P90 Tele best pot question

[Hbom]

Hi all, I'm assembling a new Warmoth Tele build that will use BKP Yardbird set in bridge and middle position and a Nantucket humbucker size P90 in the neck.
Question is what would be appropriate potentiometers for this setup?

I'm thinking that do to the P90 I should use 500k CTS vintage but am open to all ideas and suggestions.

Thanks
Doug

 

[line6man]

It's a personal preference. Do you want a bright pot, or a warmer pot?

Note that the jack wiring in that diagram is incorrect. You will want to wire the ground to the sleeve terminal, rather than the ring.

 

[stratamania]

Good spot L6.

I don't think the wiring is incorrect diagrammatically.  However the label marked Ring that the ground is attached to is a Sleeve. Anyway the wiring will work.

 

[GilgaFrank]

Conventional wisdom is to use a 250k pot with single coil pickups. Despite being humbucker sized, the P90 is a single coil. Sure, it'll sound fatter than the Tele pickups but that's why you bought a P90 isn't it? Either way, the Tele pickups could end up sounding unbearably toppy with 500k pots. I'd stick with the 250k.

BKP are very good at giving technical advice to customers, might want to drop Tim an email or ask on the BKP forum and go with his advice.

 

[Ace Flibble]

The basic P-90 design was made when most guitars they were being used with had 300k volume pots and 500k tone pots. I don't know about Bare Knuckle specifically, but most pickup manufacturers design their P-90s—humbucker-sized or regular—for the combination of 300k and 500k. Even though most people using humbucker-sized P-90s use them in guitars with all-500k pots these days, that just means those people get a little more brightness, which is likely what they went to P-90s for anyway.

With that in mind, I'd use double 300k pots. You'll be getting very slightly less top-end out of the P-90 than it may have been intended to have, and the bridge and middle pickups will be a touch brighter, but it won't be that severe a change. 500k pots will likely make the bridge and middle pickups very peircing, and 250k pots will probably bring a lot of mud to the P-90; I've never found any P-90 that works out well with 250k pots. You could simply mix a 250k pot and a 500k pot, but then you're giving up some fine control on whichever control gets the 500k pot. 300k pots give almost the same fine control and smooth roll-off as 250k pots, so using both in both positions is what makes sense with this pickup combination, to me.

If it were my own guitar, I'd buy 4-5 300k pots, measure them all and use the brightest ones. CTS have tolerances ranging from 5-10%, Bourns are around 5-7% and Alpha sit in the 10-15% range. Aiming to get pots measuring in the 290-315k range would be a good plan.

Otherwise, I'd use two 500k pots and have the bridge and middle pickups run through a 470k resistor (fixed 500k resistors can be hard to find) before hitting the controls, so the bridge and middle pickups will see a 'full' 250k while the P-90 goes straight through to the 500k controls. The only downsides to this are that it's a little more wiring effort and 500k controls tend to not offer such fine control as 250k or 300k pots. If you leave everything on '10' all the time, no problem; if you do a lot of work with either the volume or tone pots, I believe the 300k option will be much better for you.

 

[Kostas]

It depends if you like a trebly sound or not. When I made my Thinline with a tele bridge and P90 neck I used 500k pots and whenever I used the bridge pickup I would turn down the tone control because there was too much treble then I would open it up when I was using the neck pickup. It was annoying to do that all the time so I changed it.

P90's are single coils but they definitely 500k pots otherwise they will be dark. On the other hand a bridge tele pickup works better with a 250k.

I would do this if I was doing it again:

...If it were my own guitar, I'd buy 4-5 300k pots, measure them all and use the brightest ones. CTS have tolerances ranging from 5-10%, Bourns are around 5-7% and Alpha sit in the 10-15% range. Aiming to get pots measuring in the 290-315k range would be a good plan.

Otherwise, I'd use two 500k pots and have the bridge and middle pickups run through a 470k resistor (fixed 500k resistors can be hard to find) before hitting the controls, so the bridge and middle pickups will see a 'full' 250k while the P-90 goes straight through to the 500k controls...

A good source for pots is this guy (couldn't find a sale for just two 500k pots) http://www.ebay.com/itm/CTS-1-MATCHED-SET-4-TRUE-500k-10-Tolerance-Audio-Potentiometers-Les-Paul-Pot-/271156575684?hash=item3f2230fdc4:m:mpU2JLQhguyw-fx0FTsQwoA
I bought a pair of 250k pots (1% matched) for my tele and there were both 261k!

 

[Hbom]

Thanks to all for your replies.
Lot's of good ideas floated now I just have to decide.
:rock-on:

 

[JD0x0]

Forget the 250k for singles 500k for buckers rule. It's moot. I've used 500k volume and 1Meg tones with single coils and had good results. IMO a P-90, being high inductance will benefit from higher value pots. Yes, they will be brighter, with everything on '10' but remember, you also have a tone pot to dial the resonant peak back down. A 500k tone pot rolled back slightly can typical mimic a 250k pot, wide open..

Here's what I've got in my guitars currently..

Warmoth Cabronita (TV jones classic/classic+) 1MegVol/1Meg tone (modded to 'no load' wide open)
Warmoth Tele (A2 single coils) 500k vol/500k tone (modded to 'no load')
G&L Superhawk (Wilde L-600 3.6Henry/6.2H) 1Meg vol/500k tone
G&L ASAT Deluxe (Wilde L-90 4H/8H) 500k vol/1Meg tone (modded to 'no load')
G&L S-500 (Alni3 Tonerider Surfari pickups) 500kVol/1Meg tone

Higher value pots will not shave as much of a pickup's resonant peak on '10'. Since the resonant peak tends to be at higher frequencies, we hear it as making the sound brighter with higher value pots. As long as you have a tone control, you can usually compensate by rolling it back a hair.