Bloozcat
Leggo of my HoHo!
Spudman said:
I don't think there is one certain answer to that question. It depends a lot on the type magnet used, the wind, and the general tone of the wood in the guitar. Some LP's are heavier and tend to be boomier in the low end, while some are lighter and tend to have a more middy range. In most cases I find that P-90's don't need 500k pots. They are single coil pickups, afterall. Conversely, they won't respond well at all to 250k pots that are below 250k. P-90's are generally a little more powerful than std. single coils, so it stands to reason that they should have pots that are correspondingly higher in value as well. I prefer the 300k pots for most P-90's because they can go from about 270k-330k and still be within both the 10% tollerance of the pot, and within the usable range for P-90's (although I do prefer that they be at 300k). At one time Gibson used 300k pots in some of their guitars with both P-90's and humbuckers.
In your case, the first thing that I would do is this:
1) Define the tone as it exists now. Is it too muddy, too bright, too boomy, too sterile?
2) Define the tone you're looking to get.
After you've set your parameters, then set out to correct the deficiencies one at a time. First check the values of your pots, caps, and pickups to get a base line. Once you have that, you can understand how they're influencing the tone. If the tone is too muddy, the pots and/or caps may be below spec. If the tone is too bright, the pots and/or caps could be well above the optimum spec.
I'm waiting for a parts order to arrive any day now. After I finish installing a new toggle switch in my AS-73 semi-hollow, I'm going to rewire my Agile AD2500 including the installation of shielding and some new P-90's. I'll report on how that experiment goes, and what ends up working best.
