# Pots and wiring ideas for one single coil strat



## mrfiftyfour (Jun 29, 2008)

I've had a bridge position Texas Special sitting around for about 13 years. Decided to put it to use.
I dropped it into a beater squire bullet I use for such experiments and it turns out I like the one single coil. I like it so much, I'm gonna try it in my #1 strat.
The pots are the originals from the bullet, so those need to be upgraded. I was wondering what pots, caps and wiring schematics you guys would use for a strat with a single Texas special in the bridge, one volume, one tone and no switch.
Needless to say, I'll be relying on the volume and tone controls for tonal variations. Look forward to reading your ideas. 
FWIW, I use my amp for distortion most of the time and go for a classic rock tone with more gain.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Here is a wiring diagram as a starting point. 

CTS brand pots are usually dependable and 250K Ohm are typical values used with single coils. 

Caps are somewhat of a debate...both the electronic value and the cash value. 
As for the electronic value you could try anything from 0.011 to 0.047 microfarads (uF) and see what you think. 0.022 uF is a popular value.

Cheers

Dave


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

T'wer I, I'd opt for a rotary switch, rather than pot for adjustment of tone.

These things - http://www.stellartone.com/index.asp - make it easy, but if you're up to it, 6 and 11-position rotary switches can often be had at The Source, and similar outlets for a few bucks. Or you can order one, plus additional components, from Tayda - http://www.taydaelectronics.com/ .

The traditional tone pot, we are all familiar with, bleeds off varying amounts of signal above a given corner frequency. The Tone Styler / rotary-switch approach uses different tone cap values to act as a filter with different corner frequencies. It can yield a broader range of tones from a single pickup. Obviously not the same as having multiple pickups, but definitely more variety than one pickup with vol/tone would normally suggest.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

mhammer said:


> T'wer I, I'd opt for a rotary switch, rather than pot for adjustment of tone.


Interesting and "creative" alternative solution. 

Thanks Mark!

I always enjoy learning something new (to me) from you.

Cheers

Dave


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

I'd use 250k vol, 250k tone with a 0.033 cap
The pots I use are the Bourns guitar pots. They come in several shapes, sizes and shaft configurations and are of excellent quality. They even have the no-load pots with no-load detent.

http://www.bourns.com/ProAudio.aspx?name=pamm

For caps, I use Mallory film caps.


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## mrfiftyfour (Jun 29, 2008)

I don't know man. $75-125 for a tone pot? And it doesn't come with a knob!
Any chance for a schematic so I can build my own?
The Seymor Duncan schematic posted above shows a 500k volume pot. Is that a typo or should I use the 500k for volume and 250k for tone?



mhammer said:


> T'wer I, I'd opt for a rotary switch, rather than pot for adjustment of tone.
> 
> These things - http://www.stellartone.com/index.asp - make it easy, but if you're up to it, 6 and 11-position rotary switches can often be had at The Source, and similar outlets for a few bucks. Or you can order one, plus additional components, from Tayda - http://www.taydaelectronics.com/ .
> 
> The traditional tone pot, we are all familiar with, bleeds off varying amounts of signal above a given corner frequency. The Tone Styler / rotary-switch approach uses different tone cap values to act as a filter with different corner frequencies. It can yield a broader range of tones from a single pickup. Obviously not the same as having multiple pickups, but definitely more variety than one pickup with vol/tone would normally suggest.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

LydianGuitars said:


> I'd use 250k vol, 250k tone with a 0.033 cap
> The pots I use are the Bourns guitar pots. They come in several shapes, sizes and shaft configurations and are of excellent quality. They even have the no-load pots with no-load detent.
> 
> http://www.bourns.com/ProAudio.aspx?name=pamm
> ...


Who do you order your Bourns guitar pots from?

Thanks

Dave


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

mrfiftyfour said:


> The Seymor Duncan schematic posted above shows a 500k volume pot. Is that a typo or should I use the 500k for volume and 250k for tone?


It might be a typo. 

You could use either value of pot, but a 250K volume pot is more typical/popular from my experience.

A 500K *tone pot* might give you a wider sweep of tones.

Cheers

Dave


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

greco said:


> Who do you order your Bourns guitar pots from?


I order all of my electronic parts from www.mouser.ca

I try to order in quantity to reduce the shipping overhead. My last order was $100.00 worth of pots and caps.

- - - Updated - - -



greco said:


> You could use either value of pot, but a 250K volume pot is more typical/popular from my experience.
> 
> A 500K *tone pot* might give you a wider sweep of tones.


500k on the volume pot might end up leaving too many abrasive high end overtones with a single coil. I don't recommend it. There are other variables to consider like the amp's input impedance (or whatever you plug into, like a pedal) so your results may vary.

For the tone pot, I like using a 500k pot. I've done that a few times on telecaster builds. It really depends on the pickups and tone you're after.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

mrfiftyfour said:


> I don't know man. $75-125 for a tone pot? And it doesn't come with a knob!
> Any chance for a schematic so I can build my own?
> The Seymor Duncan schematic posted above shows a 500k volume pot. Is that a typo or should I use the 500k for volume and 250k for tone?


1) A 500k volume pot is fine, as is a 500k tone pot. The pot value really only starts to make a difference if you leave the volume up full all the time. If you play around with volume levels on the guitars a lot, pot value starts to matter much less because you're loading down the pickup ALL the time.

2) I installed a "bidirectional" tone pot on some of my guitars. It has one value of tone cap in one direction and another in the other direction. The midpoint of the pot is no-cut, and you produce more cut going in either direction from the midpoint. I use a 1M linear pot (because at the midpoint you have two 500k sections to ground in parallel), with a cap around .022 or so from one outside lug to ground, and something like .0047-.0068uf (4700pf-6800pf) from the other outside lug to ground. That gives you dulling at one extreme and "rounding the edges" at the other. The wiper of the pot goes to the input lug of the volume, like any normal tone pot would. It takes a teeny bit of getting used to, but not that much. The bigger burden is explaining to other people who try your guitar that "it's not going to get brighter sounding in that direction". Provides more options, though, for minimal price and effort, with no special installation.

3) I don't know the specifics of the tone styler, but a simple thing might be the following 6-position switch:
- no action
- .0022uf+2.2M resistor
- .0047uf+2.2M resistor
- .01uf+2.2M resistor
- .022uf+2.2M resistor
- .0022uf cap+2.2M resistor across pot

I contemplated using one or two postions for incorporating an inductor to form an LC midcut filter, but I suspect those are far more relevant and useful when there are more than two pickups involved, and there is more bass. The reflex would be to compare it to a Varitone, but the Varitone produces 5 different notches (in addition to a "bypass" position), whereas this one produces different treble cuts and one bright position.

So here's what you end up with. :
a) first position equivalent to a "no load" tone pot; the brightest cleanest possible sound
b) just the slightest bit of "sanding the edges off"
c) a "rounder" sound that makes the pickup stop sounding single coil and a touch more in the direction of a P90; still bright with bite, though
d) warmer and more "jazz-like", possibly better for pushing an overdrive without the harshness
e) your traditional dull sound
f) thinner and brighter as you turn your volume down, sort of like a bass-cut control

b through e are the functional equivalent of standard tone-cuts, but at different points in the spectrum. F sidesteps the treble cut and provides an "overcompensated" volume pot that cuts bass as you turn down, and only really begins to cut the _whole_ signal when you get down to around 3 or 4 on the knob.

The 2M2 resistors are there because a "floating/hanging" cap that has no path to drain off will cause an audible "pop" when you connect it. The resistors are there to provide a complete path for the caps to drain when thew switch is not in that particular position. They are of a highg enough value that the caps should behave as if they are effectively out of circuit. The switch essentially bridges one of those resistors at a time to make the particular cap DO something. In case it looks familiar, the diagram is a heavily editted version of the Gibson Varitone diagram. The varitone uses 10M, instead of the 2M2 I've used here. Feel free to go higher than 2M2.

Hope this is useful.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

LydianGuitars said:


> 500k on the volume pot might end up leaving too many abrasive high end overtones with a single coil. I don't recommend it.
> 
> For the tone pot, I like using a 500k pot. I've done that a few times on telecaster builds. It really depends on the pickups and tone you're after.



I don't like 500K volume pots with single coils either.

However, like yourself, I like 500K tone pots.

At the moment I am using a 250K volume pot with a humbucker and I like that combination.

Cheers

Dave


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## mrfiftyfour (Jun 29, 2008)

How does a 500k tone pot work with single coils as opposed to a 250k?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The amplifier, and any pedals ahead of it, "see" several different signal sources, giving a sort of preference to the source that is the lowest impedance (impedance is not the same thing as resistance but is related to it). With the volume pot up full (i.e., the wiper is all the way at one end such that the pot appears as a 500k, 250k, or whatever, resistance to ground), the amp "sees" essentially 3 sources: the pickups, the pot, and whatever resistance to ground is in place at the amp's input jack. All of these are essentially in parallel with each other, and the more such things there are, the more "loaded down" the amp or pedal is said to be.

When the pickup - as a "load" - is much lower impedance than everything else, the amp gives greater preference to it. Almost equally important, high frequency signal produced by the pickup/s is better able to be conducted by the cable.

When the pickup isn't quite THAT much lower than the pot, or the input resistance of the amp, some of the high frequency content will be lost. As a result of this, and because single coil pickups can have more high frequency content than humbuckers (the "why" of this is a discussion for another time), players tend to prefer using lower-value volume pots because it results in a bit of the top end (and what some players describe as "brittleness") being lopped off,yielding a more relaxed sound. Conversely, because humbuckers don't have quite as much top end, many players prefer to use higher-value volume pots with them in an effort not to *lose* what little top end is there.

What I remind people of (maybe a little too often), is that the relative tonal advantage of volume pot value really only applies when the volume pot is turned up full. That is, YES it is true that a 500k pot will result in a brighter tone than a 250k pot if either pot is turned up full, simply because a 8-10k pickup, compared to a 500k resistance, is MUCH lower.

But once the volume pot is turned down a bit, that sonic difference disappears. If you turn down a 500k pot from, say 10 to 8, there may be 70k on one side of the wiper and 430k on the other. That 70k is essentially added to the resistance of the pickup so that the amp "sees" about 430k and 80k or so. The pickup is not given that much "preference" under those circumstances. The same thing happens with 250k pots as well, but is a little worse in terms of the resistance on one side of the wiper quickly matching the other side.

Fender saw fit to address this loading down by "compensating" their volume pots with a capacitor, and later on a capacitor-resistor network. The compensation serves to preserve the brightness that would otherwise be lost as you turn down.

So, to sum up: If you always play with your volume knob/s up full, and only turn down to be able to hear a conversation, or end a set, then 500k is a little brighter than 250k. If you fiddle with your volume controls all the time, then it really doesn't make that much difference,


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

mrfiftyfour said:


> How does a 500k tone pot work with single coils as opposed to a 250k?


The tone pot and capacitor form a low pass filter (frequencies under the cutoff frequency can pass through). 

The value of the cutoff frequency can be calculated with the formula 1/(2π * RC).

The filter simply sends the unwanted signal to ground. The 500K pot will give you more range than a 250k pot. I like to combine a 0.033uf cap with a 500k pot for teles and some strats.


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## mrfiftyfour (Jun 29, 2008)

Thanks for the responses, dudes. I think I'm gonna try the 500k tone pot and experiment with some of the cap values 
Mr Hammer suggested.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

On my 64 Coronet, I simply have a 3-position toggle with 2 different caps for two different treble cuts, and no cut in the middle position. That's it. No other tonal control beyond switching pickups and my fingers.


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