Affect of different pot and cap values in guitar with different pickup types

[Bob411]

My neighbor is building a guitar. He wants to have P90s in neck and bridge and a jaguar pickup in the middle. For simplicity sake and to try for answers, I'll ask the question like it's a HSS Strat.

When you combine the humbucker with one of the single coils, does the different cap and pot values for the humbucker affect the single coil and vice versa?

In say, a Les Paul with 4 knobs, when you combine the two pickups, the other pickup has the same pot and cap values. He is worried the electricity will take whichever one is easiest or, both. Will electricity still take the shortest route to ground, only inches, instead of the easiest?

Hope this makes sense, I really tried.

 

[baimun]

Unfortunately.... some of it is trial and error based on the exact pickups in use.

I've had some guitars where I've had to add/remove/change treble bleeds, tone caps, or often times I like to use no-loads for tone controls so they're part of the circuit at 9, but if I turn them to 10, it disconnects the tone pot for a mild treble boost.

I've seen many HSS solutions like Suhr circuits that "show" different resistances to the different pickup choices or I've used a 350K volume pot.

Might be worth just throwing a 500K volume with a scrap pickguard and some on-off toggles to see how the pickups play nice... and then put some caps on alligator clips for testing the tone pots.

 

[GilmourD]

My neighbor is building a guitar. He wants to have P90s in neck and bridge and a jaguar pickup in the middle. For simplicity sake and to try for answers, I'll ask the question like it's a HSS Strat.

When you combine the humbucker with one of the single coils, does the different cap and pot values for the humbucker affect the single coil and vice versa?

In say, a Les Paul with 4 knobs, when you combine the two pickups, the other pickup has the same pot and cap values. He is worried the electricity will take whichever one is easiest or, both. Will electricity still take the shortest route to ground, only inches, instead of the easiest?

Hope this makes sense, I really tried.

So, you said you're asking like it's an HSS Strat but then reference the 2V2T setup of a Les Paul, which are two different things.

In either realm, though, it depends on exactly how it's wired up.

Also, what is the actual worry? Does he want independent function of tone controls per pickup?

 

[jrockbridge]

The biggest challenge could end up being matching the output volume of the P90's with the Jag pickup. If the P90's are much louder than the Jag pup, one simple fix could be raising the Jag pup closer to the strings, and the lowering the P90's to try to balance the outputs. Of course, this affects the way each pup will sound, and it will not necessarily end up with each pup in their sweet spot.

There are some basic principles of the parts in a typical guitar circuit that are helpful to know. A higher number pot will sound brighter than a lower number (volume & tone). So, a 500k ohm pot will sound brighter than 250k ohm pot. 500k pots are typically used for tone and volume with humbucker guitars. 250K pots are typical (volume & tone) in an SSS Strat. If you wire an SSS Strat with 500k pots, it will sound overly bright, and harsh. You'd have to roll off the tone and volume knobs a lot to tame it.

SSH wiring typically uses a combination of 250k and 500k pots as a compromise. I'm not familiar with Jaguar guitars, but it looks like Fender uses 1 meg pots which will make pups sound bright. Assuming this guitar will be 5 way switch, volume, tone, tone, perhaps, a good compromise for pot values would be 1 meg volume, 500k tone, 1 meg tone. But, I imagine those P90 pups are going to sound very bright with a 1meg volume pot maxed. Maybe, 500k volume, 1 meg tone, 500k tone would be better.

You can effectively reduce the value of a pot with a resister, or resisters. As an example, if you have a 500k pot and you solder a 750k resister in parallel, it will essentially make the pot operate as if it's a 300k pot, and the guitar pickup will sound darker. This particularly helpful when you've already wired a guitar which sounds overly bright and you want to tame it. I have one guitar that ended up too bright after wiring (with volume and tone maxed). I just roll off the volume and tone knobs.

The capacitors in a guitar circuit act as frequency filters, reducing high frequencies. A higher value (ex: .047 uF) will filter more highs, sounding darker, while a lower number (ex: .022 uF) will filter less highs.

Perhaps, the best strategy would be to wire for the typical pot and cap values based on P90 pickups, and let the chips fall where they may with the Jag pup in the middle. Anything else is likely to compromise the resulting sounds of all the pups. Of course, the Jag pup probably will not sound quite like a Jag pup without those bright pots. But, after all, it's in the middle position, which often gets skipped over by many players.

 

[Monson]

The biggest challenge could end up being matching the output volume of the P90's with the Jag pickup. If the P90's are much louder than the Jag pup, one simple fix could be raising the Jag pup closer to the strings, and the lowering the P90's to try to balance the outputs. Of course, this affects the way each pup will sound, and it will not necessarily end up with each pup in their sweet spot.

Maybe a hot Jag PU could solve this as well? I know Duncan makes one, but it supposedly has a lot more midrange than traditional Jag pups.

 

[DinoMikeSr]

In the last couple months I’ve assembled two pick guards with 2 caps and an on/on toggle. One with 500k pots in a HSS and one with 250k pots in a SSS.

There are subtle effects depending where the tone pots are set. The HSS originally had .333 caps and nothing sounded great no matter what. It was off compared to my
other strats. Had a set of singles and a split-able HB I was going to put in it but the HB went in a slide guitar and I put the singles in another pick guard and it ended up in the HSS guitar.

Anyway with the SSS guitar if I hit a pedal and it sounds sharpe or glassy I can select a different cap and it removes it. The ranges are different. The caps are what are normally used in single and hb guitars by themselves. Finding jazzy sounds is easy.

I tune it a half step down and It is in a stereo set up with a 412 and 212. I don’t have the amps cranked but use layered pedals to get where I want to be. So it may or may not react the same for you.

Anyway, I recommend trying dual caps. It’s a few pennies. Good luck.

 

[jrockbridge]

 

[Bob411]

So, you said you're asking like it's an HSS Strat but then reference the 2V2T setup of a Les Paul, which are two different things.

In either realm, though, it depends on exactly how it's wired up.

Also, what is the actual worry? Does he want independent function of tone controls per pickup?.

I'm tying to ask a question but, I'm scratching my head how to explain what the concern is. I thought a Les Paul with all 4 pots and all 4 caps being the same so, never a problem, would help point people to what I'm trying to ask.

The worry is the pots and caps of the Jag pickup affecting the P90s and the pots and caps of the P90 pickup affecting the Jag pickup. Does that happen in a HHS Strat? If it does, what can you do about it?

 

[Bob411]

Another way to ask what I'm trying to ask. Has anybody had a SSS Strat, then they put a humbucker in the bridge and the correct tone pot and cap for a humbucker on just the humbucker and noticed the two single coils don't sound as good as they did or, do the two single coils still sound the same?

 

[Bob411]

I'm pretty sure he is planing on one master tone and one master volume for the two P90s and another tone and volume for the Jag pickup. The Jag "circuit" will also have a strangle switch. Each pickup will have an on/off switch so, played individually, there won't be a problem just worried about a potential problem turning on the Jag pickup with one or both of the P90s.

 

[Bob411]

Unfortunately.... some of it is trial and error based on the exact pickups in use.

I've had some guitars where I've had to add/remove/change treble bleeds, tone caps, or often times I like to use no-loads for tone controls so they're part of the circuit at 9, but if I turn them to 10, it disconnects the tone pot for a mild treble boost.

I've seen many HSS solutions like Suhr circuits that "show" different resistances to the different pickup choices or I've used a 350K volume pot.

Might be worth just throwing a 500K volume with a scrap pickguard and some on-off toggles to see how the pickups play nice... and then put some caps on alligator clips for testing the tone pots.

It gets worse. I haven't even mentioned guitar will be 25 1/2" scale. P90s are usually in a Gibson scale guitar. Jag scale is 24". So now's a good time to invest in companies that make caps and alligator clips.

 

[baimun]

It gets worse. I haven't even mentioned guitar will be 25 1/2" scale. P90s are usually in a Gibson scale guitar. Jag scale is 24". So now's a good time to invest in companies that make caps and alligator clips.

Personally I think short vs long scale changes the feel and maybe how slinky bendy you play moreso than striking a chord with one sounds different than the other.

That said, tossing some pots on a scrap of cardboard or plastic and clipping on different combinations is always valid.

 

[jrockbridge]

It gets worse. I haven't even mentioned guitar will be 25 1/2" scale. P90s are usually in a Gibson scale guitar. Jag scale is 24". So now's a good time to invest in companies that make caps and alligator clips.

I’ve done a fair amount of pup swaps, electronics swaps, pot swaps, cap swaps and neck swaps. In my experience, scale length affects both feel and sound. Also, the neck material seems to have a big affect on sound. I’ve experienced that pots, caps and treble bleeds, etc, change the resulting sound. Obviously, different pickups sound different.

I don’t think this guitar is going to sound like a 24 3/4” scale length guitar with P90’s. I doubt it will sound exactly like a 24” scale Jaguar. It will sound like a 25 1/2” scale length guitar with P90’s, plus a Jag pup, and that’s ok.

If he’s doing a separate volume for Jag vs P90’s that should solve one problem of balancing the output volume of the pickups. When I swapped the OEM bridge pup BT2 in my Gretsch G2215-P90 for a Blacktop Filtertron, the neck P90 had much more output. I tried adjusting the pup distances from the strings, but it did not work well. So, I installed a 500K trim pot with Kinman-style treble bleed to reduce the P90 output to match the Blacktop. Then, I forced it into the cramped little round cavity and broke a wire. I resoldered, shoved it down in there again and it worked. I pulled it out again to adjust the level. It survived pushing down one last time. It worked well.

 

[DinoMikeSr]

Was dealing with to thin a sound in November. I used this cap sheet to find and choose new caps.

 

[GilmourD]

I'm pretty sure he is planing on one master tone and one master volume for the two P90s and another tone and volume for the Jag pickup. The Jag "circuit" will also have a strangle switch. Each pickup will have an on/off switch so, played individually, there won't be a problem just worried about a potential problem turning on the Jag pickup with one or both of the P90s.

Again, it all depends on how it gets wired up. There's different ways of combining things or isolating things.

If you tell me the exact specifics of what he wants, how many controls he wants and what each one does, where they would be located (for wire routing purposes), and how he wants them to interact or not interact, I could draw up a diagram that would get him there.

Mind you, P90s in Gibsons often came with a 500K on each control in the 2V2T setup, but Juniors sometimes had a 500K volume and a 250K Tone back in the day, and then we get into the weird times where Gibson was using 300K pots.

Then Jaguars traditionally have 1M pots for lead volume and lead tone but then the rhythm circuit (neck only) would be 1M volume and 50K (not 250K or 500K, but 50K) tone.

Then there's the variations in tone capacitors that actually ended up in guitars, which used to be because that was what Gibson and Fender were able to order in bulk at the time but these days is really up to preference.

What's the body shape and routing? I'm having visions of a Jazzmaster with P90s, stacked controls in the lead section (like a '62 Jazz Bass) for the P90s, the Jag pickup controls where the rhythm circuit would normally be, and a Bass VI control plate (one switch for each pickup plus the strangle control). Each pickup would go directly to its own volume/tone combo which would then output to the switching arrangement that would then feed the output jack.

 

[Bob411]

Again, it all depends on how it gets wired up. There's different ways of combining things or isolating things.

If you tell me the exact specifics of what he wants, how many controls he wants and what each one does, where they would be located (for wire routing purposes), and how he wants them to interact or not interact, I could draw up a diagram that would get him there.

Mind you, P90s in Gibsons often came with a 500K on each control in the 2V2T setup, but Juniors sometimes had a 500K volume and a 250K Tone back in the day, and then we get into the weird times where Gibson was using 300K pots.

Then Jaguars traditionally have 1M pots for lead volume and lead tone but then the rhythm circuit (neck only) would be 1M volume and 50K (not 250K or 500K, but 50K) tone.

Then there's the variations in tone capacitors that actually ended up in guitars, which used to be because that was what Gibson and Fender were able to order in bulk at the time but these days is really up to preference.

What's the body shape and routing? I'm having visions of a Jazzmaster with P90s, stacked controls in the lead section (like a '62 Jazz Bass) for the P90s, the Jag pickup controls where the rhythm circuit would normally be, and a Bass VI control plate (one switch for each pickup plus the strangle control). Each pickup would go directly to its own volume/tone combo which would then output to the switching arrangement that would then feed the output jack.

His message to me on Facebook-

Here's what I've go so far. This puts the Jaguar pickup on a separate rhythm circuit not connected to the P90s If I connect the jag at or, after the P0s tone pot, it will put the two caps in parallel to ground. Alternately, I could use the P90 tone but, that's a different value than I want for the Jag. How can I get it to have two different tone circuits to the same output without them influencing the tone of the other?

I had posted a schematic he did but, I removed it. He is going to do it over. Body shape will be Jazzmaster or, Jazzmasterish, he is making it from scratch. Routing will be whatever it needs to be.

 

[Bob411]

After many revisions, this is his diagram. For the P90s he has two tone and two volumes. He would prefer one tone and two volumes but, then the tone would be after the volume. Does the tone being before the volume offer any protection of the Jag cap being a different value than the P90 cap or, will they only be isolated when Jag circuit is turned off with the switch?