DiMarzio Forum

DimarzioForum.Com => The Pickup Place => Topic started by: Smithy000 on May 14, 2020, 10:03:53 PM

Title: Pots For Area 58, 61 Pro Track (HSS)?
Post by: Smithy000 on May 14, 2020, 10:03:53 PM

Hi Everyone,

I'm currently in the process of upgrading my Strat and I have picked up (pun intended) an Area 58, Area 61 and a Pro Track second hand.

I have been doing some digging around through the DiMarzio site and Guitar Electronics, but I cannot find a concise answer to what pots I should be using with the mixture and two single coils and a humbucker.

Has anyone had any experience wiring up a Strat with this combination of pickups, 2 tones, 1 vol and a 5 way switch?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated  :)

Cheers,

Title: Re: Pots For Area 58, 61 Pro Track (2 Single, 1 Hum)?
Post by: darkbluemurder on May 15, 2020, 02:54:01 AM

The Areas usually work best with 250k pots, whereas DiMarzio recommends 500k with the Pro Track. What I would do is use a 500k volume pot and 250k tone pots. I would choose a wiring which adds a 560k or 470k resistor to ground for the switch positions except the bridge position alone so that the Pro Track sees 500k and all other positions see approx. 235k - 260k. I see whether I can find a diagram for this.

Cheers Stephan

Title: Re: Pots For Area 58, 61 Pro Track (2 Single, 1 Hum)?
Post by: HarlowTheFish on May 15, 2020, 03:45:05 AM

I would do a 500k volume, one 500k no-load tone (for the bridge), and one 250k no-load tone (for the neck & middle) - keep in mind, I do like a brighter sound so you might not want to do no-load tone pots.
As Stephan mentioned you can do a resistor trick to get the same tonal shift as using a 250k volume - add an autosplit for the bridge + middle setup, the resistor for anything that isn't the straight bridge hum, and you're golden. You'll definitely want a superswitch for this setup though, and while they're kind of a bitch to wire up you can do some really cool stuff (f.e. the Areas are a bit lower-output in hum-cancelling mode vs. when you split them), so to even out the pos. 2/4 volume drop you can set it to split the Areas there.

Title: Re: Pots For Area 58, 61 Pro Track (2 Single, 1 Hum)?
Post by: RayBarbeeMusic on May 16, 2020, 03:52:36 PM

Depends on the guitar.  Bright guitar, 250k is fine.  Dark guitar, 500k.  In between? Use a resistor across a 500k pot to fine tune.

Title: Re: Pots For Area 58, 61 Pro Track (2 Single, 1 Hum)?
Post by: greenlion on May 16, 2020, 05:45:33 PM

Best way I have found to do it...
https://youtu.be/SJZ2Do7Ywx0 (https://youtu.be/SJZ2Do7Ywx0)

Title: Re: Pots For Area 58, 61 Pro Track (2 Single, 1 Hum)?
Post by: Smithy000 on May 18, 2020, 02:40:38 AM

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I would like to avoid using a super-switch where I can, because they seem to be hard to get a hold at the moment for a decent price.

DiMarzio claims this is all that needs to be done to wire up a HSS https://d2emr0qhzqfj88.cloudfront.net/s3fs-public/diagrams/1h2vv_4_0.pdf (https://d2emr0qhzqfj88.cloudfront.net/s3fs-public/diagrams/1h2vv_4_0.pdf), but they have not listed the info required for the pots nor the cap. I suspect this must not be the optimal setup to get a good tone, as I cannot to find any other resources to suggest that this will work well.

Quote from: darkbluemurder on May 15, 2020, 02:54:01 AM

The Areas usually work best with 250k pots, whereas DiMarzio recommends 500k with the Pro Track. What I would do is use a 500k volume pot and 250k tone pots. I would choose a wiring which adds a 560k or 470k resistor to ground for the switch positions except the bridge position alone so that the Pro Track sees 500k and all other positions see approx. 235k - 260k. I see whether I can find a diagram for this.

Cheers Stephan

Thanks Stephan. If you can find that diagram, that would be brilliant!  :)