Time to upgrate hardware

**Edited thread starter earlier by me**

10/8/09:

I am upgrading the crappy pots in my CIJ tele this weekend, and I want to use the opportunity to liven/brighten up the SD humbucker in the neck position a little bit , but without making the bridge position too bright in the process. As with most things, I'm trying to strike a balance here. It'll be wired like a traditional tele, but with the '50's wiring' to curb treble loss when rolling back the volume. So, the question is, what component values should I use to get this done? Can it be done?

I am thinking a 500K volume pot, 250K tone pot, and .047 cap value. Do you have better ideas,will you help me make this choice?

I ask you good folk because I know I won't have time to 'try out' each combination and experiment as I go. I want to go in as prepared as possible with the combination that should get the best result. As always, thanks for your time and consideration.

J

You'll want to get rid of the 250K for the bucker and put in a 500K. From what little I know about it, folks are using .47 tone pots for the bucker. I am going to use .33uF 'Sprague Orange drops'- pretty cheap but good Polypropylene pots that I figure run right in between too bright for Tele bridge humbucker .47uF and not revealing enough .22 uF
Some people are spending the extra money on Hoviland Music Caps, cause they are the finest quality. Doesnt matter for tone though, so they say, cause signal is all going to ground. I have a couple of guitars with paper in oil (PIO) caps before i learned about the tone thing to ground. Poly ( prop/sty) caps, and not metal film or paper in oil are supposed to have the best characteristics, and don't ask me what. I sure wouldn't want the cheapo RatShack ' chiclet' caps in my Strat or Tele,although they'd probably work just fine. Heres a link on Pots I made awhile back. In my Muttcaster Tele, I use CTS pots 500K for the bridge rail 'bucker and 500K for the neck Mini 'bucker ( gibson used 300K pots , which ought to be real good for the sound) cause they have a nice resistance to them that feels like quality compared to the Alpha I've also tried, which turn to freely, but some people like that.
Heres a link on Pots I made awhile back
Hope its usefull;

http://www.thefenderforum.com/forum/...highlight=pots

As always, try and remember ( lol);

Obviously, crappy pots are crappy pots, so if you're not getting good performance from your pots, switch them out to something better. I've used Alpha and CTS - both of which are pretty good.

As for 250K vs 500K - that's entirely subjective - there is no absolute "better" or "best" - it's all up to your ears. Try them both.

Me? I'm wiring up a pickguard for one of my strats with a Dimarzio Super Distortion strat and a YJM in the neck and I'm going to use a 250K volume pot, no tone on the bridge pickup and a 250K tone on the neck - not sure what cap yet - probably whatever I have laying around to start with and tune from there.

If the Bridge pickup sounds muddy, I'll go with a 500K - but I think 250K with no tone should be plenty bright.

Please see above -- an older thread started by me, edited to ask you folk a more specific question than I initially did. Please help this :da

Any thoughts and/or advice is appreciated.

J