Just a few pickup questions

[Vittu0666]

I've finally decided on what pickups I want to get.

That being said, I have a few problems and a few questions.

The pots on my current guitar are bent, so the knobs kind of scrape along the pick guard when I turn the knobs. Will the Seymour Duncans (TB-4 in the bridge and SH-2N in the neck) that I'm getting come with replacement pots? If not, what pots would you recommend? Could I get say a 100k pot for the volume of the bridge pickup and a 250K pot for the volume of the neck pickup? Or would they both have to be the same? Would the 250K be a good idea to make the neck pickup a bit warmer?

Thanks!

[Cleveland Metal]

Won't come with pots... Only seen that with EMG's, because they are drastically different.

I prefer 500's on passive. Someone else will probably comment on the 250 thing.

I'd probably be looking into doing the 1meg thing if I used passives, haha...

[Dred]

For me personally, the values for the pots you suggested seem way too low. I've heard the TB-4 is a hot pickup (Gary holt comes to mind), but I've no idea just how an SH-2N would sound.

Obviously, depending on what you want, there are different options. In my opinion, even with the hot pickups, a 250K will make the sound muddy.

I would say try a 500K, see if the pup is too hot/not hot enough for your taste, and go from there. The best way to learn what you really like is to give it a proper shot bro! Don't worry about overshooting, because it all can be reversed.

If a 500K doesn't do it for you, you can consider these few options: Add a resistor into the circuit if it's too hot, to dampen the sound slighty without having the 250K in there; add a capacitor to the circuit if you want the sound to retain highs when you roll down the volume(treble bleed mod); try adding a capacitor before the pot, to increase it's value just slightly (the opposite of the resistor mod); or go up or down the pot values.
Diffrerent value caps and resistors offer different results, even if the difference is quite small, so it will definitely take experimentation.

So to answer your questions, the pots don't have to be the same, and I'd recommend 500K's to start off with, test those for a few weeks, and pick up from there. It's more costly, and more labour intensive to experiment, but it can lead to something interesting

If you definitely want something special, you could also try a push/pull pot with a cap/resistor infront of one of the modes so you can switch from a hotter/cooler sounding pot, if you want to have a few options of output, without coil splitting, etc. You'd then have something like two different pots with a single dial. (I think that should work, haven't tried it, but it seems like something doable.)

[Dreamland_Rebel]

if you do this, you should come out on top.

-go to www.rsguitarworks.net and get one 500k "superpot" for volume, one 500k "audio" pot for the tone, and one .022 modern capacitor from them. these, on top of being high quality, are nice and big so you have more room to solder the wires to the back.

-use this http://www.seymourduncan.com/support...ic=2h_1v_1t_3w

-and this if needed http://www.seymourduncan.com/pdfs/su.../3ws_trans.pdf

[metalchurch79]

I'd use a 250k for the TB-4 because they are insanely bright in my opinion.
But I'd use a 500k for the neck.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

I'd use a 250k for the TB-4 because they are insanely bright in my opinion.
But I'd use a 500k for the neck.

500k tone / 500k vol = 250k total load = the JB kicking ass.