330k pots on a Rickenbacker bass?

[Professor Woozle]

I'm edging towards starting my 8-string Rick build and have been looking up details of the electronics. The plans I've got say they use 330K pots but this turned up on a search - http://www.rickenbacker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5047

I'd welcome some opinions from the electronics experts on here about what's been said in that thread - is it worth me spending the extra to get 330k pots, or should I instead just get good quality 250k and 500k as suggested in that thread? I've already got a Retrovibe bridge pickup, and the photos I've got of an 8-string show it's got a toaster in the neck position, though I was wondering about some sort of humbucker there - one of Lemmy's Rickenbackers was modded to have  Gibson T-bird pickup in that position.

[henrim]

I’m not an electronics expert and I don’t know how much difference it makes to have a 330k potentiometer on your setup. But if you are curious and you have a 500k pot, you may try it with a 1M resistor wired parallel to it. That should give you a 330k potentiometer.

https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/parallel-resistor

[curtisa]

Note that if you try the resistor-in-parallel trick with a pot the resistor needs to go across the wiper and outer lug, not across the two outer lugs. Putting the resistor across the outer lugs does weird things to the taper of the pot (you'll actually get a volume drop right at the top of the rotation).

Putting the resistor across the middle and outer lug will also affect the taper but you can use it to your advantage to create a logarithmic (audio taper) pot out of a linear one that can have better logarithmic tracking than an off-the-shelf log pot. The only caveat is that the parallel resistor imposes a heavier load in the pickup at lower volume settings than the equivalent log taper pot, which could result in more darkening of the tone at low volume than you'd otherwise expect.

More info here:

http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/potsecrets/potscret.htm

[Bizman62]

Another no-expert here... But for what I've learned one comment on the ricky thread nailed it: "None are better, none are worse, just different."

Knowing that Rickenbacker went in between the two most common ones gives a hint that they wanted a bit brighter sound than 250k pots gave but felt that 500k was too bright. I wonder if a treble bleed used with 250k pots would do the trick.

 

[Professor Woozle]

Thanks for the replies everyone, sounds like I need to experiment a bit - maybe put connectors on the pickups, then build a couple of different sets that can be swapped out to compare sounds.

The day of starting is drawing closer, I've just got a bit of rock maple for the neck from a local supplier and he also had a couple of slabs  of  black walnut in the remainder bin - £20 for the two and I'm fairly confident I can work around them to make the side slabs, and possibly the centre strip too with a bit of careful cutting.

[Professor Woozle]

Just ordered a Retrovibe toaster pickup for the neck, it's splittable so thinking maybe the 500/250 combo for that one and try 330s for the bridge in the first instance.

I'm not starting the build properly until next year, the woods can spend the time in the house settling down but here's a sneak preview  of the raw materials - the credit card had a hammering today at a local wood supplier, I suspect the same one @Andyjr1515 uses for ebony tops, and I've got an African blackwood fretboard, partly visible in the last shot.

[Andyjr1515]

Yup - same supplier.  Nice guys, great timbers, scary prices.  Although, all timber prices nowadays are pretty scary!

[Professor Woozle]

I could have quite happily spent a small fortune there, as it was I came away with a 4ft length of part-seasoned ebony that was on offer, and I doubt I'll see a piece of that size for that price again. I'm thinking a future project may well involve an ebony neck...
The maple and walnut came from another local supplier, Woodwise UK - also a place I could easily spend a small fortune in!

Edited May 24, 2023 by Professor Woozle

[Alex M.]

On 4/30/2023 at 12:58 AM, Professor Woozle said:

I'm edging towards starting my 8-string Rick build and have been looking up details of the electronics. The plans I've got say they use 330K pots but this turned up on a search - http://www.rickenbacker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5047

I'd welcome some opinions from the electronics experts on here about what's been said in that thread - is it worth me spending the extra to get 330k pots, or should I instead just get good quality 250k and 500k as suggested in that thread? I've already got a Retrovibe bridge pickup, and the photos I've got of an 8-string show it's got a toaster in the neck position, though I was wondering about some sort of humbucker there - one of Lemmy's Rickenbackers was modded to have  Gibson T-bird pickup in that position.

Nothing to worry about it.
I often use whatever 150k to 500k pots are available. Nobody complained about the sound.

[Professor Woozle]

Given that I'm keen to have the bridge pickup giving the classic Rick sound I'm going to start with 330K (or modified 500K) pots on that one at least. Having said that, I wonder how much the steel pickup surround influences the sound of it, and I can get a fair imitation of an overdriven Rick out of my Westone Thunder II with the coils split and pickups out of phase so  maybe I am worrying too much about what to put in.

I'll probably be using connectors  too so I can swap out parts of the wiring harness later if I'm not happy with the sound.

[Alex M.]

22 hours ago, Professor Woozle said:

Given that I'm keen to have the bridge pickup giving the classic Rick sound I'm going to start with 330K (or modified 500K) pots on that one at least. Having said that, I wonder how much the steel pickup surround influences the sound of it, and I can get a fair imitation of an overdriven Rick out of my Westone Thunder II with the coils split and pickups out of phase so  maybe I am worrying too much about what to put in.

I'll probably be using connectors  too so I can swap out parts of the wiring harness later if I'm not happy with the sound.

If you are talking about a plate over a bridge pup — then it is better not to put it, it will corny interfere with the playng.

[Professor Woozle]

Quote

No, not the cover - the bridge pickup mounting plate on a Rick is chrome-plated pressed steel, which I assume has some influence on the magnetism and hence the sound.

 

[Alex M.]

The pup mounting plate — is nothing to worry about too much. Even the ashtray above the pup basically gets in the way of the hand when palm mute.