tele pots..

thomasw88

Looking at putting a humbucker into a tele and using with  a normal tele bridge pickup ie single coil.

Any recommendations around what pots  & values to use?

ICBM

CTS 250K Log.

Gulliver

My Tele has 375K pots in because it originally had a neck humbucker. Humbuckers normally have 500K, Singles have 250, so Fender chucked in something in the middle since it had one of each!!   


Literally no idea if that's a good thing or not, but it ain't broke so...

ICBM

If you really want to optimise it you can use 500K pots and have an extra resistor and cap network connected to the bridge pickup to simulate 250K pots when the bridge pickup is on, but that's really a bit overkill usually - 500K pots aren't necessary with a normal (PAF-type, roughly) humbucker in a Tele, because the guitar is inherently so much brighter than a Gibson-type guitar is.

Caffeine_Vampire

I have 2 AV Hotrod 52’s. Same spec (neck SD mini-hum & single in the bridge). 375k pots in one and 250k in the other. Subtle but noticeable difference. I prefer the 250’s. YMMV. 

thomasw88

I'll go with the 250k pots initially. Cheers fellas

Sham61

I put a humbucker neck in my Tele, kept the 250k pots and it sounds great. Especially with a 4 way switch to put both PUs in series.

springhead

I had 250K pots with a normal Tele bridge pickup and a mini humbucker in the neck.  I found it loaded the humbucker a bit too much, bit dark sounding.  Changed recently to 500K pots with a 510K parallel resistor for the bridge pickup and it's much better now.

@ICBM ;- what's your cap change? switching in an additional/different tone cap?  Can't remember what tone cap I've put in mine at the moment.

 

thomasw88

the bucker is one of these.  Like the look of it, and I've had vanson pickups before and always really liked them (and yes I have done Bare Knuckle, Oil city etc).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Vanson-AlNiCo-V-Open-Top-Chrome-Humbuckers-for-Gibson-Epiphone-etc/121179301435?


the 4 way switch could be interesting actually.

ICBM

springhead said:

@ICBM ;- what's your cap change? switching in an additional/different tone cap?  Can't remember what tone cap I've put in mine at the moment.

Switching in another 470K (or 510K) resistor in series with a .022uF cap, so in combination with the 500K/.022uF tone control it gives a 250K/.047uF. You can simply wire it in parallel with the first resistor, so it needs no additional switching.

springhead

Interesting.  Think I might have to draw it out though!