I Put All Linear Pots In My Guitar, But... The Tone Knobs Still Act

[dap9]

...the tone knobs still act like Audio tapers

I have an Ibanez Artstar (ES-335 knockoff). I put GFS Mean 90s in it and all new pots and caps.

I went w/ Linear Taper CTS pots, 500k, for all pots. I used .022mfd caps.

Overall, I'm really happy w/ the sound. But when I roll down the tone, it seems like there's little to no effect until the very end of the turn and then it's a drastic drop in the highs. I went w/ Linear Taper b/c I hate how most Audio Tapers have this EXACT effect. Is this because of the .022 caps? Should I have used .047 w/ a P90 style pup?

I really thought the linear taper for tone controls would allow me better control. FWIW I used This Wiring Diagram

Edited May 14, 2007 by dap9

[BNichols]

thats odd that it would do that. I had that same effect when I put .047 caps in with 500K but that was because the cutoff freq. was then different, not because of the pot taper. I think the only logical thing that would mess it up is the resistance of the pickups. if you have a digital multimeter, it can measure resistance across the + and - ends of the pup. if the resistance is high enough, it could change the equivalent resistance that effects the .022 cap. the problem could also be the wiring touching in places it shouldn't. other than that, 500K and .022 usually give you the right cutoff frequency and the taper of the pot should have a noticable difference if its linear.

good luck,

brendan

[dap9]

If I rember correctly, the Neck pup was around 7.64 and the bridge was around 8.59. Something close to that at least. Those should be high enough for a .022 cap, right? Maybe there are some connections happening that shouldn't be, but I would think the problems would be more significant.

I've taken this thing apart too many times in the past month to worry right now LOL. Getting everything in and out of those F-holes is a royal PITA!! for now everythign's working, but I'm sure I'll do some tinkering sooner than later

Thanks for the response

[BNichols]

sure. the values are in a good range. otherwise i couldn't say what's wrong. I guess it could be the pots sent were not actually linear. the only way i can think to check would be to use the meter and measure across lugs 1 and 2 and graph rotation vs resistance in excel or something. good luck with it. wiring always seems to be the hardest thing to troubleshoot. cant ever see whats going on

Taper Graph

Edited May 14, 2007 by BNichols

[curtisa]

Move the pot shaft to mid rotation and measure resistance between the middle lug and either of the two outside lugs. If it's linear taper you'll have 50% of the full pot resistance between the lugs. If it's logarithmic you'll have 60% across one pair and 30% across the other.

The pot taper is usually identified by an "A" or a "B" on the pot itself. The downside is that "A" taper is linear and "B" taper is log in Europe, and exactly the other way around for Japan and the US! Always pays to doublecheck before ordering

[dap9]

Thanks Curtisa, but unless they were packaged wrong by Allparts, they're all linear pots. As I mentioned above, I'm taking a break from removing everything through those F-holes. But next time I do, I'll get my multimeter out and check the back of the pots and all that. But the packaging said Linear so I'm assuming it's accurate (what would be the likelihood of getting 4 linear pots and the two "wrong labled" pots end up in the tone?) Ok, I guess 50% for the statistics experts (think, I had to take it twice), but you know what I mean.

Thanks and I'll updated when I get around to wanting to mess w/ this guitar again. I'm now moving onto my LTD EC400at - it only has one tone pot for both pups so I'm gonna get a concentric pot for greater control. Seems like they only make those in Audio taper, though. Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

Thanks again.

[JoeAArthur]

...the tone knobs still act like Audio tapers

I have an Ibanez Artstar (ES-335 knockoff). I put GFS Mean 90s in it and all new pots and caps.

I went w/ Linear Taper CTS pots, 500k, for all pots. I used .022mfd caps.

Overall, I'm really happy w/ the sound. But when I roll down the tone, it seems like there's little to no effect until the very end of the turn and then it's a drastic drop in the highs. I went w/ Linear Taper b/c I hate how most Audio Tapers have this EXACT effect. Is this because of the .022 caps? Should I have used .047 w/ a P90 style pup?

I really thought the linear taper for tone controls would allow me better control. FWIW I used This Wiring Diagram

The action you are describing is what I consider normal for linear pots, not audio pots.

You may have had linears before and just replaced linear with linear.

With audio taper pots, the tone and volume controls will be much smoother. With linear taper pots, they will not seem to have any effect from about 2-3 on the knob up to 10.

Linear taper pots on a tone control are great if you want to do a wha-wha thing because you don't have to move them very much. But for control, you can't beat an audio taper pot.

[suicidecustom]

i was just going to say that. linear taper pots will have the majority of the change in tone at one end of the pots travel. electrically they are 100%linear but we dont perceive so. log (audio taper) pots will be even and smooth

[dap9]

thanks all. I guess I'll get some audio pots some day - I'm all done w/ that guitar for a while! LOL, getting everything through those F-holes and then back into place is a royal PITA. Not to mention, my wife keeps finding dental floss all over the house. It appears the cat has capitalized on my poor cleaning abilities and dragged the pieces everywhere. (For anyone not familiar w/ semi-hollows there is no back plate so you need to tie dental floss to the posts so that you can pull them back through the holes when you're done).