Quote:
Originally Posted by Christophe
Yes, thanks, I think I know what pots are 
About wiring and electronics - a compilation of information?
And I also agree with you that the effect is at the end the same, that the only thing that change is the behaviour you get when turning the pot.
If I understood it well, your "nonsense" is just based on your experience of using a log pot for tone on YOUR guitar, with YOUR pickups, in YOUR situation. And thus you extrapolate that what is good for you is the situation for "most people (~90% of overall population with regular hearing ability)"...
Is that right?
Well, ok, thanks for the explanation. I think it's easier to put your advice in context now...
Personnaly, I would still recommand for MORE theory than that, in order to make a decision, because I'm really not sure that what's fit you will fit me. And as I can understand people telling me what's fitting them, I'm a bit less trustful to people telling me that doing things different than them is "nonsense". No offence, of course.
I would still say that choosing log or lin for tone pot is really a matter of circonstance, you have to test with your guitar in your situation.
However, volume pot is NOT a "more complicated" matter, on the CONTRARY, it's a much easier matter, because science already answers this one (and I talk about REAL science here): human ear is percieving volume as log, so use a log if you want to have a usable pot at all (instead of a on/off switch).
No offence I hope. |
First, no offence, definitely! I am not a schoolgirl with fragile ego. I do hope you're neither, as I used some a bit stronger words, and it was not my intention to offend.
Second, I do not extrapolate anything. I'll go very slowly this (last) time.
Let us say we have 2 completely identical guitars connected with 2 identical amps with identical settings. Except for a tiny little difference - the guitar A has 500k tone pot with AUDIO taper and the guitar B has 500k tone pot with LINEAR taper.
Now, while you are listening without watching him play (as a kind of blind test) someone plays guitar A with tone pot set to 10. Then he rolls tone pot to 9 without telling you and starts playing. If you are gifted (1 in 20 or 1 in 30 humans) you immidiately recognize the difference in guitar A tone.
The question is : if you want to hear the same tone on the guitar B at what setting it's LINEAR taper tone pot should be set at?
It is easy, it should be set at 5.
Now we can agree on :
1. guitar A with AUDIO taper tone pot has an usable tone pot range from 0 to 9
2. guitar B with LINEAR taper tone pot has an usable tone pot range from 0 to 5
Mind you, 1. and 2. are simple facts that are true whatever MY guitar is, MY pickups are and MY situation (signal chain?) is, since any of these were not used in making conclusion about simple facts at 1. and 2.
SO, if anyone in this world finds guitar B as the one that fits him/her more, I will be happy for him/her. BUT still I would not be able to find any trace of human common sense int that personal preference, hence I simply have to call it for what it is -
nonsense.
As I wrote in the very begginig there is not any kind of extrapolation involved here. I think it is more some trivial math and a bit of common sense. And that is very simple reason why you'll almost never find a linear taper pot used as tone pot in a regular production electric guitar.
Maybe a very cheap ones, or repaired by a lousy tech.
BTW, the only production guitar having LINEAR taper pots as tone pots in my 30 years of guitar playing were those cheap lefthanded ones (e.g. Epi LP MIC) that had pot knobs printed in the opposite direction than regular righthanded pot caps, but no way they could justify reverse audio taper pots costs, so they just used linear taper for all 4 pots instead.
HTH