Metropoulos Forum

I just put some Skatterbranes in my paul and the bridge PUP sounded a hair on the bright side... I read on another site that if you bridge a 1M resistor across the outside tabs on the volume pot it will turn a 500K pot into a 330K pot which will take a little bit of the bite off... I thought going down to a 250K pot would be too much, anyways, I tried this and it worked perfectly! Now I am right there on my bridge PUP... just thought I would pass this along in case anyone has the same issue...

I have been thinking about this, my guitar has always been pretty bright. But how does it mix with the neck when the neck has a 500k?

gutpile wrote:I just put some Skatterbranes in my paul and the bridge PUP sounded a hair on the bright side... I read on another site that if you bridge a 1M resistor across the outside tabs on the volume pot it will turn a 500K pot into a 330K pot which will take a little bit of the bite off... I thought going down to a 250K pot would be too much, anyways, I tried this and it worked perfectly! Now I am right there on my bridge PUP... just thought I would pass this along in case anyone has the same issue...

In my 69 Les Paul Custom years ago, I had 350k pots. I think they were stock, in fact I'm sure of it cause at least one of them had a Gibson logo on it. Anyway, supposedly that was done to tame some of the brightness in those guitars. It's not a bad option.

I have 500k pots in my guitars and love them. Have you tried just backing off the volume a hair? Sometimes with Les Pauls you can really sweeten things up by just backing the volume off like one half a notch. That works on my Custom. Also, if you have good 500k pots in your Paul, backing the tone control off a notch or two can help as well.

I put a 1M resistor on both the N & B Vol control pots... I am keeping it like this without a doubt... made the perfect difference... I might try taking the resistor off the B vol just to see what it does, but my B seemed pretty bright dimed on the Tone control... It is worth a try, you're only out a buck or two if you don't like it and it only takes 5 minutes...

gutpile wrote:I just put some Skatterbranes in my paul and the bridge PUP sounded a hair on the bright side... I read on another site that if you bridge a 1M resistor across the outside tabs on the volume pot it will turn a 500K pot into a 330K pot which will take a little bit of the bite off... I thought going down to a 250K pot would be too much, anyways, I tried this and it worked perfectly! Now I am right there on my bridge PUP... just thought I would pass this along in case anyone has the same issue...

PRS does the same thing, AND adds a cap to the resistor on their Hollowbody models. It does seem to work, but it sounded better when I removed them!! (it did get a little less jazzy, and a little more aggressive... just the way it should be!!)

I just did this with a 1M CF resistor and I really like the results. Its more subtle than I imagined which is good because I loved my tone apart from some bite that I wanted to tame.

Its sounds more woody now and the bridge still has a fair amount of kick which made me tempted to put a 1M on the tone pot too but I think its good so have a bit of bite on hand.

It just goes to show that its not always good to follow the pack and go for 500k pots all round. I still get plenty of great vintage tone.

I installed one leg of the resistor to the lug the pickup is connected to on the outside and one leg to the lug thats grounded to the case of the pot. Thats correct right?

MarT- that's what I did and I noticed very similar results... so I am guessing we both did it right, or wrong with the right result??? I put a 1M resistor on my neck as well... when dimed on the tone & volume even the bridge sounded a tad bright... the resistor tamed it right down to my liking....

I was talking to Rod about this and he seemed to think that putting a resistor on the volume pot doesn't really do anything except change the taper of the pot. Because the most resistance of a volume pot is when its on 0. He said that you can add a resistor to the tone to knock off more highs but you might aswell just turn your tone down to 7.


I'm not sure though because I did notice a subtle difference. I have decided to take it off again though and just use my controls as most people recommend, at least then I have lots of treble on hand if need be.

Rod did recommend trying modern wiring on the volume side and 50's wiring on the tone side which I did and I like the results, the taper is better to my ears. less of a sudden burst of volume from 8-10.

marT wrote:I was talking to Rod about this and he seemed to think that putting a resistor on the volume pot doesn't really do anything except change the taper of the pot. Because the most resistance of a volume pot is when its on 0. He said that you can add a resistor to the tone to knock off more highs but you might aswell just turn your tone down to 7.
I'm not sure though because I did notice a subtle difference. I have decided to take it off again though and just use my controls as most people recommend, at least then I have lots of treble on hand if need be.
Rod did recommend trying modern wiring on the volume side and 50's wiring on the tone side which I did and I like the results, the taper is better to my ears. less of a sudden burst of volume from 8-10.

Well, unless Im misunderstanding how you're installing the resistor, adding a resistor will make the guitar brighter. All pots, by design are resistors, just adjustable ones. Putting resistors across a pot WILL affect high frequencies, but it will make the guitar brighter, because the signal (and the highs, which are more perceivable to the ear than low frequencies) has more resistance from the pot (and the added resistor) to allow it to get to ground, which is where all electricity wants to go. A lower resistance pot (250k, 100k) is not as bright, because when the pot is wide open (on 10) the signal can get to ground easier thru the wiper path in the pot. With a very high value volume pot, (like a 1meg) more signal gets to the amp, because there is more resistance for the signal to get to ground thru the pot. Again, sorry if Im misunderstanding how you are wiring in the resistor.

Page 3 of this document is where I got the idea from... I agree with MarT that it did knock a little of the edge off... maybe this guy is wrong?

Well after trying it out on 500K pot I can say that yes it does indeed turn it into a 330K pot. But you have to go from the wiper to the input side.

Mike