YMMV but mini humbuckers should be brighter than full sized HBs, and the original tone circuit had a 250K's in parallel. The tone switch added another 100K resistor. Use 500K pots and it may sound more like a t-bird than a Beatle bass.
Sent from my LE2125 using Tapatalk
How is that a problem? Remember, distortion fixes everything!Originally Posted by fender3x
I might do a little experiment here......I might try one of each. One with a 250k, and one with a 500k...... if it sounds horrible, I can always change it.
Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
Nothing wrong with sounding like a t-bird, if that's what you want. Both basses used a similar narrow humbucker, but sounded very different. I was sort of operating on the logic that Gunut might want some of that darker Beatle bass tone. T-birds have a lot more high end...and were wired almost exactly as Gunut proposed... VVT with the two V's 500K and the T 250K (albeit with a .047 cap).
By contrast the original Hofner tone stack uses 250K V pots...and then adds resistors or caps in every setting. Mostly this looks (to my amateurish eye) like it darkens the sound at least a bit.
I have to admit I find the Hof tone circuit kind of fascinating, and a bit confusing to understand what all the caps and resistors are doing without experimenting a bit...which may be how the Hoff guys ended up deciding to put them there in the first place ;-)
Experimenting is usually a good idea. I now have several caps with alligator clips on the legs so that I can experiment with different values before soldering. This was recommended to me on the forum (thank you Weirdbits) when I was wiring up a dano tone circuit into a bass. The .022 cap resulted in almost no treble roll off. I clipped on a 2nd .022 cap (which raises the value to .44), and it was much better. Since then I always check first before final wiring ;-)
For some reason I was convinced the original pickups were single coils, but yes, the 501/1 used several varieties of mini humbuckers over the years. D'oh! Sorry for clouding the issue.
Though if you really wanted that 500/1 sound, getting some Hofner staple pickups would be a good first step. I'm sure the kit mini humbuckers will be more powerful, have more windings and so have a higher inductance and sound very different.
You can always fit 500k pots see how they sound and then try wiring a single 240k resistor between the common output signal and ground, which will give almost the same effect on the sound as having 250k pots. You can then either leave it in place or remove it. Easier than changing pots.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote