02/21/2023
Interesting tidbit about guitar pots: (heads up, itâs a bit long for a FB post and will probably only be appreciated by tone nerds)
I get asked all the time if pots (or the quality thereof) really matters. Of course, the affect on tone is what I usually assume the point of the question is⌠and my answer at least is⌠well, yes and no⌠but yes probably not in the way you would assume.
If anything has a discernible affect on tone itâs the actual resistance the pot adds, much more so than how much it costs. In most guitars you usually find either a â500kâ pot commonly paired with humbucker guitars or a â250kâ pot paired with single coils. Why the quotes? In resistors among other electronic components thereâs this little thing called tolerance... meaning that even though your guitars pot may say itâs a 250k pot, it almost always IME is never 250k. Same for 500k or any other value for that matter. So, with a quality or more premium pot you usually (one might assume at least) would get a tighter tolerance⌠meaning it would be closer to the specified value than perhaps a âcheapâ pot. That, my friends, is not always the case. I would say that quality pots in general usually tend to have tighter tolerances than cheaper ones, but not always. Iâve metered cheap pots that were dead on as well as premium pots that were way off. But this I think begs the question: what really IS dead on anyway? Who says your single coil pickups, regardless of output, MUST see 250k ohms of resistance from your pots. Why not 300? Why not 216k?
Anyway, we have a nice case in point here as shown in the picture. A Fender Players Strat with a CTS (a standard in quality guitars) pot that âshouldâ be a 250k ohm pot. The 250k value is typically paired with single coil pickups because that value is known to help tame potentially shrill or overly bright tone frequencies that are inherent to single coil pickups. As shown on my meter, this pot reads 192k ohm⌠meaning it is likely âdarkeningâ the tone more than a resistance value closer to the intended 250k. The owner stated he wasnât pleased with the tone of the humbucker pickup, of which in other guitars is often paired with a 500k pot that retains more highs for warmer higher output pickups. Although it is a bridge position pickup which most guitarists already understand will have a brighter response due to itâs relative position to the bridge, this pickup is nevertheless âseeingâ a 192k ohms of resistance thus likely significantly contributing to a dull(er) tone.
So, all this to explain that, should you find yourself feeling like your guitars pickups might not sound as good as they should, keep this in mind. You could have pots that are too far out of spec for your pickups, subjective as that may be as is all maters of tone. Also keep in mind that this is not necessarily a âbadâ thing. It wonât âhurtâ the guitar or wiring, but it could âhurtâ your tone. As far as guitar pots go, there really are not a wide variety of âspecifiedâ values readily available: 250k, 300k, 500k, and 1M ohm are the most common values youâll find in order of âdarker to brighterâ for passive circuits. Pickups however come in a wide range of outputs. In other words, lower output pickups might sound better paired with a darker or lower value pot where as higher output the opposite. The beauty of variation in tolerance is that, if youâre a tone and electronics nerd like me, you can experiment with âfine tuningâ the resistance that your pickups âseeâ. Even if you donât have a variety of values of pots to choose from, you can always use resistors in combination to tweak the value your pickups are seeing. This could likely be a brain-bending rabbit hole that most players donât care to get into and I get that⌠but some of use are nerds.
The take away from this all this is simply to note that if you feel youâre not getting the tone youâre expecting out of your electric guitar, it could be the pots. Not because they are necessarily bad or cheap, it could just be that they are an inappropriate value for the pickups you have.
Itâs easy to check for yourself if you have a multi-meter. If you can get to your pots, all the way âonâ you should get a reading of no resistance. Set your meter to just above the range your pot should be. In my case, my meter has 200k and 2M ohms. Since a 250k rated pot SHOULD read above 200k, I set it to the next higher setting at 2M. In the case of this example it actually read lower than 200k. To check, turn the pot all the way âoffâ take your two multimeter leads and touch one to the first lug and the other to the middle lug and that should give you your pots specific value. If youâre not comfortable doing this, any good tech should be able to check for you.
Because if this, any pots I buy I always meter and label each one with its exact value. If I know enough about whatâs left to be desired in the tone from the client, I may chose a pot that is appropriately plus or minus the recommended value to hopefully better suit the pickups and guitar and playerâs ear better. Every pot is gonna be different, but a reasonable plus or minus is fine and generally unnoticeable. Sometimes however you can find some that are so far off that it can and will affect your tone. Ever wonder why one guitar seems to have something âspecialâ about it as comepared to another of the same kind/brand/pickups/wood blah blah etc etc? Well, there are many many variables from guitar to guitar that can and do contribute to this, but perhaps pot tolerances are a significant factor in what makes one guitarâs tone stand out from others⌠and perhaps the easiest factor to actually measure and demonstrate!
As always, Iâm happy to help meter your guitarâs pots if youâre curious. Hope this helps you along your journey through toneville!
