Capacitor Placement

[timtam]

Tim, just thought of something...

If you swapped tone pot connections from one outer tab to the opposite outer tab, the tone control would work backwards, as it would be seeing the other section of the resistance trace.

Does this mean that "reverse taper pots" are bullshit? If I'm understanding what you're saying, as a lefty, if I wanted the pot to be on or off in one direction or the other, I could just swap the outer lugs. Or am I missing something else?

The extent to which you could just swap a pot's outer tab connections to work in the same way in the reverse direction would depend on whether the taper is symmetrical. If it increases/decreases more steeply at one end of the range than the other, then swapping outer lug connections will not give you the same pattern of taper resistance progress that you get in the 'usual' direction. As you can see below, audio tapers are often asymmetrical to varying extents.


Don't take this as gospel (as a right hander I've never had to think about it !), but my best guess is that audio taper pots labelled for left handers have the symmetry of the taper flipped so that it functions in the same way as it would for a right hander, just in the opposite direction (CW vs CCW). But it would be worth testing the taper with a multimeter if you're left-handed, to be sure what people are actually selling you. And testing swapped tabs to see if that gets you close enough with some tapers (a linear taper of course would work fine in reverse). I understand that some left handers are OK with "RH" pots, and some guitar makers do not use reverse taper pots in their LH guitars ? (some may just flip the outer lugs ?).

[alexpigment]

[*]

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Just going to add a caution ... if you meander down the 50s wiring styles you'll find weird interactions between volume and tone: turning the tone pot will change volume and turning the volume will change tone. 50s works great if you are a 'dime the tone pot' kind of player using only the volume pot but if you regularly use both it can be a mess. That's why the 'modern' wiring methods appeared and stayed. Best to test different values of a Treble Bleed circuit if you are having troubles when rolling back the volume.

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I think this is a little bit incorrect in my experience. Modern wiring will cause the tone to change when the volume is turned down (hence the need for treble bleed circuits). 50s wiring will cause a slight volume drop when the tone is turned down from 10. I find the latter to be way more preferable. I suppose if you have a really clean amp this volume difference is noticeable but for me it just means I end up with slightly less gain when I turn the tone down, and I can easily add more gain.

[bjornsynneby]

Interesting thread! It would be interesting to read your findings of your experiments. I would say mr Wacker is wrong when he says that 60s and 50s wiring decreases the noice floor because of the open tab of the tone pot in the modern wiring receives electromagnetic interference. Its an open end not a loop. The 50s and 60s wiring also has open ends. Strange. To me the electromagnetic current can only be induced in loops (exposed to magnetic field).

[bjornsynneby]

I haven't compared the SD variation to the Fender standard rhythm circuit tone pot wiring but I have a note from somewhere attached to the SD variation ... "rhythm circuit tone pot wiring swapped to prevent VOL roll off with tone roll off ".

I have compared the SD variation to the Fender standard rythm section wiring and in my case there was VOL rolling off (and very little tone change) with tone roll off. This was prevented with the SD variation.

[jorri]

Tim, just thought of something...

If you swapped tone pot connections from one outer tab to the opposite outer tab, the tone control would work backwards, as it would be seeing the other section of the resistance trace.

Does this mean that "reverse taper pots" are bullshit? If I'm understanding what you're saying, as a lefty, if I wanted the pot to be on or off in one direction or the other, I could just swap the outer lugs. Or am I missing something else?

The extent to which you could just swap a pot's outer tab connections to work in the same way in the reverse direction would depend on whether the taper is symmetrical. If it increases/decreases more steeply at one end of the range than the other, then swapping outer lug connections will not give you the same pattern of taper resistance progress that you get in the 'usual' direction. As you can see below, audio tapers are often asymmetrical to varying extents.


Don't take this as gospel (as a right hander I've never had to think about it !), but my best guess is that audio taper pots labelled for left handers have the symmetry of the taper flipped so that it functions in the same way as it would for a right hander, just in the opposite direction (CW vs CCW). But it would be worth testing the taper with a multimeter if you're left-handed, to be sure what people are actually selling you. And testing swapped tabs to see if that gets you close enough with some tapers (a linear taper of course would work fine in reverse). I understand that some left handers are OK with "RH" pots, and some guitar makers do not use reverse taper pots in their LH guitars ? (some may just flip the outer lugs ?).

It was more my understanding in my comment, that "reverse audio taper" is actually a kind of pot taper. A mirror image of a standard audio.
Linear wont matter. If you want "reverse audio taper" you swap the lugs of an audio (log) pot.
If you want "pot that goes reverse direction" thats something else, and to clarify i was saying you could just NOT care that full was on CCW.

Btw: Linear for volume.
Log for tone. (So its not that counterintuitive, if you think low-pass, not high-cut to be backwards)

But why? Because the 3-pin potentiometer wiring this thread is about, actually has this king of logarhythmic output in voltage, when its a linear pot! Its in the potential divider equation.

So unless you have need for a doubly log pot, this 3-pin tone wiring may also be better for the tone pot.