Here's a simple question:

[oldmanriver]

Which pots should I get if I'm going to use single coil-sized humbucking pickups? I'm thinking about getting a set of Seymour Duncan Li'l Screamin' Demons for my Strat and I don't know If I should use 250K or 500K pots.

 

[Cagey]

500K audio taper pots will make you happy. You might also want to add a .001uf cap across the two hot leads of the pot as a treble bleed. Helps maintain character as you turn the thing down. Otherwise, you'll lose some high end, causing it to sound "dark" or "muddy" or whatever they call an indistinct signal these days.

 

[Jusatele]

on the seymour duncan web site, when you click on that pickup, and then wiring instructions, it has a diagram with 250k pots and a .47 cap, are you wondering if we are going to tell you this is correct?

 

[bagman67]

+1 on the treble bleed.  Cagey wired one for me and it's the bee's knees.

 

[line6man]

on the seymour duncan web site, when you click on that pickup, and then wiring instructions, it has a diagram with 250k pots and a .47 cap, are you wondering if we are going to tell you this is correct?

0.47uF is an order of magnitude greater than what is generally used with high impedance pickups. It would give you quite a low cutoff point.
It's very important to be mindful of decimal points, because when you go to buy capacitors "47" is a very common prefix, and it is easy to get the wrong one if you don't pay attention.

I like 500k pots on most everything, but you would be better off to try both and see which works better.

 

[oldmanriver]

on the seymour duncan web site, when you click on that pickup, and then wiring instructions, it has a diagram with 250k pots and a .47 cap, are you wondering if we are going to tell you this is correct?

I did see that page and I was going to compare it to the general consensus here. Before re-checking that page just now I was not aware that the other pickup models listed were also in the "single coil-sized humbucker" family. I assumed they were just regular single coil models. So with that I suppose this thread wasn't necessary. My mistake.

 

[reluctant-builder]

Personally, I like 500K pots with any kind of dual-coil pickup, but I use a 0.022 uF cap for the bridge and a 0.015 uF cap for the neck. My reasoning is that, with the lower value cap, the neck pickup loses less treble ... and I prefer that, since it tends to be the "muddier" pickup, in my experience.

I've heard proponents of 1 MegOhm pots with humbuckers, but using 0.047 uF capacitors (or higher), but those people are not the norm. I've yet to try it, but the increased range of resistance to sweep across the frequency range of a pickup makes me interested to try it, as an experiment. I think the conventional wisdom is that the higher value potentiometers preserve more of the higher frequencies across the sweep between 10 and 0.

Typically, lower value pots with higher value caps = the least amount of treble. So, 500 kOhms with 0.022 uF is right in the middle.

Edit: The scientific sticklers will probably point out the holes in my assumptions and may inform you of the proper nomenclature and actual aural phenomena.

 

[line6man]

Personally, I like 500K pots with any kind of dual-coil pickup, but I use a 0.022 uF cap for the bridge and a 0.015 uF cap for the neck. My reasoning is that, with the lower value cap, the neck pickup loses less treble ... and I prefer that, since it tends to be the "muddier" pickup, in my experience.

I've heard proponents of 1 MegOhm pots with humbuckers, but using 0.047 uF capacitors (or higher), but those people are not the norm. I've yet to try it, but the increased range of resistance to sweep across the frequency range of a pickup makes me interested to try it, as an experiment. I think the conventional wisdom is that the higher value potentiometers preserve more of the higher frequencies across the sweep between 10 and 0.

Typically, lower value pots with higher value caps = the least amount of treble. So, 500 kOhms with 0.022 uF is right in the middle.

Edit: The scientific sticklers will probably point out the holes in my assumptions and may inform you of the proper nomenclature and actual aural phenomena.

The appeal of 1M Ohm pots is the fact that they place less of a load against the signal, giving you a slightly brighter tone. There are two issues with this, however.

First off, many pickups are voiced with the concept of resistive loading in mind, so that they will sound good with pots, but perhaps a bit ice picky if played direct to the jack, or with very high value pots. There is a reason why many manufacturers have a recommendation for pot and capacitor values. Their pickups sound best with higher or lower value components in the rest of the circuit. (Often times people take "250k for singles and 500k for humbuckers" as a general rule of thumb, though there are many notable exceptions.)

Second, with such a high range of resistance, the taper of the sweep is questionable.  It is important to remember that a volume pot places resistances both parallel to, and in series with your signal. While 1M pots would place relatively little load against most pickups, depending on their output impedances, they would place a relatively great resistance between the pickups and the output when you roll them down. With a 1M audio taper pot, you place a 500k Ohms resistance in series with the signal, when you roll the pot down about a fifth of the rotation!

 

[Jusatele]

on the seymour duncan web site, when you click on that pickup, and then wiring instructions, it has a diagram with 250k pots and a .47 cap, are you wondering if we are going to tell you this is correct?

I did see that page and I was going to compare it to the general consensus here. Before re-checking that page just now I was not aware that the other pickup models listed were also in the "single coil-sized humbucker" family. I assumed they were just regular single coil models. So with that I suppose this thread wasn't necessary. My mistake.

nonono, no mistake, I just wanted a clarification off the question, if SD says to wire it like that then it seems that they have the correct wiring. I was wondering if you wanted some form of alternate wiring, or what would happen if you use different values, that is all, sorry if I upset you.

 

[oldmanriver]

on the seymour duncan web site, when you click on that pickup, and then wiring instructions, it has a diagram with 250k pots and a .47 cap, are you wondering if we are going to tell you this is correct?

I did see that page and I was going to compare it to the general consensus here. Before re-checking that page just now I was not aware that the other pickup models listed were also in the "single coil-sized humbucker" family. I assumed they were just regular single coil models. So with that I suppose this thread wasn't necessary. My mistake.

nonono, no mistake, I just wanted a clarification off the question, if SD says to wire it like that then it seems that they have the correct wiring. I was wondering if you wanted some form of alternate wiring, or what would happen if you use different values, that is all, sorry if I upset you.

No worries, no harm done  . I was planning for a pretty standard, straight-forward wiring: one master volume, one neck tone, one bridge tone, 5-way switch.

 

[Jusatele]

my only concern is the pot value and the mini humbuckers, I have a strat with a hot rail, cool rail and a split rail, and with 250 pots, never have been satisfied, I was thinking about switching out to 500s to see how it sounds, seems most humbickers are done with 500s but SD suggest 250s for the mini ones.

 

[Cagey]

my only concern is the pot value and the mini humbuckers, I have a strat with a hot rail, cool rail and a split rail, and with 250 pots, never have been satisfied, I was thinking about switching out to 500s to see how it sounds, seems most humbickers are done with 500s but SD suggest 250s for the mini ones.

I always run 500K pots, and especially these days with anything noiseless being some form of humbucker with the associated higher output. The "Rails" pickups are all humbuckers, for instance.

There's no punishment for using 500K pots, and often some reward. The only thing that happens besides the pickups sounding better is the taper might have a mildly different curve than what you're used to. The closer you get to "full on", the finer the control gets. This isn't usually a Bad Thing, as you often want to back off a humbucker slightly to clean it up, without necessarily lowering the volume much. With a 500K, the back-off point isn't so hyper-critical. Just nudge it back, and you're good to go.

In any event, pots are cheap. Swap 'em out, and if you don't like what happens, swap 'em back. Cost you between $5 and $10 and your time.