Hey anyone in here ever install a volume kit on their strat? If you have never heard of it, a volume kit allows you to turn down the volume on the guitar without dulling the treble. The kit just consists of a capacitor and resistor in parallel.

My question is what value should the components be? You can buy one of these kits on the site www.acmeguitarworks.com but you buy one kit if you have humbuckers and another if you have single coils installed. I happen to have both installed. Anyone else here installed one the these kits?

"The values are 680pF/220K (single coils) and 1000pF/220K (humbuckers)" --acmeguitarworks

These types of circuits have been around for a very long time and are in fact, very popular. They are commonly but mistakenly called, "treble bleed" circuits when in reality, they don't bleed treble, they retain it. Players either love these circuits or hate them.

If you start losing me here, ask questions.

If a guitar has 'regular' output, single coil pickups and 250K ohm pots, not only will the results of this added circuit be negligible but the taper of the pot will lose its proper dynamics. Meaning, there will be jumps in the increase and decrease in volume where it isn't a progressive 1 - 10 thing or the inverse.

If a guitar has 'regular' output, full sized humbuckers and 500K ohm pots the difference will be more pronounced and even to the point of having the opposite effect. Meaning, as you turn down the volume, the treble outright increases. Again, the taper of the pot will lose its proper dynamics.

If the guitar has either a single coil or full sized humbucker with tremendous output, regardless of the value of the pots which may even be as much as 1,000K (1 meg) ohms, this device is going to outright reak havic on the dynamics of the pot to where there will be 'bald spots' as you dial it.

There are many who do use this circuit but change whatever the prescribed values of the components are to tailor it more to their personal satisfaction. By doing so, it gives them what they feel is the right amount of treble retention as they dial the pot down and minimizes the inconsistency of the flaky pot dynamics.

There are no, "in stone" values. Different dealers, pickup manufacturers, guitar manufacturers, guitar techs, even outright electrical engineers and technicians will probably never agree on what the best values of the components are. See, in addition to the above, the amp, the jack, the pedals, etc, etc, all come into play on an individual basis where realistically, one size doesn't and cannot fit all.

So, based on your question, apparently you only have one volume control. But to answer your question, because you have both types of pickups, you might want to go with the single coil circuit. Granted, it won't be as profound for the humbucker but if you choose the humbucker one, it will really make your single coil sound anemic.

Also of note: You can buy the exact same parts as Acme is selling in a Radio Shack type store for probably under $2.

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IMO, that circuit helps out humbuckers more than single coils.

But try it out. If you don't like it, you can always remove it.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Hey Thanks for the reply. Right now I have two Duncan Alnico pro 2 Humbuckers (normal output) and one Lace Gold sensor. I have two 500k pots, one is the volume the other is the tone for the neck humbucker with .033 cap. The last tone pot is for the Lace sensor and is 250k with a .02 cap. Its HSH.

Yea this is mostly for the humbuckers as they suffer the most. But you said if I use the 1000pF/220K kit the single coil lace sensor will become anemic. I don't think I want that, I could just use the amp volume instead. This is really just for convenience.

But on the other hand if I use the 680pF/220K kit the humbuckers still have the same problem and the Lace sensor is basically fine the way it is now. I don't see that helping.

I'm starting to think this circuit may not be right for my guitars setup, at least these stock kits that is.

My basic understanding of this was that the added cap allows the treble frequencies to jump across that cap when the volume is turned down because high frequencies have more trouble pushing through DC resistance then low frequencies do.

Actually, your reasoning is what I was trying to imply. I just didn't want to outright jade the answer with my opinion of these circuits.

"Travel through that cap" would be more accurate than, "jumping across that cap".

Not to confuse the subject, but there's all sorts of little circuit add-ons for guitars with single and HB pickups to alter the tonality. For example, wiring a 470K ohm resistor in line with the single coil so that when the single coil is on by itself, the circuit 'sees' a 250K ohm pot rather than the actual 500K ohm one. (This is an abbreviated explanation/definition.)

If you think about it, one could go berserk with wiring this to that and that to, this, that and the other thing in an effort to tailor every little nuance of a guitar's circuit. With such things though, the line has to be drawn somewhere. As the bulk of production guitars like your's for example, do not have all these additional components OEM, then as you've discovered, there's a pragmatic reason aside from money saving measures on the part of the manufacturers.

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