A little help please.
I seem to remember the body cavity of the Artist P bass is relatively shallow necessitating the need for micro or mini photometers.
Is there a decent make anyone here could recommend as I haven’t a clue what to look for.
TIA
CTS make good mini pots. Also the Alpha pots are good. There is nothing wrong with smaller pots, they perform just as well as bigger pots.
Thank you @terb
Someone tried to tell me once that the small ones are designed as “trim pots” and so don’t have as long a useful life as bigger ones. My 11-12yo MFB 522 drum machine built with them says otherwise
I have a small Alpha on my #1 guitar since at least 10-12 years, and it’s still working fine. no relationship really between the size and the quality.
Are you saying size doesn’t matter?
I’ve been saying that for years. No one’s asked for their money back so far.
Bourns makes great smaller pots and are available on Amazon, at least here in the states.
I have them everywhere the big ones don’t fit.
All of the sought after manufacturers of full size pots make perfectly fine mini pots too; Bourns, Alpha, CTS, etc.
The only difference you may notice is feel, and that’s not guaranteed either.
I wouldn’t be worried about lifespan. If anything, any electrolytic cap on an onboard preamp is a more likely lifespan fail than a pot that you touch a few times a day.
I don’t ever seem to find mini CTS pots (at least on Amazon or stew Mac here in the US). That’s why I went with Bourns.
I second not worrying about lifespan the way we all buy and sell basses. And if one does wear out, it’s a couple bucks and 15 minutes of mostly unscrewing and screwing.
Managed to find CTS mini pots in Australia! Wonders will never cease.
So I’ve read about these orange drops ( capacitors ?)
Any recommendations please?
The big ones, lol.
I have been using Emerson paper in oil capacitors vs. ‘orange drop’.
I know, a capacitor is supposed to be a capacitor, but I swear I hear a positive difference with these puppies.
Seriously though for orange drop, there are really no brand names.
I am still not sure why you see these big honking medium-high voltage capacitors in guitars, when a normal ceramic cap would probably be just fine. Oh well.
Bigger is better, just ask Texas
I love the apocryphal story about how when a Texas representative objected to Alaska being made a state, the pushback was a threat to make Alaska two states instead, so Texas would only be the third biggest.
So something like this?
Ceramic Disc Capacitor for Guitar & Bass Tone Circuits - .022uf, .033uf & .047uf
Yep. Unless I am missing something big about the amount of power generated by pickups, one of those shoud be fine. Any idea why there’s a giant capacitor trend in guitars, @terb?
It’s just a matter of fashion. some guys believe that a 600v Orange Drop cap will sound better, that’s just false. For the power and voltage in a guitar, a standard cap works just as good. I use the standard polyester (MKT) 63v caps used in generic low-voltage applications, it works perfectly. A ceramic, polypropylene (MKP), mylar or anything will work as well. If really you want the more transparent filter ever, the reasonnable choice would be a low-voltage MKP. But the power is so low, that I really don’t believe there is any difference in performance for such an application.
(that’s very different on an amplifier, where the capacitors type and quality have a real impact on the sound and signal/noise ratio. The voltages are much higher, so the capacitors work on a very different range.)
Note that, the component that gives you the progressiveness on a tone control is not the capacitor, it’s the pot, depending on its taper. So my advice would be to spend more on the pots and less on the caps.
Thank you gentlemen
Reminded that the micro pots on some 2hp modular gear (the company is called 2hp) is absolute garbage. Across several modules so many felt harder to turn, scratchier/draggier, etc. They worked at least. Meanwhile my MFB 522, they all felt smooth and good. But anyway…
Big caps, yeah Mojotone went nuts on this Strat harness…