Need Advice On Pot, Cap, Resistor Values.

[Doc74]

Hi all

I have a Gretsch hollowbody which was a dual humbucker guitar.

I now installed a GFS single coil dream 90 in the neckposition and a humbucker dream 180 in the bridge position.

This is my first time modding a guitar so bear with me please.

There's master volume, master tone and 1 volume for each pup.

All the pots are 500k and apparently linear.

For now I will leave the tone pot as it is, I haven't decided which route to go with this. Tonestyler maybe?

I would like to replace all the volume pots with CTS pots and was thinking of a 250k for the single coil, 500k push/pull for the humbucker so I can coil tap it but that leaves me with some questions....

If I use a 500k for master volume, won't that kinda make the 250k for the single coil useless or does it make no difference what I use for master volume?

If I coil tap the humbucker with a 500k push/pull, how can I make it a 250k in the single coil position?

And for a treble bleed mod on all these, which values are recommended?

What type of wire is generally used for something like this? I believe the GFS pup wires are 26 awg.

doc

[black_labb]

i personally go high for pots, as you can get the same resistance by turning the pot. (ie a 1m pot can be turned down from 1m to 0 ohms, where a 250k can only go from 250 k to 0. i find that its nice to have it too bright/loud and actually using the knob at a position thats not full up than being limited to a lower value, their there to be used, not just to be pretty.

[Doc74]

i personally go high for pots, as you can get the same resistance by turning the pot. (ie a 1m pot can be turned down from 1m to 0 ohms, where a 250k can only go from 250 k to 0. i find that its nice to have it too bright/loud and actually using the knob at a position thats not full up than being limited to a lower value, their there to be used, not just to be pretty.

That's a good point! I hadn't thought of that...

Alright that's one dilemma solved, 500k it is.

Thanks!

[Erik Runeson]

i personally go high for pots, as you can get the same resistance by turning the pot. (ie a 1m pot can be turned down from 1m to 0 ohms, where a 250k can only go from 250 k to 0. i find that its nice to have it too bright/loud and actually using the knob at a position thats not full up than being limited to a lower value, their there to be used, not just to be pretty.

That works for tone controls, but not for volume controls. With an 1M pot you get a bit more treble with the pot at max. However, you also get more noise, and since you get a bigger series resistance the capacitance of the cable will work against you even more and you'll get more treble loss when turning down the volume. So, no such thing as a "free lunch"

[digi2t]

For your treb bleed mod, I found after weeks of fiddling with all my guitars, there is no hard or fast rule. I'm running with a variety of pups, Golden Age, Motherbuckers, and a bevy of different GFS models. I've found that in the end, in most cases, no two guitars are running the same value caps. It's an "ear and feel" thing. My cap values vary from 68pf to .022uf depending on the model and position. Even for the tone, I got one at .022uf, another at .033uf, and yet another at .047uf. It was trial and error from start to finish. My advice, get a value pack of caps from a local electronics shop, warm up your soldering iron, and put the amp on standby. Happy hunting.