Pot and Cap Values for 2 knob HSS Strat

KevS

I have modified one of my Strats to HH with 2 knobs.push pulls and a 3 way switch..
It has worked out well..It is a firmly 500 K affair Pot Wise..

I am thinking of a HSS Strat next..

This would be a 2 Pot Affair,not a 3 as the volume knob gets in my way..

I am thinking of putting a Dimarzio Mo Joe in the Bridge and Fender Texas Special single coils in the neck and middle..

I know the Pot can control the Brightness..I think..??
Not just the Taper..??

500 K pots may be too bright for Fender Texas Specials..
250 K too Dull for the Dimarzio Mo Joe..

There is also the option of 300 K pots of course.. 

I know there are loads of HSS Strats out there,but they seem like a Halfway House between Humbucker and Single/500K and 250K..

I have heard about some type of resistor Mod..

I really need the right Values for everything though..

ICBM

Yes, the volume pot value affects the brightness because it changes the loading on the pickups. The tone pot value simply sets the 'upper end' of the sweep.

If you want to keep it simple I would use a 250K volume pot - that sounds fine with a humbucker in an inherently brighter Fender-type guitar, whereas 500K sounds shrill with single coils - and 500K for the tone because you just turn it down slightly to get the same sound as 250K. .047uF cap because that sounds better with single coils - where you're most likely to use it, I assume - but if you mostly use it on the bridge pickup, then .022uF.

If you want to do it 'correctly', use 500Ks for both, with a 470K resistor to ground selected when the switch is in the first four positions to simulate a 250K pot, and if you want to go the whole hog then an additional 470K resistor and .022uF cap in series to simulate the lower tone control values as well.

KevS

OK Thanks..I will mull this one over..

CasperCaster

Fender/CTS make a single shaft dual gang pot with both 250K and 500K pots sections. They use it on some of their recent HSS Strats as a volume pot in a very convoluted wiring scheme with an equally odd switch. The 500K volume pot with 470K or 510K parallel resistor is a far more sensible wiring scheme for the volume. However, the Fender/CTS pot is useful for your tone as you can wire the 250K with a 47nF cap to the single coil selections (or even 100nF - Texas Specials can be a little shrill) and the 500K section with a 22nF pot for the bridge humbucker. How you actually wire that depends on if you want an auto-split in position 2, but it's readily achievable - example below. 

Fender pot:  https://www.gluedtomusic.com/products/2572/fender-cts-dual-500k-250k-split-shaft-pot-potentiometer/

Example wiring, diagram 7 on this web page (separate tones shown here would simply be on a single dual gang pot, same number of connections):
http://www.guitar-mod.com/strat.html

Stratavarious

^^ yep,,  dual pot on same shaft.