Please school me a bit on pots & caps...

[Muddslide]

I know many of you are going to be sick to death of electronics-related threads, but please bear with me.

I have a humble SX P-copy. To me, it sounds great. But I keep hearing about upgrading the pots and caps. I've messed with enough electronics to know exactly what is being talked about (capacitors and potentiometers) and could even do the upgrade myself (handy with solder...)

Anyway, I do want to get the best from my SX. I am not really planning on replacing the nut or tuners or bridge. They seem fine to me. Maybe at some point I will. I actually like the stock pup (and the consensus seems to agree with me on the sound of stock SX P-pups.)

SO. I am looking to upgrade the pots and caps. I hear tell frequently about CTS 250 or CTS 500 pots and "orange" caps.

Can someone please tell me what exactly the benefits are from swapping these components?

Also (and perhaps more importantly) there seems to be a divide between people who recommend 250s and 500s for the pots. Can anyone speak to this as well and advise me on which to go with? 250s or 500s, that is. Or should I go 500 on the vol. and 250 on the tone?

???

If it helps, I play a large variety of styles: laid back country-rock, old-school country (50s stuff), 60s garage/fuzz, surf/instro, classic rock, deep dub/reggae, punk (including hardcore), stoner/doom/sludge metal, new wave and power pop, weirdo noise/experimental/drone/soundscape stuff.

The P-copy overall (and P-styles in general) cover plenty of ground for me...I can change tone a lot based on how I play the bass and where my right hand is placed, as well as adding fx pedals, eq, etc. But I'm just looking to maximize the overall tone/sound quality and clarity of the bass with as small a financial outlay as possible. (Since I'm obviously broke. This is, after all, an SX. Though I will defend it with ferocity if necessary.)

Thanks so much for any info. I DID use the search function, but wanted to ask some specific questions I didn't really see covered.

Take care and thanks again.

[Rattman]

DUPLICATE THREAD here...

[Muddslide]

Yes, apologies. I posted this in the "Basses" forum, then thought it might have been more appropriately placed here.

[jsingles]

let the mods worry about that..

hes just trying to get some advice.

[JMDT]

The orange caps you refer are orange drops. IMHO they sound the best, but there not that much difference between brands. In my bedroom, I can tell a difference, but at stage volume with a band, you'll never know the difference.

Capacitor values are where the fun come in. A high value like .47 mf will cut more treble at 0% than a .047 mf cap. Not only will a larger cap value cut more treble, but it will have an inherently darker sound throughout the range of the pot. The typical cap values for bass are .047 mf for most modern basses, and some older Fenders used .1 mf caps, while guitars usually use a .022 mf cap.

Pots are a bit more difficult to explain. The best description I can give is that max on a 250K pot is like halfway on a 500K pot, which is halfway on a 1M pot. On a tone pot, 250K is inherently darker than 500K as. The best advice I can give is to try both and see what works best, if you see that a 250K pot gives you all the treble you need at 100%, a 500K pot would give you half the control over that same region. If the 250K pot cuts too much treble, a 500K pot will give you more treble response. Same concept for volume control with 250K darker and 500K brighter. Also, larger values will reduce the effective volume control to a smaller portion of the knob. For example active pickups usually use a 25K pot, if a 500 pot were used it would work, but volume control would only be effective on the first ~ 10% of the knob

If I had to give you one suggestion, I would say to get a 250K push/pull pot with .047 mf and 0.1 mf capacitors for tone and a 500K pot for volume. Although if you had the time and resources, I would would try each out pot and cap value and see what best suited the sound you are looking for.

[GlennW]

I've experimented with this stuff and prefer the sound with no pots. I always had the volume on 10 and didn't see any need for it. IME basses sound better with caps and no pots. A .1uF is the largest you'll need. You could get a few different values and try them with wire nuts or alligator clips or just twist for temporary connections. I like the 225 (polyester film) Orange Drops and the Mallory 150s, Mouser has both as well as OD polypropelene film. With a push/pull pot, as already mentioned, you could switch between two. A .1 and a .047 or .033 (Mallory) might work well for you. Going potless really does something to the sound...opens it up with more presence...hard to describe, but simple and cheap to play with. The tone pot "seems" to offer the ability to fine tune, but does more damage than good IME.

Edit: You might have to lower the floor of the control cavity some to get the p/p pot in there; or you could use a switch. The p/p pot will retain the stock look.