 1 mega ohm volume pot would make them scream, but I’m wondering about the effect of a 1 mega ohm tone pot on the sound. Will it be much brighter?. A friend of mine has two 1 mega ohm tone/volume pots for his X2N/Tone Zone pups.

[DarthPhineas]

There are some interesting articles out there about how different value potentiometers in V and/or T positions can have specific results.

Probably best to get some 1 MegOhm pots and give it a go.



As for getting the most out of a pickups.....For my experience, I typically get the most out of a pickup by using quality switches, pots, wires, and jacks....as well as removing the tone knob (and any other caps and resistors) from the circuit.

[Rabelais]

There are some interesting articles out there about how different value potentiometers in V and/or T positions can have specific results.

Probably best to get some 1 MegOhm pots and give it a go.



As for getting the most out of a pickups.....For my experience, I typically get the most out of a pickup by using quality switches, pots, wires, and jacks....as well as removing the tone knob (and any other caps and resistors) from the circuit.

That’s another option. Many metal guitarists do that: single volume pot and that’s it.

[TheBeautifullyDepressed]

I want to get more oohmph out of my Super Distortion/PAF Pro combo. I know a 1 mega ohm volume pot would make them scream, but I’m wondering about the effect of a 1 mega ohm tone pot on the sound. Will it be much brighter?. A friend of mine has two 1 mega ohm tone/volume pots for his X2N/Tone Zone pups.

The tone will get brighter; it's just a question of how much, which is dependent on the other specs of your guitar, e.g. body wood, neck & fingerboard wood , single or double-cutaway, 24.75" scale vs 25.5" scale, hard-tail or trem, etc.

[Rabelais]

I want to get more oohmph out of my Super Distortion/PAF Pro combo. I know a 1 mega ohm volume pot would make them scream, but I’m wondering about the effect of a 1 mega ohm tone pot on the sound. Will it be much brighter?. A friend of mine has two 1 mega ohm tone/volume pots for his X2N/Tone Zone pups.

The tone will get brighter; it's just a question of how much, which is dependent on the other specs of your guitar, e.g. body wood, neck & fingerboard wood , single or double-cutaway, 24.75" scale vs 25.5" scale, hard-tail or trem, etc.

It’s a bolt on, Basswood body, Maple neck, 24.75 single cut guitar.

[DavidSchwab]

A 1meg volume will be brighter... until you turn it down. To illustrate this, let’s suppose you are using a linear taper pot.

If you turn it to 50%, you have 500k to ground, but you also have 500k series resistance. That can dull the tone more that a 500k pot turned down.

I rarely play with my volume on anything but 10, but some people like to use that to clean the sound up.

A treble bleed circuit fixes it however.




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[jcknowles89]

So I have always used 500k Pots in both my spots. However I use resistors to get different pot values for each pickup. through my use of resistors I have my neck value with a value of 250k and my bridge at 333k both going into the same 500k volume pot. So if youre using a 1M volume pot you have more options.

I have heard that alot of vintage gibson pots were actually higher than 500k. So if you have 1M Pots through a combo of resistors you have more options available to you for experimenting with Pot values.

[DavidSchwab]

So I have always used 500k Pots in both my spots. However I use resistors to get different pot values for each pickup. through my use of resistors I have my neck value with a value of 250k and my bridge at 333k both going into the same 500k volume pot. So if youre using a 1M volume pot you have more options.

I have heard that alot of vintage gibson pots were actually higher than 500k. So if you have 1M Pots through a combo of resistors you have more options available to you for experimenting with Pot values.

Keep in mind that if you have both pickups on at the same time, those different pot values are out the window!

More precisely you end up with 142.8k across both pickups.


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[jcknowles89]

I do it before the switch so not sure how that effects the resistance but It still lets quite a bit of high end through the way I do it. But your probably right though.

[DavidSchwab]

I do it before the switch so not sure how that effects the resistance but It still lets quite a bit of high end through the way I do it. But your probably right though.

It’s just the way it is with two volume controls. Same with tone controls. It’s pointless having two because they interact.

That’s why I use a single volume and tone on my guitars. I rewired my ‘81 LP Standard that way too. Replaced the other two knobs with a Varitone and bass roll off.


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[darkbluemurder]

So I have always used 500k Pots in both my spots. However I use resistors to get different pot values for each pickup. through my use of resistors I have my neck value with a value of 250k and my bridge at 333k both going into the same 500k volume pot. So if youre using a 1M volume pot you have more options.

I have heard that alot of vintage gibson pots were actually higher than 500k. So if you have 1M Pots through a combo of resistors you have more options available to you for experimenting with Pot values.

Keep in mind that if you have both pickups on at the same time, those different pot values are out the window!

More precisely you end up with 142.8k across both pickups.

That is because the volume pots are in parallel to each other in that scenario.

Cheers Stephan