POTS - Range of Control

[jtorre2007]

Hi to all at HOC!

 

This is first post, so let's see how it goes.

 

I own a beautiful H535 Cherry (Translucent) that came with Seth Lover pickups. I love my H535!

 

Lately I have been experimenting with different amp / guitar volume/tone setups. One thing I realized after studying Eric Johnson, Joe Bonamassa and others is that they have their amps turned up quite a bit and this allows them to gain a lot of control on their tone by using the vol/tone controls on the guitar.

 

I have been able to achieve this objective with my PRS and it is wonderful to have a wide range of sounds at your fingertips without having to touch your amp.

 

Now it has become a struggle to do achieve the same on the H535. One thing I noticed is that the range on the vol/tone controls seems to be very limited. By this I mean that 90% of the change in tone/sound seems to be between 7 - 10 after than the drop in vol/tone quality is not much to work with.

 

So finally my questions to this group:

 

1. What kind of POTs come on the H535?

2. Has anybody experimented with this scenario?

3. Can anybody recommend some POTs that would work well with this setup; but that would give me a more controlled gradual change in vol/tone from 0-10?

 

Thank you all for your advise and comments.

 

JT

[Hfan]

Welcome to the club. I hear RS guitar works is very good with info and parts for this kind of thing. Give them a call. Other members here have posted quite a bit re pots etc.

http://www.rsguitarworks.net/cms2/

[dantahoua]

There is some great thread about pot on the My Les Paul Forum. As I am on my ipod now, I do not have the link but I'll post them later. I made myself a lot of test because i like to have everything on my fingertips! For me the best is 500k audio pot for Vol and 250k audio pot for Tone. I always mod the neck tone pot to become a no load. Also sometimes, I like to wire the bridge pu "modern" and the neck pu "vintag".

[rooster]

There are 2 reasons: one, PRS (at least my '87) used a really nice pot, and this is why I put RS superpots in all of my H150s for volume controls, and two, PRS uses a cap across the top and wiper of the volume pot for a treble bleed circuit, allowing the highs through when you turn down the pot.

 

HTH.

 

rooster.

[NoNameBand]

Hi to all at HOC!

 

This is first post, so let's see how it goes.

 

I own a beautiful H535 Cherry (Translucent) that came with Seth Lover pickups. I love my H535!

 

Lately I have been experimenting with different amp / guitar volume/tone setups. One thing I realized after studying Eric Johnson, Joe Bonamassa and others is that they have their amps turned up quite a bit and this allows them to gain a lot of control on their tone by using the vol/tone controls on the guitar.

 

I have been able to achieve this objective with my PRS and it is wonderful to have a wide range of sounds at your fingertips without having to touch your amp.

 

Now it has become a struggle to do achieve the same on the H535. One thing I noticed is that the range on the vol/tone controls seems to be very limited. By this I mean that 90% of the change in tone/sound seems to be between 7 - 10 after than the drop in vol/tone quality is not much to work with.

 

So finally my questions to this group:

 

1. What kind of POTs come on the H535?

2. Has anybody experimented with this scenario?

3. Can anybody recommend some POTs that would work well with this setup; but that would give me a more controlled gradual change in vol/tone from 0-10?

 

Thank you all for your advise and comments.

 

JT

 

I've had very good success with the replacement controls from RS Guitarworks. Guitarartman has challenged whether they really perform better but from my personal experience, I get the very control you are looking for. This is the biggest difference. Using your Volume control from 0 -10 with a smooth curve without getting muddy tone. Being able to use the Tone controls for tone and the Volume controls for volume makes too much sense but seems difficult to achieve. Most factory controls work best from 7-10. It seems that under 7, the Volume control loses it's ability to smoothly cut volume without significantly, altering or losing tone. I have had 4 guitars done by RS Guitarworks including a 535 and a 150. Both have completely functional curves from top to bottom.

If you contact RS Guitarworks, they can explain better how and why this works.

[Blunote]

My 2010 H150 came with CTS 500K pots and PIO .02 caps. as you can see in the picture below.

 

 

 

My other H150 has 450K pots in it and an indistinct manufacturer ID. So it's hard to say which ones were used when your guitar was built. First thing to do would be to remove the control cavity cover and see if your pots have identifying information embossed into them.

[MartyGrass]

The truth is that there is variability in the pots and switches put in Heritage guitars over the years.

 

Most are just fine. I've swapped out pots only when needed.

[dantahoua]

There is some great thread about pot on the My Les Paul Forum. As I am on my ipod now, I do not have the link but I'll post them later. I made myself a lot of test because i like to have everything on my fingertips! For me the best is 500k audio pot for Vol and 250k audio pot for Tone. I always mod the neck tone pot to become a no load. Also sometimes, I like to wire the bridge pu "modern" and the neck pu "vintag".

 

Here is the link: Tone pot problem

[DetroitBlues]

I have a first year run of a Heritage and I can say, the pots do not taper as well as many after market pots.

[kbp810]

I have a first year run of a Heritage and I can say, the pots do not taper as well as many after market pots.

All pots can vary greatly - even the tolerance on CTS pots is in the realim of 20%; and over time they can degrade.

 

Generally speaking what the boutique wiring harness assemblers do is take a big lot of pots and measure there "true" value and performance over the taper, then get sorted accordingly... they either make the grade, or they hit the bargain bin.

[jeffbeck]

Hallo

I used 1 mohm Alpha pots in my own-build les paul for volumes, an did not connected the tone pots because in 30 years of playing guitar i didn't used them really. IMHO the sound of the pups is much clearer and more powerfull as with the 500 kohm pots.

Give it a try.

[jtorre2007]

Thank you all for all the feedback. I really appreciate it. I am going to follow the advise of looking into RS Guitarworks. So I think I'll give them a try and order a new harness and pots.

 

JT

[ledzef]

JT welcome. If your interested in RSguitarworks you might want to wait until Memorial Day Weekend they usually have a 20% sale all weekend. Just a thought.