Pot values for S/H Telecaster

nick_s

Morning guys,

Question time.  I have a Graham Coxon Tele running a Fender 'vintage' single coil in the bridge and a SD '59 in the neck.  It is currently running standard pots (375k), and I am finding I want a little more clarity from the neck bucker.

So, to go some way to rectify this I can do a few things:

New pickup
New pots

Now I'd rather not replace a pickup at this point, so it would make sense for me to change pots, which brings a predicament (a 500k pot on a single coil would take heads off somewhat).  Can I stick something in the circuit to take some of the treble out of the single coil when using a 500k pot, a capacitor/resistor of sorts?  I'm no electronics genius but can wield a soldering iron successfully  I like the bright spank of the bridge, and the sound of bridge/neck combined, but the bucker on its own is VERY dark sounding.  Worst comes to the worst I would switch pickups, probably upgrade the bridge pickup before changing out the neck.

Is anyone else running an S/H Tele (or other guitar) with no such quirks?  If so, what's your secret?

ICBM

Yes, you can change the pots to 500K, and add a 1M5 resistor to the single coil to return it to the 375K value when the bridge pickup is in use. To make it exactly the same you would need another 1M5 in series with a .047uF cap to simulate the tone control, but that probably won't make as much difference.

A simpler solution is to put a cap inline with the neck pickup, to take off some of the excess low end - probably try a normal tone cap value first, which will have a minimal effect but maybe just enough. If it's not enough, try a smaller value eg .01uF.

nick_s

ICBM said:

Yes, you can change the pots to 500K, and add a 1M5 resistor to the single coil to return it to the 375K value when the bridge pickup is in use. To make it exactly the same you would need another 1M5 in series with a .047uF cap to simulate the tone control, but that probably won't make as much difference.

A simpler solution is to put a cap inline with the neck pickup, to take off some of the excess low end - probably try a normal tone cap value first, which will have a minimal effect but maybe just enough. If it's not enough, try a smaller value eg .01uF.

Thanks for the advice  

john_r

I have a hot rod 52 RI tele with also came with the 375k pots and a SD 59 in the neck which was a bit dark overall so I replaced the harness as per ICBM's advice in this old thread using 500k pots, 500k resistor in parallel with bridge pup and two .022uF caps as per thread so that both pups see the optimum value pots, works fantastically well.

john_r

I have a hot rod 52 RI tele with also came with the 375k pots and a SD 59 in the neck which was a bit dark overall so I replaced the harness as per ICBM's advice in this old thread using 500k pots, 500k resistor in parallel with bridge pup and two .022uF caps as per thread so that both pups see the optimum value pots, works fantastically well.