Washburn N2...Add a tone pot

Seanie280672

Well ive just finished tonight fitting a new switch, CTS push pull volume control, neck and bridge pickup and a complete re-wire, now previously, the shop I gave my guitar to wired it up very strangely and the volume pot acted more like a tone pot, its now working properly now ive re-wired it.

However, this got me thinking, there is plenty of room to add a tone pot in there, any thoughts on this ? is it worth it, its a fairly easy wiring job.

The 2 pickups I went for was a DiMarzio Air Norton in the neck, I used to have one of these years ago, and kind of missed it so thought id grab one and stick it in the neck, and a Seymour Duncan dimebucker in the bridge, lovely sounding pickup.

Funkfingers

The Dimebucker is SD's interpretation of the original Bill Lawrence pickup that Nuno favours. 

Part of the Nuno sound is the absence of the loading effects of a tone control pot. If you are not fussed about that aspect, a CTS (or better) audio taper 500k pot would do the job. If you require the with/without option, the simplest option is the Fender No-Load™ tone control kit in 500k guise.

One final thought. Are you left-handed? I'm not sure that the Fender No-Load is available with a reverse resistance taper and detent. (ICBM can probably enlighten us!)

Seanie280672

Funkfingers said:

The Dimebucker is SD's interpretation of the original Bill Lawrence pickup that Nuno favours. 

Part of the Nuno sound is the absence of the loading effects of a tone control pot. If you are not fussed about that aspect, a CTS (or better) audio taper 500k pot would do the job. If you require the with/without option, the simplest option is the Fender No-Load™ tone control kit in 500k guise.

One final thought. Are you left-handed? I'm not sure that the Fender No-Load is available with a reverse resistance taper and detent. (ICBM can probably enlighten us!)

Hi thanks for the reply, no I'm not left handed, the guitar is actually the tattoo edition, Ive fallen in love with it all over again, I also have an LTD kh202 which I recently fitted a Schiller Floyd rose 2 bridge too and loved the bridge so much, I brought another and stuck it on my Washburn too, no more going out of tune with dive bombs etc.

The bill Lawrence that was in there was starting to get a bit old and tatty looking, the guitar has got to be coming on for 10 years old now, so I thought I'd grab the dimebucker and pop that in instead, it came with the Washburn 621 or 623 in the neck, whatever it was, it was a junk pickup, so I changed that for the air Norton.

I was looking at the 500k Seymour Duncan tone pot with an orange .022um cap ?

ICBM

If you don't mind drilling a hole in it... go ahead. It will make the guitar more versatile with no other penalty.

There's actually very little difference between a normal 500K tone pot up full and a no-load - it is audible, but it's not huge. .022uF is the usual tone cap value for a humbucker guitar. Cap type/brand is irrelevant to tone, but Orange Drops are nice as they have good thick leads which make them easy to fit.

sixstringsupplies

Hi Sean, assuming you followed the diagram we discussed the other day, this would work to add the tone pot 

Seanie280672

sixstringsupplies said:

Hi Sean, assuming you followed the diagram we discussed the other day, this would work to add the tone pot 

Yes thanks, thats exactly how I wired it up last night, that tone pot that you added in there too would also need grounding too wouldnt it ? just ground it back to the volume pot, with the 3rd lug on the tone pot used for nothing,

Cols

Tread carefully; I suggested on an N4 group that a tone pot might be nice to occasionally dial back the razor-sharp highs, and was immediately jumped on by eleventy billion Nuno obsessives shouting “Tone is in the fingers!”

Funkfingers

LOL + Wiz = Wow.


If Nuno’s tone is entirely in his fingers, you have to wonder why his Washburn Princess signature model needed more than one control pot.

Vibetronic

Can see why you'd want to add one - had an N2 since I was 16 and that Bill Lawrence is SO bright, I don't like the sound of it now. Oddly when I had the volume pot repaired many years ago the shop also accidentally wired it up more like a tone pot too. 

Seanie280672

Vibetronic said:

Can see why you'd want to add one - had an N2 since I was 16 and that Bill Lawrence is SO bright, I don't like the sound of it now. Oddly when I had the volume pot repaired many years ago the shop also accidentally wired it up more like a tone pot too. 

Yes that's what they did with mine, and when using the bill Lawrence, just dialing  the volume / tone back a tiny bit made a really nice difference, now that I've fixed the wiring and added a new volume pot and it's actually working as a volume control, I kind of miss the tone control, that's why I'm wanting to see if I can get a pot in there, there should just about be enough room, I'll post a picture once it's done, all the parts should be here tomorrow, all 2 parts lol.

Seanie280672

Well here's the finished product, im not the best solderer in the world, in fact ive only just really learned how to do it, but its all working brilliantly and im very pleased, all yellow wires are ground in there.

https://imgur.com/bLyk3iz

https://imgur.com/86RBKV0

https://imgur.com/ya40Frg

Funkfingers

Nice and tidy.

For several reasons, I would have installed the Duncan reduced friction pot as volume and the CTS push-pull as tone.

Seanie280672

Funkfingers said:

Nice and tidy.

For several reasons, I would have installed the Duncan reduced friction pot as volume and the CTS push-pull as tone.

Im new too all of this, thats the first time ive ever done anything like this, the CTS was already installed and set up, adding the tone pot was an after thought, but why would you have done it the other way around ?

Because there could be a complete strip down coming soon as personally I think the guitar is too yellow looking, I prefer the look of the N4 vintage look, so a major sanding could be on the way which would give me the opportunity to rewire it all up, however, again im not too sure on this as the guitar body is basswood, im still trying to make my mind up.

Although the strip down would only really require me disconnecting the pickups, switch and output jack, the rest could come out as a whole.

Funkfingers

Seanie280672 said:
why would you have done it the other way around ?

The Duncan YJM reduced friction pot is purposely designed for use as a volume pot. It can take the punishment meted out by Rock guitarists for longer than a typical push-pull pot.

Until recently, the majority of push-pull pots found in electric guitars have been of the smaller "dime" diameter. The dimensions of the inner working parts place these smaller pots at a disadvantage from day one. They do not work as well. They wear out sooner. The push-pull mechanisms are prone to failure.

It makes better sense to deploy such vulnerable parts where they will receive less use. i.e. As tone controls. A knackered tone control may reduce functionality whereas a knackered volume control might silence a guitar completely.