Volume pot question

[MKibanez]

Simple, does the volume pot ( 500k or 250 k) affect the cleaning when rolled off?

Thanks and merry christmas

 

[thegame]

Simple, does the volume pot ( 500k or 250 k) affect the cleaning when rolled off?

Thanks and merry christmas

The lower the value of the volume pot, the more gradual and controllable the roll off is. 1 Meg pots are almost useless for rolled off tones as the taper is far too abrupt.

 

[MKibanez]

Ok so 250 k rollss off better, do you know guys what is in the Jem 7vh?

 

[TheGreatGreen]

Simple, does the volume pot ( 500k or 250 k) affect the cleaning when rolled off?

Thanks and merry christmas

Every standard volume pot will have the same effect on a pickup's brightness at an equivalent resistance value.

The range of a 500k pot is 500k max, down to 0k when rolled off.
The range of a 250k pot is 250k max, down to 0k when rolled off.
Both knobs, when rolled down to, say, 100k, should make any given pickup sound identical.

If you want to retain your brightness when you roll down your volume, look into a treble bleed circuit. They're cheap and designed to solve this exact problem.

 

[gbsmusic]

Ok so 250 k rollss off better, do you know guys what is in the Jem 7vh?

500

 

[MKibanez]

Every standard volume pot will have the same effect on a pickup's brightness at an equivalent resistance value.

The range of a 500k pot is 500k max, down to 0k when rolled off.
The range of a 250k pot is 250k max, down to 0k when rolled off.
Both knobs, when rolled down to, say, 100k, should make any given pickup sound identical.

If you want to retain your brightness when you roll down your volume, look into a treble bleed circuit. They're cheap and designed to solve this exact problem.

Well it's not the brightness but the distortion. With my strant and duncan JB when I roll off even a very high gain sound it becomes crunch and clean pretty good but my Jem with the Dimarzio Evolution not really. It still almost the same gain all the way down and the when the volume of the guitar is around 2 it becomes crunchy ans shut off to 0.

 

[TheGreatGreen]

Well it's not the brightness but the distortion. With my strant and duncan JB when I roll off even a very high gain sound it becomes crunch and clean pretty good but my Jem with the Dimarzio Evolution not really. It still almost the same gain all the way down and the when the volume of the guitar is around 2 it becomes crunchy ans shut off to 0.

So a guitar with passive components doesn't generate distortion. Different pickups will generate different resonant peaks and such but as long as they're passive they can only generate "clean" tones with signals of different magnitudes. Distortion is generated by amps and/or pedals.

However, if any guitar you own doesn't sound like its volume changes when you turn down the knob until the knob gets down to its very lowest setting, then you could have a linear taper volume pot in there. What you want is an audio taper volume pot like most guitars have. It turns the volume down very quickly in the sweep, then most of the knob actually controls very granular changes at the quiet end of possible output. This typically is the best way to make your guitar "clean up" easily with high gain.

In any case, if your JB-equipped guitar rolls off volume well and sounds good when you turn it down, great! Don't change it. If your Dimarzio Evolution-equipped guitar sounds too dark and muddy when you turn it down, add a treble bleed circuit. If your guitar's volume doesn't change until the very lowest volume setting, the problem is likely either that the pickup is too high output for what you want, or your amp's gain is turned up too high, or your volume knob is too linear.