HSS Wiring Help - pots and resistors!

RandomGecko · May 2023

So I have a HSS LsL Saticoy with all 250k pots and a push/pull on the bridge tone control which splits the humbucker. I love the guitar but I sort of feel like the humbucker is a little dark so I'm toying with the idea of changing the pots over to 500k, or at least the volume anyway.

I know Suhr have a way of wiring so that you can have a 500k volume pot, and using a 250k pot for the tone, you can put a resistor across the tone pot which makes the singles "see" 250k... is that right? My Suhrs are all wired that way, and it works great but I'm guessing my LsL is wired in a fairly standard way (it doesn't have a superswitch for sure) so, is this possible?

My questions are basically as follows;
- When you wire up this resistor "trick", do the singles sound the same as if they were on two 250k pots? Is there any trade-off?
- What would be the net effect on the bridge humbucker of putting a 500k volume in but retaining the 250k bridge tone? Is it worth it, and would it be an appreciable difference?
- If I were to do that, it would make the bridge split far too bright (at the minute it's as if it's seeing a 250k load I presume), so could I fake that with a resistor? What value would I use if it was 500/250 for vol/tone?

I'm hopeful this is a simple switch but I'm leaning towards it may not simply be putting in a new volume pot and a resistor across the tone without changing something else, at which point I may not attempt it myself.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Funkfingers · May 2023

LsL offers several body wood options. Of which is your guitar built? This may explain the "dark" humbucker. Wiring trickery might not solve it.

ICBM · May 2023

You can do it with a standard switch if the tone controls are arranged so the lower one (500K) is for the humbucker and the upper one (250K) is for the singles, with a 500K volume. I don’t find it sounds quite right with a 250K tone for the humbucker, it’s like the tone is turned down to 7 or 8 when it’s full up.

You can arrange it so the split humbucker sees the resistor as well - using the second pole of the pull-switch - there’s a diagram I did somewhere here I think, if you can’t find it I’ll be able to work it out again.

RandomGecko · May 2023

Funkfingers said:

LsL offers several body wood options. Of which is your guitar built? This may explain the "dark" humbucker. Wiring trickery might not solve it.

It’s alder, maple, rosewood. For sure it’s the pots contributing.

RandomGecko · May 2023

ICBM said:

You can do it with a standard switch if the tone controls are arranged so the lower one (500K) is for the humbucker and the upper one (250K) is for the singles, with a 500K volume. I don’t find it sounds quite right with a 250K tone for the humbucker, it’s like the tone is turned down to 7 or 8 when it’s full up.

You can arrange it so the split humbucker sees the resistor as well - using the second pole of the pull-switch - there’s a diagram I did somewhere here I think, if you can’t find it I’ll be able to work it out again.

Cool.

So if I put the resistor from the centre lug to ground on the middle tone and replace the volume pot for 500K, that will make the hum see the 500K pot and the singles will see 250K?

What is the super switch doing that a standard switch wouldn’t, in this scenario..?

RandomGecko · May 2023

ICBM said:

You can do it with a standard switch if the tone controls are arranged so the lower one (500K) is for the humbucker and the upper one (250K) is for the singles, with a 500K volume. I don’t find it sounds quite right with a 250K tone for the humbucker, it’s like the tone is turned down to 7 or 8 when it’s full up.

You can arrange it so the split humbucker sees the resistor as well - using the second pole of the pull-switch - there’s a diagram I did somewhere here I think, if you can’t find it I’ll be able to work it out again.

Oh and you think I’ll still need a 500K tone pot too? 500K volume and 250K tone is not the one?

ICBM · May 2023

RandomGecko said:

So if I put the resistor from the centre lug to ground on the middle tone and replace the volume pot for 500K, that will make the hum see the 500K pot and the singles will see 250K?

No, it's more complex than that because of the coil split. You need to first wire it so the lower tone control is for the bridge pickup only, and the upper control for the two single coils.

The 470K resistor then needs to be connected to the middle terminal of the second pole of the push-switch (the first is for the coil split) so that when the humbucker is *not* split, the resistor is connected to the single-coil tone control, and when the humbucker *is* split, it connects to the volume control directly.

Thus, when the humbucker isn't split the resistor is only applied in the single-coil positions, and when it is split it's applied in all positions.

RandomGecko said:

Oh and you think I’ll still need a 500K tone pot too? 500K volume and 250K tone is not the one?

I don't think it works well having the tone control value lower than the volume, unless you like playing with the tone turned down slightly all the time, which is effectively what it does.

RandomGecko · May 2023

Gotcha, thanks. The bridge tone is already only wired for the humbucker so I think it should be fairly straight forward!

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