software

if i were to get a bright humbucker in an alder guitar, would getting a 250k pot and rolling it back a bit be the same as getting a 500k pot?

Almost . . . but you have it backwards.

Rolling a 500k pot back to quot;5quot;, is the same thing as having a 250k tone pot on quot;10quot;.

Having a 250k tone pot, is the same as a 500k, turned down to quot;5quot;.

wait that confuses me. so will a humbucker with a 500k pot be brighter, or will a 250k pot be brighter (when turned all the way up to 10)?

ok now i get it. thank you.


Originally Posted by ArtieTooAlmost . . . but you have it backwards.

Rolling a 500k pot back to quot;5quot;, is the same thing as having a 250k tone pot on quot;10quot;.

Having a 250k tone pot, is the same as a 500k, turned down to quot;5quot;.

Of course, that's assuming you're using linear tapered pots. Most guitars use audio tapered.

Ryan

Think of the cap as a high-frequency quot;leakquot; to ground. The pot is a resistor. It quot;resistsquot; the flow of the signal, (high-frequencies), to that leak. The more blockage, (resistance), the less highs leak out.

quot;Outquot; . . . in this case, meaning to ground. Not making it to the amp.


Originally Posted by ArtieTooRolling a 500k pot back to quot;5quot;, is the same thing as having a 250k tone pot on quot;10quot;.

As Ryan pointed out that applies to linear pots which generally aren't used in guitars. The taper of audio pots will vary (anywhere from 8% to 20%) but the typical replacement pot uses a 10% taper, which means that a 500k pot set to 5.5 will have a resistance to ground of approximately 50k.

Not picking nits as your answer to nepalnt21 was basically correct.

im just getting more cornfused with like every new post. can someone summarize all of this in dumb- ass terms?

500k @ 10
is brighter than 250k @ 10

thats it...

great, thanks.

I confused the issue a bit by speaking in terms of the quot;knobquot;, rather than the resistance. Steve and Ryan are correct about the linear pot not being at half resistance, while at quot;5quot;.

So here's an easier way to think of it. Lets assume that the cap value stays constant for this example. The only thing we're going to change is the pot value, and lets use three popular values: 250k, 500k, and 1 meg. (1000k)

All of these pots will be identical when on quot;0quot;. Linear or audio taper.
They will all sound identical - with quite a bit of the highs rolled off.

As we start to turn the tone knob quot;upquot;, we will start to add in more highs.
Lets say we hit the 250k point. On the 250k pot - thats all folks. You can't go any higher, ie., you can't dial in any more highs. On the 500k pot, we can keep turning some more. We dial in more high end til we hit 500k. Now the 500k pot has hit its limit. With the 1 meg pot, we can continue dialing in some more.

Thats it in theory. From a practical standpoint, you hit some upper limit where you won't notice much return for dialing in more resistance. For many people, that practical limit is 500k. Thus, 250k and 500k tone pots are popular.

Hope that makes more sense.


Originally Posted by BlueGuitarAs Ryan pointed out that applies to linear pots which generally aren't used in guitars. The taper of audio pots will vary (anywhere from 8% to 20%) but the typical replacement pot uses a 10% taper, which means that a 500k pot set to 5.5 will have a resistance to ground of approximately 50k.

Not picking nits as your answer to nepalnt21 was basically correct.

I don't know if the math lines up with this or not, but I just tested a 500k audio taper pot, and rolling it back to around 7.5-8 gave a reading of around 250k.