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Post subject: Hot humbuckers in a tele! Help!
Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 6:56 am
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Okay here goes, I have a standard mim tele from 2006 and I want to put a hot humbucker( 13-16k ) in the neck position ( I play metal but love teles) but I've heard that on guitars with 250k pots, they sound very dark and muddy. Also, I don't want to upgrade to 500k pots because I don't want the bridge pickup any brighter than it already is! Any advice? Thanks in advance

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Post subject: Re: Hot humbuckers in a tele! Help!
Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 4:25 pm
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Guitarfreak77724 wrote:
Okay here goes, I have a standard mim tele from 2006 and I want to put a hot humbucker( 13-16k ) in the neck position ( I play metal but love teles) but I've heard that on guitars with 250k pots, they sound very dark and muddy. Also, I don't want to upgrade to 500k pots because I don't want the bridge pickup any brighter than it already is! Any advice? Thanks in advance


Replace the bridge pickup with one of higher output. The pickup will be darker and so, you'll need to put 500K pots in the guitar to open the pickup up thus restoring a more traditional Tele pickup tonality.

Or...

Put a Duncan JB in the neck position. This pickup was designed around a 250K pot in spite of the DC resistance which I may add, is NOT the defining electrical reading that determines a pickup's output and tone.

There are more ways too where substituting and adding electronic components can achieve what you want but the above two suggestions are the most practical and least complicated.

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Post subject: sd jb junior neck position
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:45 am
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Hi All,

I have a Seymoure Duncan JB junior at the neck of my strat and it sound great.


Arthur


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Post subject:
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 3:18 am
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Hey guys, thanks for the info :D I've heard that you can fix the problem by installing a 500k volume pot and leaving the stock tone pot (250k). Is this true?

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Post subject:
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 6:28 am
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Guitarfreak77724 wrote:
Hey guys, thanks for the info :D I've heard that you can fix the problem by installing a 500k volume pot and leaving the stock tone pot (250k). Is this true?


A volume pot value change will indeed have a more dramatic difference over a tone pot value change. However and again, in your situation, it will land you right back to where your concern about the bridge pickup being thinned out to the point of clanky will definitely happen.

You might want to try a 500K volume pot and when you select the bridge pickup, turn the tone pot down some but I must state that although you'll take some of the brightness out of the bridge pickup by doing so, the bridge pickup may also sound flat and lifeless.

It seems that for all intents and purposes you are trying to optimize the tonality of two drastically different pickups by a mere pot change. The only way this will work to the efficiency you evidently are trying to achieve is if you wire both pickups to where they have the capability of being completely independent of each other in the circuit. Granted, this can be done but it will limit the guitar's overall tonality, versatility, and it will most likely be confusing as well.

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Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 9:21 am
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To he honest i'm not too bothered about the brightness of the bridge pickup, as I have it very close to the strings, and can adjust it to taste. The sd jb seems like an option.... Just that I don't know anyone that has used one, and Ive already bought the humbucker. So will the 500k pot definitely get rid of that horrible dark muddy sound I have at the moment?

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Post subject:
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 10:12 am
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Guitarfreak77724 wrote:
To he honest i'm not too bothered about the brightness of the bridge pickup, as I have it very close to the strings, and can adjust it to taste. The sd jb seems like an option.... Just that I don't know anyone that has used one, and Ive already bought the humbucker. So will the 500k pot definitely get rid of that horrible dark muddy sound I have at the moment?


The only two things that are certain in life are death and taxes. I will say this though: A 500K pot will surely open up the frequency response of a full sized HB vs. a 250K pot. Notwithstanding, exactly which brand and model HB are we talking about here?

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Post subject:
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 11:39 am
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The pickup is an irongear "hot slag" ( funny name I know) I've used them before and they've always sounded great, however it was dark and muddy because of the pots. I actually used a bridge postion model (in the neck )l. The output is 16.4k

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Post subject:
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:02 pm
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The 500k will change things, but don't fixate on that. Your tone cap value will also make a big difference.

Both operating together form an RC (resistor/capacitor) filter that coupled with the impedance of your pickups 'color' your output sound. They all interact.

One thing that is nice with the tele is you have easy access to those controls where you can use some clip leads or just barely solder tack components on to see how they sound. Strats are much, much harder since everything is buried under the pick guard.

Not trying to rain on your parade, but why this goal of making a tele something it is not? Throwing a humbucker in will involve pickguard and other body work in addition to having to spend a lot of time dinking around with the electronics to get what you want.

There are metric tonnes of effects boxes, modeling pedals and graphics equalizer pedals that you can use to make your sound from mild to wild.


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Post subject:
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 1:08 pm
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Guitarfreak77724 wrote:
The pickup is an irongear "hot slag" ( funny name I know) I've used them before and they've always sounded great, however it was dark and muddy because of the pots. I actually used a bridge postion model (in the neck )l. The output is 16.4k


In truth, I've never heard of it.

The bottom line at this point is, change the pot and try it.

FYI and as previously stated, DC resistance is not the output of the pickup. That is merely the coil resistance and coincidentally, 16.4K ohms resistance is the same as a typical full sized JB. Oversimplified, Inductance and Millivolts are your indicators of a pickup's output (and tonality).

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Post subject:
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:07 pm
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Mim standards come routed for humbuckers. I didn't have to rout anything. And I bought a new pickguard so it's all good. Tbh I don't have the money to spend on lots of pedals, and tbh although it may not be YOUR cup of tea, it is my guitar, and I want a humbucker in it :P

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Post subject: Thanks for all the help- I'll try a pot change :)
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:11 pm
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Martian wrote:
Guitarfreak77724 wrote:
The pickup is an irongear "hot slag" ( funny name I know) I've used them before and they've always sounded great, however it was dark and muddy because of the pots. I actually used a bridge postion model (in the neck )l. The output is 16.4k


In truth, I've never heard of it.

The bottom line at this point is, change the pot and try it.

FYI and as previously stated, DC resistance is not the output of the pickup. That is merely the coil resistance and coincidentally, 16.4K ohms resistance is the same as a typical full sized JB. Oversimplified, Inductance and Millivolts are your indicators of a pickup's output (and tonality).



Thanks for helping, and as I said above, I think I'll try putting a 500k volume pot in it. Thanks for your time and effort :)

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Post subject: Re: Thanks for all the help- I'll try a pot change :)
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:34 pm
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Guitarfreak77724 wrote:
Martian wrote:
Guitarfreak77724 wrote:
The pickup is an irongear "hot slag" ( funny name I know) I've used them before and they've always sounded great, however it was dark and muddy because of the pots. I actually used a bridge postion model (in the neck )l. The output is 16.4k


In truth, I've never heard of it.

The bottom line at this point is, change the pot and try it.

FYI and as previously stated, DC resistance is not the output of the pickup. That is merely the coil resistance and coincidentally, 16.4K ohms resistance is the same as a typical full sized JB. Oversimplified, Inductance and Millivolts are your indicators of a pickup's output (and tonality).



Thanks for helping, and as I said above, I think I'll try putting a 500k volume pot in it. Thanks for your time and effort :)


Glad to help and I hope it works out to your expectations. Remember, you want a 500K AUDIO pot and NOT a linear one.

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