Jose Monta's Guitar Parts

I have a strat style guitar that needs volume and tone pots any advice on the different options i have?

Hello, I have a Stratocaster (strat) style guitar with: a Lace Sensor blue in the neck position, Lipstick tube pickup in the middle position, and Seymour Duncan’s new P-rails (the P-rails pickup is P-90, humbucker and a single coil rail). I havent bought any volume or tone pots yet so I was wondering what my options are. Also can I use a tone pot for the volume pot?

Hello! When it comes to potentiometers, you have a few options. First and foremost, don’t buy junk pots; by the time you have invested a few hours of your time into wiring and assembling, you don’t want to have to repeat the process because of a sub-standard control. CTS is a good recognized brand, and the cost difference between them and the cheapies is minimal. See http://www.torresengineering.com/guitvolpot.html for an example. Next you need to consider the resistance. For typical Stratocaster wiring purposes, you will be looking at 250K, 500K, and 1M (megohm) varieties. Most stock Fender Strats come with 250K controls, which for the standard output pickups is fine; however, for a hotter pickup (like the Lipstick and P-Rails) you really want to install the 500K units, just to allow the pickups to breathe a bit. Picture a high-horsepower V8 engine in a car trying to exhaust through an undersized single-exhaust pipe, and you will get the idea. Some folks swear by the 1M potentiometers, but I found with the middle-range-output pickups, the tone was too distorted for my tastes. If you really want to understand how the volume and tone controls function in the scheme of guitar circuitry, check out http://www.lespaulforum.com/pots/lpfpots.html, which is an excellent tutorial. As an aside, I have had a blue lace-sensor in the neck pickup position before, and felt it was way too muddy to be useful; I replaced it with a silver lace-sensor, and was much happier with the resulting tone. Finally, there is no physical or electrical difference between tone and volume pots, only how they are functionally wired into the circuitry. The Seymour-Duncan site has a nice diagram at http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=1hum_2sing_1vol_1tone_5way that shows one possible way to wire your guitar. Best regards, Dana

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