Single Coil And Humbucker What Pots Etc To Get Best Of Both

[natwalk]

Hi guys just ordered some pickups and a new pick guard for an old Strat body I'm making a partscaster out of I'm using a singlecoil for the neck and a humbucker for the bridge and want to wire it with a tele-like single tone and volume. So to the nub of the question, what would you guys suggest for pot values and so on to get the best out of the two pickups, or would you suggest some kind of by-pass with a resistor or something for one pickup to change the values to suit the hum versus the single? Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks,

Nate

[WezV]

its a personal preference thing and they are cheap enough that you can buy and try both!!

[RjY]

You could try using a push/pull pot with 250k/500k?? might take some creative wiring but i'm sure its do-able....

RjY

[al heeley]

250k pots have a tendancy to drop off the treble more when turned down, compared to a 500k. that's ok when using s/c as they tend to be brighter and more trebly than a normal HB. I'd stick with 250k pots but you could add a small capacitor to the vol pot to reduce the treble bleed-off.

[natwalk]

Thanks for your help, been looking around the web and found a few wiring diagrams but none were exactly what I needed, I'll try and give the treble bleed cap a go if that doesn't cut the mustard for me I'll give the push pull a go and see if it works out better,

Thanks for your help,

Nate

Edited December 21, 2007 by natwalk

[psw]

Hey there fellow Aussie...

I just did the same thing an tried a few different pots (250,500,1M and...2 meg!) and combinations for tone and for volume.

The higher value, the less loading, the more highs get through. Lower pots like 250k are traditionally used for single coils to take off the edge, especially on that bridge pickup...but you have an HB in there so no problem...

I have now come to the conclusion that you want as much zing out of your guitar as possible...listen to the pickups with no controls wired direct to the output. If that is too zingy, turn down the treble on the amp!!!!!!

Having decided that, by chance I used a scrap 2Meg "A" pot and got a great taper and no need for the treble bleed and...that direct sound even when turning down!

So...the combination that I settled with was a 2M volume and a 500k tone...try enough different little cap values and you should be able to get a wah like response from the tone control too!

1Meg will work pretty well too...I ran out but found the 2M so thought I'd give it a go...worked so well, I left it in.

The idea is that lower value pots will leak highs to ground just like the tone control does, even when full up. The higher the resistance, the less will leak. Most people play with the tone full up...but don't realize that the pickups full potential is still being "tone-d down" by low value pots. They have active eq on thier amps, but don't seem to touch them either.

A super bright guitar with all the harmonics and complexities coming through can always sound less bright with the amp controls...but a dull sound can never have it's tone restored as these harmonics never reached the amp in the first place!

I am now totally convinced and I hope you will be too!

pete