tele pots

Zangetsu

What size pots would go into a tele? Rewiring one, just wana make sure I have the right parts, cheers.

I'm putting in texas specials if that makes a difference...

spoonbadger

Zangetsu wrote: »

What size pots would go into a tele? Rewiring one, just wana make sure I have the right parts, cheers.

I'm putting in texas specials if that makes a difference...

250kohm, audio-taper pot for volume. 250kohm, linear-taper pot for tone.

250k is the resistance value of the pot. The higher it is, the brighter the guitar will sound.

Audio taper (or linear taper) relates to the way it turns down. Linear turns up or down evenly. But people do hear in straight lines, so audio taper pots are designed to sound even to us. If you use a linear taper for the volume, it'll get very quiet,very fast, from 10 to 6, whereas audio taper pots are designed to sound even from 10 to 1.

Kenny_D

Change the pots to 500k on the Tele Deluxe for the neck pickup. Apparently the 250k pots are too muddy with those wide range pickups

spoonbadger

GStormcrow wrote: »

Change the pots to 500k on the Tele Deluxe for the neck pickup. Apparently the 250k pots are too muddy with those wide range pickups

This is very true storm!. But do *NOT* put 500ks in your telelcaster with texas specials OP. Your ears will bleed .

Zangetsu

Working on a 52 replica at the moment, I have too many project guitars that I get lazy and leave in a pile in the corner. My new years resolution is to resurrect about 4 guitars from the dead :P

Doctor J

I picked up a Tele with Texas Specials recently. Keep the pickups about 1cm away from the strings and they really sweeten up, they're absolute murder any closer.

Zangetsu

Thanks for the tip, I was actually wondering about pickup height last night while I was nursing my first soldering injury :P

Paolo_M

I was nursing my first soldering injury

Go on, what did you do.....:D

In general a good rule of thumb for pick up height is:

Further from the strings will give more sustain and more sweeter, natural harmonic content. Closer to the strings will produce a "hotter" output (higher output level) but at the loss of sustain. This is because closer to the strings the magnetic field interacts with the strings vibrations so you get a higher initial peak but it falls away faster as the manetic field of the pickup acts to reduce the strings vibration.

When I first started tinkering with guitars I tried to raise the pick up height to the highest level I could without causing interferance, thinking the more output, the better. Time has given me wisdom :pac: and I've rolled them back down a few mm and bumped the gain on the amp slightly for the same gain levels but a warmer, more musical tone IMO.

Haven't tried it, but I'd imagine a 500k pot with a Texas Special right up to the strings would sound :eek: on a tele.
Edit: Looks like Doctor J already found the same thing.

Zangetsu

Some good info there, thanks, its about time I started learning this stuff tbh...

Doctor J

There's no right or wrong way, some pickups work best up close to the strings, I think EMGs are designed to be set up as close to the strings as possible. Use your ears, adjust until you hear what sounds best. If they're far from the strings or up close, it doesn't matter once it sounds good to you. I tend to use the bridge pickup most of all, so I adjust that until it sounds right, then I adjust the other pickups so that the output is balanced when you switch from one to the other. Your ears will let you know if you need to change anything.

Dord

Doctor J wrote: »

There's no right or wrong way, some pickups work best up close to the strings, I think EMGs are designed to be set up as close to the strings as possible.

Yep that's true. The magnets in EMG's (active ones) are actually really weak, and what they do then is amplify it and filter noise. This is all done inside the pickup.

Paolo_M

Dord wrote: »

Yep that's true. The magnets in EMG's (active ones) are actually really weak, and what they do then is amplify it and filter noise. This is all done inside the pickup.

Yeah, probably shoulda' pointed out that I was referring to passives, was assuming that he wasn't going putting actives in a tele.

spoonbadger

Paolo_M wrote: »

Yeah, probably shoulda' pointed out that I was referring to passives, was assuming that he wasn't going putting actives in a tele.

Jim root did .

Paolo_M

spoonbadger wrote: »

Jim root did .

Would you take advice from this man...:pac:

spoonbadger

Paolo_M wrote: »

Would you take advice from this man...:pac:

Woah!!.

I never said it was a particularly clever idea :pac:.