Which Control Pot To Choose

Basic Rule Of Thumb

Potentiometers or pots, with a resistance value of 250K, are most commonly used for guitars with single coil pickups.

Potentiometers with a resistance value of 500K, are most commonly used in guitars fitted with humbucking style pickups.

The K value refers to the resistance - higher values produce a slightly brighter tone, whilst lower values produce a slightly warmer tone (they remove little more of the highs).

A potentiometer is basically a component that allows you to progessively change what it controls, in this case the volume or tone of your guitar by affecting the way the electric signal flows through it by varying the resistance.

How Does The Rule Of Thumb Apply?

The higher resistance pot won’t send your high frequencies to ground as quickly as 250K pots do. They sound brighter and allow more high frequencies to pass through them. On the other hand a 250K pot will send more high frequencies to ground, making the pot sound thicker and darker.

If your control knobs are push-on types, you need a split shaft. Knobs secured by grub screws require solid shafts. Shaft length is important too because long shafts are often needed for carved top guitars such as Les Pauls.

There are mini-pots and full-size pots, some with short-shaft, and some with long-shaft pots, and some that are push-pull pots. Potentiometer designs also have split-shaft design, solid-shaft design. All pots shafts have splines (the rib-type grooves that run the length of the shaft). The shaft length, diameter and type of splines does affect the fitment of control knobs. When replacing pots you should note these critical dimensions. Some pot replacement jobs require modifying mounting holes and buying new control knobs. If you are replacing like for like, then it should be fairly straightforward if you follow the Rule Of Thumb.

Volume Pots Vs Tone Pots

There’s not really anything made that is called a “tone pot” or a “volume pot”. This really refers to where you choose to use any particular pot. However, there are definitely best practices when choosing the type of pots you use for controlling tone and volume. Some pickup manufacturers have a preference to using audio log taper pots for both volume and tone control.  This works effectively because of how the ear perceives a change in volume or tone.  Logarithmic is a curve, so the change is gradual on a curve in relation to how the know is turned up or down.

Many people prefer lienar taper pots, whereas its predictability in control, as in when its halfway you have 50% of your signal, many people prefer a linear pot for their volume control.

Logarithmic Audio Taper pots are generally the most preferred by guitarists when changing the volume and tone controls on the instruments

The simple answer is, it is what sounds right to you.