Replacing The Electronics In My Guitar. Couple of Questions.

ediger

Alright, so I decided as a winter break project, I'm going to replace the old crappy electronics in one of my guitars. I'm going to keep the same pickups, but everything else will be replaced. The guitar is a cheap pawn shop guitar I picked up for like 80 bucks. It's a Jaguar (not a Fender Jaguar, Jaguar is the brand name) Les Paul Gold Top knock-off. I bought it to have a guitar that I could detune to C. I love the action and the feel of the guitar and even the sound that the shitty pickups put out, but as you could imagine, a lot of it is cheaply made and low-quality components.

So here's where my questions come in. I want the guitar to sound deep and heavy without losing it's high end. Right now, my plans is to replace the 500k linear pots it currently uses with 500k log pots. From what I understand about electronics, this should give me much better control of the volume and tone, no? And my main question, how much effect will the type of capacitors I use on the tone pots have?

Obviously the pickups are going to control most of this and so far, they do. I'm pretty much looking to see if there's a way to make the high end a little brighter while I've got this thing all taken apart.

Oh yeah, and I guess I may as well ask this as well. Anyone have any suggestions on good pots?

exhausted

i prefer log pots for tone and linear pots for volume. i find that log pots shave off too much volume too fast. this is probably contrary to popular logic but it's what i like. if you want to have a little more high end sparkle, use 1meg volume pots.

type of capacitor will have less impact than the value. i'd stick with .022uF. lots of folks have preferences for brand etc. but my ears aren't good enough to hear differences.


as for pots, i just buy CTS.
http://guitarpartsresource.com/electrical_ctspots.htm

Piper At The Gates

I would go with new pickups. I know you said you didn't want to change them but that is where you are going to get your biggest improvement in tonal response. You have a huge array of good humbuckers out there to choose from that can give you great low and high end response. As for capacitors, just as Exhausted said, you should use the .022's which are standard humbucker caps, and use CTS brand, or the more expensive Sprague Black Beauty's, which are called "Bumble Bee's". Your wiring and pots can be gotten from any good mail order guitar supply like Stew-Mac or Warmouth, they can help you with advice, too. Good Luck.
I have a Fernandes Strat from the early nineties that I am going to do a similar job on. I love the neck and it plays like a dream, but is lacking a bit in the electronics department.