250k Vs 500k Pots For Pickups

We use the 500k pots for the humbuckers because they are warm and dark sounding so we want to preserve as much high end as we can.

250k vs 500k pots for pickups. 500k control pots are the usual choice for humbuckers. If you swapped those out with 500k pots there will be more treble response and for some that may be desirable however if it s a standard strat wiring setup where the bridge pickup is not connected to a tone control then oh yes that bridge pickup will screech something awful and or sound shrill if wired to a 500k volume control pot. So larger pots are brighter pots and smaller pots are duller pots. Anyway and here s the important part the larger the pot the less treble that escapes to ground.

We use 250k pots for the single coils because these pickups are often very bright. For whatever reason it ends up being treble that escapes to ground through the 250k or 500k side of the pot. You can also mix pots within a pickup if you want something different than what you get out of either a 500k or a 250k. With the sss strat pickup configuration 250k pots are normally used.

Most people will use 500k pots for the neck and 250k for the bridge. You can experiment with different pots on your guitar. K is the abbreviation for kilo or 1 000. That s why you use 250k pots on single coil pickups to take the edge off if their super bright tone.

Higher values produce a slightly brighter tone. If you like this and wanna buy me a coffee i mean i won t say no. The two coils in a humbucker pickup cancel out many high frequencies because of phase cancellation caused by the closeness of the two coils. 250k control pots are the usual choice for single coil pickups.

This gives the tone a nice balance imbuing it with warmth without sacrificing the high treble tones. This makes a humbucker sound very warm compared to a single coil. Therefore a 500k pot will result in a brighter tone than a 250k pot used on the same pickup. Lower values produce a slightly warmer tone they remove little more of the highs.

These k numbers are the resistance ratings kohms. Single coil pickups can sometimes sound very bright and piercing so these pickups are often paired with 250k pots fig 1 to allow more high frequencies to escape. Allowing some of the highs to slip away can reduce the shrill and warm up the high notes. Just had to get this one off my chest.