Can somebody explain 500/250k pots like i'm a 4 year old...

[ex3.8]

OK! 500k with this and that resistor and cap in parrallel......series bla bla bla.....
What is the "AUDIBLE" difference between 250 / 500
i run my other guitar H/S/S (like my silhouette ) one volume but no tone knob. if i run strait without caps and resistor is there a down side to this????

 

[Estin]

500k pots are used in guitars to give more output. like les pauls and the axis guitars and stuff. 250K pots are used for a slightly cleaner and warmer sound "ie. strats, the albert lee model etc.." using a single 500k volume pot with no caps or resisters is just fine. i modded a tele with a single hotrails humbucker in the bridge straight to a volume pot and then to the 1/4 out. it rocked. only limitation is that you have less variaty of sound options. i've also rigged a single humbucker up to a on/off switch and thats it! click on for high gain, click off for no signal. very cool!

 

[JDouglee]

I don't know about output, but 500k is considered the standard for humbucking sounds. It's a brighter sound, whereas a 250k is commonly used with single coils being that it tends to tame the highs.

Caps and/or resistors across the volume pot will allow you to turn your guitar volume down without losing high end response.

 

[EVH_5150]

500K

FUNNY YOU SHOULD POST THIS.

I just built a Kramer EVH frankie Replica, and the was considering the 500k volume pot I always use. I always thought they were best for a smooth roll off of volume for dynamics.

As oppossed to the 250k which are much more abrupt and cut the volume down in a undesirable manner. Like a quiter part in a song, turning down cleans up your tone a bit. But the 250k kinda just loses all that tone and just turns down oddly.

The 500k are most common in Les Pauls, I think the 250k are common in Strats and tele type axes.

I have 2 AXIS axes, I they are my main axes. I absoultly love them. I have a les paul Custom, Standard strat, JemVwh, washburn nuno n2 & n4, And this awesome kramer I just finished. And the axis is still my fav as far as total comfort feel in my hands.

Hope this helps.

 

[ex3.8]

Cool.....

OK Cool I have been running my Eddy'ed strat with 1 humbi and 1 vol for 20 years.... I gess it just hit me this could be wrong!!!!!!!!

 

[EVH_5150]

?

I'm trying to figure out whether that was a serious Or a sarcastic reply?

I'm leaning towards the later, but maybe i'm wrong.

hmmph,.... ...................... Ahhh i'm tired, I'll read it again later. lol

 

[ex3.8]

God no

No no no Maybe it came out wrong!!! I am dead serious!!!
I did this to my strat when i was 15 you know.....
young, dumb and full of c.. !
I drilled the inside to put in a humbi, i had a floyd put in...
All this was done before Eddy had kramer make his guitars...
So last fall i got a silhouette special and i don't have the ball to open it up and have a look..... After being married with 2 kids the " If it aint broken......." theory is more relevent than ever..
I just replaced my pick ups in my strat with Bill Lawrence's... I received a schematic with all these caps and resistors and pots and crap. I wanted to make sure I could "NOT" use all this and go straight to the point (output)

BTW: I am a serious Van Halen nut case always was...always will be

 

[meangene]

Yo guys, Mean gene reporting in for duty! Just to clear up some of the 250K/500K confusion. Yes traditionally 250K pots have been used on Strats (single coils) and 500K on humbuckers (Gibson's). Back when Baker guitars first fired up we did rather intense R&D on pot values, caps, resistors etc... The cool thing is there is no right or wrong way to use these different value pots and you have to let your ear make the decision. Dudley here made a nice switching box for sampling all pot values for volume/tone and various caps as well for the tone control. I personally prefer 250K's on all humbuckers. Why? 250K's will knock a tiny amount of high end off when the volume is one ten but its hardly even noticeable. The beauty is when you roll it down, it stays clearer meaning the tone doesnt alter much at all. 500K's I think of as a volume/tone pot meaning when you roll down on a 500K they tend to take your highs away as well which is something I dont like for clean clear note defintion in chord picking. There are lumps and bumps in the range of the 500K where as the 250K is much smoother. Some of tapering of the volume is not associated with the pot value, its more directly associated with the type of pot "audio taper verses linear taper" where as the audio is what our ears prefer to hear. Also the element in pots these days has changed greatly from the pots we grew up using, in some ways pots have gotten better but in others they've gotten worse. Hope I throughly confused everyone with this post. So I think for a smooth volume pot with no coloration of tone when turning down try the 250K volume, for interesting tone spots or shades try the 500K volume, its all what you prefer. Gain isnt really affected by a volume pot on ten its more the eq that changes slightly.

 

[jongitarz]

He's a windy S.O.B ain't he? Just kidding...good answer Gene!

 

[H.A.]

I was wonderin if Gene-o was gonna chime in on this...thanks Gene

 

[Axdoctor]

I use 250k pots for higher highs and lower lows, they send the tone in a different direction I had to do it Gene-O

 

[EVH_5150]

500k

Hmmm, now maybe I am thinking of the old days. lol

Hey man, me 2,.... I am also I serious VH/VAI nut job. lol
i TORE UP MY 1ST strat copy when i was 9. Did the whole thing up like Ed's frankie. It was a butcher job but I loved it. I learned how to do all my own axe work like Ed did. Ruining stuff, learning the hard way. haha Which is great because I don't have to pay some idiot to fix my axes.

I swear it was 500k that was the 1 I liked for a smooth very controllable knob from the old days.
NO jokes ya sick pervs!!!! HAHA!

A lot of new guitars have a crappy knob that as soon as you breath on it, it cuts wayyy down to like half volume. Which I hate, because I prefer total control over where my volume is for dynamics. So I yank that crap out and slap in a 500k.

My axis though, those babies are set up nice already.

 

[meangene]

Far out man, comedians in the house, gotta love em. I'm all over my volume knob as well and dynamics is king, its really hard to hear the difference unless you have a quick change out box or a few guitars to a/b. Smells like someone broke wind over here, I can smell it.

Hey HA is in da house, whats up there mac daddy! If you and Eric arent doing anything tonight, Mike and Daryl need someone to choke a guitar, they're trying out some hot shot bass player and I cant make it.

Rock on my brethren!

 

[H.A.]

Kewl Gene-o I'll give em a call, I don't know if I have Daryl's # though... I do have Mike's though

 

[Skoorb]

Thanks Gene for the solid answer. I have been using 250K pots with Hbers for years after doing it by mistake while wiring a guitar in a hurry. Turns out that the p´up I was wiring up (a SD JB) was designed to be used with a 250K. All I knew was it sounded better to my ear.

 

[Estin]

all this talk has made me curious. i wonder if you could take a les paul and say wire a SD 59 to 250k pots for the neck and a SD jb to 500k pots for the bridge... that would be cool to have warmer lower output neck pup tones, and a hotter high output bridge lead sound. it should work just fine this way due to the fact when running either pup seperate it would be a seperate circuit. just don't know how it would sound when you flipped the switch to center and combined the pups. anyone ever play around with this idea?

 

[tommyindelaware]

lindy fraylin's site gives some good info on pots also....
plus your amps input impedance also helps determine your high rolloff. different amps respond differently to a givin pot. so..... if ya need a certain type of rolloff ...yer gonna have to try different combonations to find what yer lookin for.
oh yea..cables have an effect too.......
fun stuff...huh ???
tommy in delaware