Best potentiometers

[isaac42]

I'm thinking about experimenting with different pot values on some of my basses. In the past, I've noticed that cheap pots are often scratchy right out of the package. My only local source is Radio Shack, and I'm thinking that they aren't likely to be high quality.

 

Any suggestions for good quality brands and sources?

[DeepEnd]

No idea about Radio Shack's quality but there won't be much selection, just 1M pots, nothing else usable for guitar or bass: http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...Potentiometers.

That said, I wonder if you couldn't just experiment with resistors in series and/or parallel depending on the resistance of your existing pots. I'm sure someone who knows electronics better than I do will comment.

The mom and pop near me sells WD pots. Around $5.00 each in your choice of impedance. I have a set in my bass and so far they work. One odd thing, when you turn them all the way down there's a gradual decrease to zero followed by an increase in volume at the very end rather than the dead silence I'd expect. I'm not an electrical engineer but this strikes me as unusual, something I haven't encountered before. If it's something you wouldn't want I'd avoid the brand. You can order them direct if you're still interested: http://www.wdmusic.com/potentiometers.html. I have a stray 500K audio taper that's still in the package. Send me a PM if you want it and I'll send it to you free so you can try it.

StewMac has a good reputation and sells pots: http://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_E...otentiometers/.

Likewise AllParts: http://www.allparts.com/electronics.

Warmoth sells pots too: http://www.warmoth.com/Potentiometers-C74.aspx.

Finally, BestBassGear.com has a good selection as you'd expect: http://www.bestbassgear.com/pots.htm.

They all appear to be about the same price if that's any indication. You can probably get cheaper on eBay but pots really aren't that expensive in the first place. If you've dealt with any of these outfits and had a good experience I'd just go there and buy whatever they have.

[WRGKMC]

CTS are known for being the best and lasting the longest. Most of your better instruments like Gibsons have them as stock parts and can last a lifetime. I usually shop for them on EBay and buy them at a discount. You go too cheap as you found they aren't worth buying. There's only a couple of stock values you can use for guitars/bass. 250K, 350K, 500K and 1Meg are the most common. What's best will depend on your pickup type and amps input impedance. If your bass has say 250K and you up it to 1meg it may have issues with the pup output distorting with a hot preamp in the amp. In guitars this can be OK because they are often distorted on purpose.

 

Having different values can also change the way the tone tapers off. Its common for a pot to darken the sound when you get closer to the low end. This may happen too soon or not soon enough depending on the match. Its good you do plan on experimenting because there's no better way of knowing the results then by trying it yourself.

 

There are also ways of adding a resistor across the pot to change its values. If for example you had a 1meg pot and put a 1Meg resistor across the two outer legs, you effectively have a 500K. You can use different resistors to get different loads and find what's best instead of soldering in different pots. Electronic techs like myself use a resistor decade box to try different resistors and use it to find the best values. Its got three rotary knobs that have fixed resistors attached as multipliers then you dial up what sounds best. They make them for caps too.

 

You may also want to experiment with using a center tapped pot. They are a bit hard to find but they do make pots with an extra center leg part way through the sweep. You can use it to connect various components like a treble bleed cap or even a humbucker split which would let you split a humbucker with the volume turned down. There's a bunch of cool things you can do with passive components to give you some tonal variety including a Varitone for bass.

[ThudMaker]

CTS is the best, but I've never had any issues with the WD pots either.

[isaac42]

As it turns out, the bass I wanted to change out the pots in (Burgundyglo Ric 4001 with Bartolini 6RC and 6RT pickups) already had 500K pots in both volume and tone positions. At this point, I'm thinking that there's nothing to be gained by trying 1M pots, so I guess I'll go on as is. Thanks for all the input.

[DeepEnd]

. . . At this point' date=' I'm thinking that there's nothing to be gained by trying 1M pots, so I guess I'll go on as is. Thanks for all the input.[/quote']

[histrionics] Nothing to be gained? Nothing to be gained? Are you insane, man? You have to keep changing things! You have to keep pursuing that perfect sound. You owe it to the rest of us. Think of the example you're setting by saying your bass can't sound any better. You just can't do it to us. [/histrionics]

[WRGKMC]

 

As it turns out' date=' the bass I wanted to change out the pots in (Burgundyglo Ric 4001 with Bartolini 6RC and 6RT pickups) already had 500K pots in both volume and tone positions. At this point, I'm thinking that there's nothing to be gained by trying 1M pots, so I guess I'll go on as is. Thanks for all the input.[/quote']

 

 

I'm not a huge fan of 1M pots in guitars, at least ones with normal pickups. You do get a tad more presences because there's less loading to ground. You can easily get that with a no load pot however. What I don't like is the wide sweep on volume turning the instrument down or off. My first guitars were Gibsons and I'm used to having a good 30% increase in volume going from 8 to 10 on the knobs. When I'm playing I can make that tweak very quickly. A 1 meg on the other hand requires a 3/4 turn to do the same thing and trying to do that when playing can cause allot of time lapse and missed notes.

 

A Rick may benefit from the 1M pots however. You may want to try bypassing the pots and run the pups straight out and see if there's any real boost in gain there. If not then there's nothing gained with a higher value pot.