Vintage Voicing

[nickdahl]

Why would a guitar that is equipped with single-coil pickups (VA1, VA1R, VA12) need Vintage Voicing? I thought the purpose of Vintage Voicing was to "balance" humbucking and single-coil pickups.

Nick

[tom]

vintage voicing is to trick single coils into thinking they are seeing 250k pots because humbuckers want to see 500k pots. we use 500k pots in everything because we are very happy with what vv does. it allows us to use the same pots on everything . a word about pots. traditionally guitars with single coils use 250k pots, while humbuckers got 500k pots. fender has played around with other values over the years, and so has gibson. as a gereral rule higher value pots will let the higher freq through. most people would say that 500k pots on a single coil will sound shrill. humbuckers are darker to start with, so they benefit from the extra high end. some people like the extra top end of bigger pots on single coils, and some like the softness of smaller pots on humbuckers. it's a personal choice.

[nickdahl]

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense.

Nick

[LonestarGtr]

Hey Tom,

What value pot did Gibson originally use for p90 pickups? I just put some Duncan Phat Cats in a PRS and used the original 500k pots that came with the guitar and to my ears, they sound great. I was just wondering if p90's generally warranted 500 or 250k pots.

Mike

[tom]

the old gibsons were 500k, and that's what i would use. 250k would darken up an already fairly dark pickup.