School’s back!! Whether that means anything to you or not, the very mention of this time reminds us all that the end of summer is close. For me, that means Thanksgiving as we always kept the family cottage open, swam, sailed and waterskied until that weekend in October. Sure, sometimes it got cold and the odd year we even had snow, but we never gave in. September also means Customer Appreciation Day. Don’t forget to mark Sept 19th open in your calendar to drop in and see us.
Like most days, someone in the office usually comes up with a question that has us all looking at each other and shrugging our shoulders. This time it was Scott. Yeah I’ll call him out, but actually, this months blog is about something we often take for granted…pots. Pots or potentiometers are found on every electric guitar and bass, and are used for volume, tone and balancing. These little electronic devices go back to the very first electric guitars built by George Beachamp and Adolf Rickenbacker.
So what is a potentiometer? There is a casing about the size of a quarter but much thicker, with a shaft coming out of one side, and three terminals for soldering on one side. Inside, there is a sweeper connected to the shaft and a circular contact strip usually made of graphite.
A – Shaft, B – Graphite, C- Sweeper, D- Axis, EFG – Terminals, H – Stop
For audio taper pots (which are the most common) the graphite contact strip is graduated in thickness so that the introduced signal will have varying amounts sent to ground. Basically this means at one end, the signal will be full strength, and at the other, most of that signal will be drained off to ground with the effect of increasing and decreasing the volume. In linear taper pots, the center of the graphite contact strip has ½ the value of the pot so for example if blending 2 pickups the far right and far left will be individual pickups, and the center point of the graphite strip will be 50% of each pickup. This is the simplest explanation of how they work, but where did they come from?
The three big names in potentiometers are CTS, Alpha and Bourns. CTS is 120 years old starting in Chicago as the Chicago Telephone Supply Company. They obviously started building parts for telephones, and their products were so reliable, the quickly became known as Chicago Telephones Satisfy. They diversified in the 1920’s with the boom in radio receivers, in the 1940’s with consumer electronics and in the 1960’s with virtually all other electronic components. As the major supplier of parts in the US it was only natural for companies like Gibson and Fender to turn to CTS for their pots.
Like everything in the modern world, where there is one company making a product, there will soon be more. Bourns started in 1947 as a family company headed by Marian and Rosemary Bourns. They very quickly rose in prominence with products ranging from automotive, computers, cancer treatment equipment to aerospace, even having some of their parts involved in a vehicle landed on Mars. They also developed an entire division of products specializing in musical instruments and pro audio. Finally, there is Alpha. Alpha was created in 1978 and followed the same path as their other two main competitors.
Are any of these companies and parts better than the others? Well, in my experience, I have had customers who would only request CTS as a vintage correct product, and others who wanted the perceived best, like Bourns. A lot has to do with cost and personal taste. I think I would have a hard time telling the difference between properly wired guitars based on the potentiometers alone. Are the newer companies better? Are their materials superior? I am not an electrical engineer so I can’t really say. My suggestion is find what you like and what you want to afford…if it works for you, then that’s your part!
All you have to do is look at the Solo Guitar Parts Catalogue to know there is something for everyone. I do not believe there is a best of anything despite there being varying levels of quality. I have never changed my opinion on parts…the most expensive are not necessarily the best, and the cheapest parts are not necessarily bad. That is what makes this whole business fun. Take a look at our excellent assortment of pots for your current or next project either in person, or at www.sologuitars.com
