Guitar Potentiometers part 2, Comparing Linear/Audio Taper and Selecting Pots
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- čas přidán 15. 10. 2009
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In this video, I demonstrate the sound differences between Linear and Audio taper pots, and compare audio tapers in Alpha, Bourns and CTS pots.
I then review the other factors you need to consider when buying pots: tolerances, dimensions, split shaft versus solid shaft, etc.
In part 3, I'll cover how to enlarge the holes in a semi-hollow body to fit the new 3/8" shaft pots.
Audio examples recorded through my Vox VT30 amp and a high quality Rode NT1 mic.
The multimeter I use in this video is the Mastech MS8229 - amzn.to/3n0oDB6. (I am not sponsored - this is just my recommendation based on personal experience. I may earn a small commission if you purchase via the link). - Jak na to + styl
This is the greatest potentiometer demonstration on the internet.
One doesn't see a lot of 2009 videos with this type of clarity. Very useful information and well presented. Thanks a lot!
I didn't even realize it was from 2009! lol
You saved me a chunk of research time.
i don't know about the Alpha pot that you measured but Alpha make perfectly usable log pots.
Something that most people do not know is that most pot manufacturers make 'log' pots with at least 6 different log curves. These are described as 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30%. Not to be confused with tolerance of the end to end track resistance, these percentages refer to the percentage of the total track resistance when the pot is at half its rotation (measured between the counter clockwise tag and the wiper}. Unfortunately most pot resellers do not tell you which log curve the pots they sell have. Pot manufacturers seem to regard pots with either the 10% or 15% curve as being 'audio' taper. I have seen at least one guitar parts store selling what they call True Vintage Taper, which are 20% log curve. I'd recommend 10% log curve pots for volume and 20% for tone. The tone control response on typical guitar electronics is a bit odd because the resistor / capacitor of the tone control circuit interacts with the resonant circuit formed by the inductance of the pickup and any self capacitance and other capacitance that is in parallel with it. A 20% curve tone pot compensates a little for this.
I see this was added 11 years ago. I'm glad it's still here! This is going to be helpful reference, great video.
VERY informative and instructive - nice comparisons and the graphs are EXTREMELY helpful to see the literal differences between POT options. Nice work and thanks.
I shared your potentiometer videos with my guitar teacher. He liked how you explain and demonstrate everything so well that he's referring other students to watch them. Really helpful stuff! Thanks
Fantastic video, what a great way to show the differences, I've just ordered cts audio 500s as part of a project to sort out my poorly wired HHH frankenstrat.
So glad you showed them as tone controls as well, audio is exactly what I'm looking for on both tone and volume.
Really awesome job, thanks!
This is the first video I've seen that actually explains pots well. I found out the hard way by buying different pots. Love the CTS but now I know bourns are good too. Great vid.
I realize this is 11 years old, but this is an EXCELLENT demonstration. Thank you John! Exactly the info I was looking for.
THE BEST, most comprehensive series on guitar wiring I've found on CZcams, hands down, is your/this series with this cool Epiphone Riviera P93. This has been my go-to video series for years. Initially, for the basic knowledge and now for brushing up. Sucinctly unpacked and defly demonstrated. Thanks man.
Thanks for the kind words! Hard to believe it's been 13 years since I made these videos!
That has answered all of of my questions on tone. Superb. Thanks so much for doing this.
Man, great video!! I'm about to change the eletronics on two guitars of mine and this really helped me a lot in order not just to understand, but to check in fast way the differences between the pots... really thanks for the video!!
Fantastic demo!!! This just cleared up all of the reading that didn't quite explain this like you did!!! Best video out there!!!
Mr Cooper, you are what we in Blighty call, A DIAMOND. MANY, MANY THANKS for all of your efforts and common sense knowledge. 👏🏼🤗
13 years later, this video helped A LOT! Thank you very much!
This was super helpful John - thanks for doing this video ! Great Quality !
Excellent demonstration. Professional level presentation and explanation. Thanks for the effort buddy
I'm glad that you made this video. I always get linear and audio taper mixed up. I like to play Van Halen and an instrumental solo called "Cathedral', if you've heard of it. He does a technique with a combination of volumes swells and delay to create a violin or cello sound by rolling his volume pot back and forth.He uses linear taper pots for that because he needs a fast attack and a fast roll-back on the volume.
What a great video! It is exactly what I was looking for. You just prevented me from falling into a mistake. Thank you so much!
Extremely helpful video for me, thank you sir!
That chart at 2:17 was very helpful. Thank you for this video!
glad you cleared this up. was working on repairing my dads amp that was apparently thrashed around and needs 6 pots replaced. was going to get a kit that didn't have the "A" pot defiantly ordering one of those on the side.
Really good explanation -- I love your really thorough demos. Thanks!
Many many many thanks for this video !!! it's clear and now I know what to choose :)) Keep doing this kinda vid dude you're great !
Thank you very much john !
Your video sums up very clearly the info i was looking for...
the chart at 2:21 is an eye opener for me! never knew audio tapered pots can vary so much! thanks for the great video!
Note- that’s not to say that all Alpha pots will be like this! Maybe I just had some bad samples, but the point is that there there may be some variability, so it’s always good to test (and measure if necessary!)
Thanks, John! Great job! To "nmssis": A 500k ohm pot for example, with +/-20% tolerance, means that the value of a so-called 500k ohm pot can actually be anywhere from 600k ohm (+20%) to 400k ohm (-20%), or anywhere between those two values. The only way to know for sure what the actual value of the pot is would be to measure resistance across the pot with a multimeter as John has clearly demonstrated. Hope this helps.
Awesome video, thank you so much. I now have a clear idea how they all work. Rock on!
Clear and to the point. Thanks for the video
Thanks John. Very helpful series.
Incredible video. I have an ibanez where I think the volume pot sucks (not responsive till I'm around 5) now I know it's just a linear and something I want to change out. Thanks for simple and detailed explanation
Thanks man!!! I really like the Alpha Audio taper
Mate....your a Legend! I have been wondering about the CTS pots & if they are worth it. Well, now I know...they win for me ;-) i was going to do this test myself...
but you have saved me many hrs. Keep it up man, top work!
At last i found clear demonstration. Thanks a lot!
Excellent video John; thank you.
What a great demonstration! Thank you, thank you 👍
Was exactly looking for this! Just a comparison between logaritmic and linear, as I was curious how that would turn out. And it's exactly as they wrote online. But, as Phil Collins sang: "seeing" is believing ;) Thanks!
Excellent - Best demonstration video I've seen on the difference between the linear and audio/logarithmic taper. Many videos get the explanation backwards in terms of the perceived difference. When the resistance is changed in a linear fashion, many videos explain that the output will change in a linear fashion. But that's not how our ears hear in terms of volume (due to the logarithmic nature of our hearing which accounts for the logarithmic nature of the decibel measure). This is also similar to why amps have to increase the power (watts) by a factor of 10 to double the volume in decibels, rather than just doubling the watts.
Fantastic presentation. Thanks!
Excellent, practical video.
What a guy-excellent review ,just what i was looking for..got this link from seymour duncan site
extremely helpful video, thank you so much.
Great Great demonstration!!!!!!!!!
Linear volume pots and logarithmic tone seem to work for me!
Thanks
Nice work. Very good explanation.
Very good video. Clear and informative. Many thanks.
excellent video, well thought out and very imfomative.
Extremely helpful video for me to, thank you bro!!!
Very usefull straight information, thumbs up!.
Thanks for making this clear and understandable. You enabled an "aha" moment. Thanks man.
Great video! Very informative!
Keep it up.
all your videos are great and super helpful!!! great job man! really nice =]
this is the ultimate guitar pot, most comprehensive and yet easy to understand explanation EVER!!! thanks for sharing, how did You measure the different pots to graph and understand the smoothness volume transition?
Brilliant video 👏
This video is perfect. Thank you!
Great demonstration ! It"s clear. Thanks !
great info thanks. i will def get audio taper to replace my linear vol pot.
You rock!!!!! This helped me a tremendous amount! Thank much!!!
Nice job, just before this video I was about to have to do this exact example video to not talk about it but show the difference. Cheers
Very nice and informative.
very very helpful. thanks for posting this!
Really useful info, thanks
Brilliant video
Thank you very much for all your videos! But it can't have been easy rewiring that semi all the time (I've been there). Keep it up!!
This was very helpful. Thanks!
I'm left wishing you'd covered tone as well as volume pots. Bravo, though, for covering this material better than the other videos I'm working my way through on this pot-induced journey. Peace.
I demonstrated tapers for the tone pot in part 5 of this video series: czcams.com/video/7ANG3OrL5HI/video.html
Excellent video. Thanks pots.
thank you John!
super helpful video, thank You
you say there's no way of knowing what a pot sounds like until you try it out, but now there is. thanks for the video
this helped me out a ton... thanks dude
Thanks! Only for me it's more interesting to see what a pot does turning it down from full open to a max quarter turn back.
When playing I turn it about a quarter back to clean the amp up and then turn it open for a solo. On an audio pot that last part sometimes can be a bit too sudden so there is a too small turn needed to get what I want. Then a linear pot works better because that last part is more smooth and you don't need to be so exact. It would be great to see a video of you doing that.
@ozboomer - I just ordered a Bourns pot from guitarelectronics. They also sell CTS and Alpha. Best selection I've seen. I totally agree with you on your frustration. No wonder there's a debate over what to use in the tone position if an alpha audio taper is basically linear.
Thanks, John. That simple demonstration makes this so much more informative than what I've seen so far. May I ask what setting the multimeter needs to be on to test a pot?
The Ohm or Omega symbol setting.
Great info,thanks!!
So well explained! thank you very much! Following Already
@ozboomer - I found Bourns pots at guitarelectronics. They also sell CTS and Alpha. No wonder there is such a debate about whether to use Audio or Linear taper pots on the tone position. It totally depends on the brand. You'd think they'd at least be sort of close.
This is very helpful. Thanks
well, i needed 3 new pots for another strat I'm building, and i was just going to buy the no load pot for the tone control for the bridge pup, cause i usually do the little jumper to get tone control on the bridge, and its same price so no worries :P and i saw your part 4 vid, its pretty useful, i'll modify my other strat's pots to no load if i like how it turns out. and thanks for these vids, i watched the treble bleed one as well, very good comparisons
Great video! I love tutorials and teaching content on all things I'm interested in, guitars, sound and vision being relevant here, so thank you and I say this with gratitude because I was so close to buying what I thought would be accurate as advertised- audio taper/ logarithmic sweep potentiometers but very likely to be more of a small percentage different in relation to linear pots, I've made that mistake withkut the knowledge it wasnt 100% my iwn fault. These i bought for my stratocaster style guitar build projects, which I would have been disappointed big time if I hadn't looked up on the how what and why and in this vid specifically the whos responseible pots are different only to discover two out of the rest are actually log-A pots.
I first noticed with my current SSS pup configuration - no names pots mini pots with an "a" stamped on the tone pots and a "b" stamped on the volume pot, and then after buying all necessary components for a new HSS loom I built from alpha pots that the sweep on pretty much all 3 on both looms/pickguards sounded just like how you had demonstrated in this video on the lack of consistency of log-A pits depending on the brand name.
So I am familiar with Bournemouth they do a lot of very different electronic components, and potentiometers are, if not the least, they are in the least complicated group of components in terms of purpose and design function.
Electric guitars are very simple compared to most gadgets and gizmos, but the waiting list on bournes website for a bag full of potentiometers is quite long, snd best bought in bulk but still more affordable than if through the middle man market.
Mist people including myself have to search, study content look for consistency, scour the Internet or if lucky you live near an outlet or find an honest dealer that will sell you the ones that have already been tested and matched, labeled and the added to a detailed inventory.
I mean it's not aerospace parts we're taking about here (which I think Bournes do make some components for)
So these parts are not high priority but still obviously a huge market especially for the music industry including amps to mixing desks, guitars to multi effects units.
I very much hope you would if you can or do have, share a source outside of Bournes and just like I said have the pots already checked and separated and won't rip people of, for this I would be very much grateful.
Kind regards,
Mike.
I don't know a source that individually measures and checks the parts for you. (But I imagine they do this if you buy $$$ boutique wiring harnesses). Meanwhile, you can certainly order Bourns and other pots at mouser, digikey, etc- and just buy a few extras and measure them yourself before installing.
Thank you for very helpful video and could you please explain what is logarithmic audio taper and are there any linear taper to match this?your help much apriciated.
GREAT GREAT GREAT VID! Thanks!!!
I completely agree with this. I compared Alpha and CTS A250k and A500k pots... A500k works great for volume, but I found that the A250k give you much more control over tone. I made this change on my PRS SE Santana with Santana III pickups... The Santana III's are not really bright pickups to begin with so the 250K vs 500k is not noticeably darker. I will be trying the same thing on my LTD EC400 with Gibson 496R/500T, but I plan to try an A300k instead.
hey, i was wondering for my tone controls on my strat, should they be linear or audio? also, i was wondering if you knew whether the CTS no load pots are linear or audio taper?
thanks
I was going to put a linear taper volume pot in a guitar I am rebuilding but after seeing your demonstration I think I'll stick with a CTS audio taper. Would be interesting to see how the DiMarzio special audio taper pots size up in your chart. I have them in several guitars but do not really like them....drops off too fast after 10. Thanks for the great demo....
Great help, thanks a lot.
Great video, thank you.
great video!
Never heard of taper until today. I’ve always hated how quickly the volume shifted upwards. I’ll get an audio taper pot for that smooth volume swell !
Oh yeah, because of that i prefer linear for volume and audio for tones so far.
I'm working on a custom mod of this right now. I've tried the V-treb mentioned below, but I want a higher rated cap for the treble bleed. So I will be trying .002uf, .0047uf, .068uf, and .01uf on different Audio Taper mini-pots rated at 1K, 5K, 10K, 20K, 50K, 100K, 250K and 500K. Also, using a regular pot allows you to put the control at your finger tips instead of having to access the back, or inside of the wiring cavity.
thanks for making this video
Hi John. Thanks for the valuable info. My question is about bass guitar, pickup selector vs blend switch. My bass have a pickup selector, and I want to replace it to a blend switch and still keeping the sound as before? Is there any Blend switch that will give a good balanced mix without dropouts of volume between the pickups and the variety of tones when moving it around?
Very cool and good info ,some folks say to use linear for tone,and audio for volume,any thoughts there ?
very nice videos.. can you do demonstrations for 5 way pups selector especially the otax vlx91? thank you very much.. i really want to know what is the difference of this pup selector in other selectors..
which pot should I order for my floyd rose strat--i want to do the Vanhalen volume swells--i was thinking a 500k bourns--i've burnt out the last 2
thanx
Hi ... Excellent video .. I wanted to know how I can gain more control over my live playing. I need to boost my sound, and i would rather boost by turning up the on board pot. The problem I have is that I play both gain and clean sounds. I have a decent amp with boost. but in higher gain situations I do not get a good vol boost, but just an increase in distortion which is not desireable. I've considered switching out to a log pot in order bring a more dramatic vol increase and decrease.
Great video. Thx a lot!
thank you for your video!!
It also would help to hear the difference between those pots "from 10 to 0", you know... when you need to drive your amplifier from the crunchy to the clean sound or viceversa, directly from your guitar, when you look for that precision that matches your needs (some need high rates of volume loss, some need low rates).
If you'll decide to do that video, please show a close video recording of the pots whyle another guy is strumming the guitar on the crunchy to clean border of that VT30 ampli. Thanks all the same for this very useful video.
P.S. Very very nice sounding guitar! GAS attack!
hansiutub, i was thinking the same thing
The linear might as well be an on/off switch!!
i use linear in all my guitars. for volume swells, the quick ones ala van halen (violining), they work far better than audio taper. especially if you are doing it without much gain.
@@rohadtanyad8908 Hmm I wondered why someone would want them