Sanity Check before I swap out my tone pot

[PuppyGirlBelly]

Hi folks, I have done several mods to my jazzy that make it fantastic. Relevant to this topic are a treble-bleed and installing SHW's Iola Pickup Set. Now I find that the guitar sounds great, and I get a usable tone with the volume knob throughout it's sweep; and the rhythm circuit works wonderfully.

However, the tone knob in the lead circuit has somehow become mostly useless now. I find that it's effect is very subtle; having an almost imperceptible effect from about 4-10, a modest effect from 2-4, and then going straight to mud territory from 1-2.

The current wiring setup is the stock Rhythm and Lead circuits on a J Mascis Jazzmaster. With the following values in the lead circuit;

• Volume: Alpha Mini A1M (1 Meg - Audio Taper)

• Treble Bleed: 270k Ω > .0022 μF (in series)

• Tone: Alpha Mini B1M (1 Meg - Linear Taper)

• Tone Capacitor: .033μF Green Chiclet Poly Film

I'm thinking I need to swap out the tone knob for an audio taper one, and maybe swapping the capacitor for a 0.47 μF value; but I'm checking in with y'all to make sure I'm not neglecting anything else that I should try first. Or if anybody here has any experience with swapping the tone knob for an audio taper and using a .047 μF capacitor.

Additionally, as an aside, I'm thinking about swapping the leae circuits pots out for a more "premium feeling" pair. This guitar has sentimental value and I have made a project of making it sound and feel as good as I possibly can with upgrades . Do any of y'all have any 1 Meg pots you especially like, especially stiffer pots (or are Alpha pretty much as good as I can get for stiff pots)?

[timtam]

Audio taper is standard for the lead tone pot (below). And the pot alone is responsible for about the first half of the tone circuit response, from 10 down to around 5. The cap doesn't kick in until the second half of the range. So I'd just change the (linear) pot. But if you want to test, you could run a single wire out of the guitar to clip in different cap values with alligator clips to see if you prefer a different value (ground one cap leg to metal input jack cover).

[GilmourD]

Seems to me like the pots got mixed up since Jazzmasters usually have a linear volume and audio tone, like in @timtam's schematic.

[PuppyGirlBelly]

Y'all were right! swapping the volume and tone knobs so that the linear taper was on volume, and audio taper on tone absolutely made the taper feel much more natural on my Jazzy. Thanks so much for your help!

[GilmourD]

Y'all were right! swapping the volume and tone knobs so that the linear taper was on volume, and audio taper on tone absolutely made the taper feel much more natural on my Jazzy. Thanks so much for your help!

You got it! Glad I could help!