Guitar Pots: Linear or Analog Taper

[pdf64]

The all linear pots in my 1977 LP Pro Deluxe with P90s seemed original.
For volume or tone I found them ridiculously awful, a hair trigger, useful range of control was squished up between 2 and 3 on the knob.
It, like all my other guitars have been as stock, is now much more user friendly with audio taper pots.

 

[RedGuitar]

@RedGuitar that's the first time I've seen a Wago clamp in a guitar apart from on my bench. I'm not sure if think it's a good idea but it did put a grin on my face...

Strictly for grounds.

 

[RedGuitar]

My tone pot is 250k. The cap is about half-strength so things don't get so dark like stock.

I have some 50k linear pots that control volume and mid-boost. There's a IC on the board. Long cables are no issue.

I wanted to ground OverKill style. Pretty much anything that could logically be grounded, is. Spaghetti for all!

Back in 89, Mr Peter Frampton was kind enough to autograph the back of the headstock. Along with a nice compliment about my Charvel M5.
I was pushing it to ask if he would also sign the back of my business card. He sure did.

A few years ago I discovered why the mid-boost did not have much range. It came from the factory with a log pot that gets fed on both sides from a chip on the preamp pcb. I changed that to a linear pot and have a much better range for mid-boost.

 

[PelliX]

It came from the factory with a log pot that gets fed on both sides from a chip on the preamp pcb. I changed that to a linear pot and have a much better range for mid-boost.

A log and linear pot of the same value should perform identically in that position apart from the taper, of course. There's a fair amount of tolerance in pots generally, so an end-to-end measurement would be beneficial in such cases when replacing one. I've stumbled across 250K CTS pots that measured 212K and on. They seem to vary 'down' further than up overall - in my experience at least.