DiMarzio custom taper 500k pots. Anyone tried them?

BowynMadley

Frankly I'm a fussy bastard. I'm looking for a pot that has a nice smooth taper from 0-10. My amp cleans up very easily when rolling off. The current 550k cts has a very sharp taper from 10-8 meaning It can go from clean to lead in the last 5th of the turn. 
Has anyone had any experience with the above mentioned DiMarzio pots?

Thanks 
Bo 

AndyR

No experience of the DiMarzio pots but I got what I wanted (and what you're describing) by switching to linear taper volume controls.

I figured it out a about 18 months ago. Why did my Les Paul Traditional clean up so nicely but stayed at nearly the same volume all the way down to 3 or so? My other guitars with the expensive replacement pots were almost on-off switches (between 8-10) in comparison.

Eventually, I found out that Gibson had put linear taper pots on the volumes. I'm gradually switching all my guitars over - SO much better for what I want.

ICBM

You can also change the taper by adding a resistor between the top two terminals on the pots (ie the non-grounded ones). Typically if you have a 500K Log pot, a 100K, 150K or 220K resistor will probably be about right - they're so cheap you can easily experiment with a few values.

The only disadvantage is that you will get a bit more treble loss at low volume settings because the effective load resistance of the pot has decreased.

Danielsguitars

Ive been using linear volume pots for years for that very reason 

I haven't found one audio taper I like yet and I'm not trying anymore out 

BowynMadley

ICBM said:8

You can also change the taper by adding a resistor between the top two terminals on the pots (ie the non-grounded ones). Typically if you have a 500K Log pot, a 100K, 150K or 220K resistor will probably be about right - they're so cheap you can easily experiment with a few values.

The only disadvantage is that you will get a bit more treble loss at low volume settings because the effective load resistance of the pot has decreased.

That makes a lot of sense actually. Any ideas where I could buy them in singles or atleast in small amounts? Don't really want to buy 10 or 25 of the buggers haha

ICBM

Maplins sell them individually - they're far from the cheapest if you're buying in larger quantities, but at the price resistors are it doesn't make a lot of difference for your purposes.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/c/components/resistors#Category:Metal Film Resistors&sort=price-asc&page=0&productsPerPage=showAll

You only need the lowest power rating - their 0.6W metal film ones are ideal. 9p each by the look of it!

Headphones

I suggest that the reason you're preferring the linear, is because you're not using it as a volume pot.  Stay with me...

A log pot works (in most sound situations) as it directly controls the volume of output - and your ears respond in a logarithmic like fashion, so a log pot is what you want for that role - so it appears to act in a "linear" fashion.  The two logs cancel out if you will.

However, what's going on here is quite different.  If you were playing clean and just after volume, a log is what you'd want.  But what's actually hapenning is your using it as a distortion control for the amp.

Once you're out of the clean part of the performance, the output wave form in a guitar amp won't get any taller, but it will become more distorted (and therefore sound louder and add more overtones).  SInce this distortion is proportional to the input signal - that is, it has a linear relationship - a log pot won't suit well, since all the change is at one end (by design) and it will feel (as you describe) like a switch.  So a linear pot will work better.

In other words - clean volmue control - log; distortion "volume" control - linear.