Precision Bass Wiring Kit - CTS 250k Potentiometers, .047uF Orange Drop Guitar Capacitor, Gavitt 22 AWG Cloth Wire

I am a retired IT/Electronic Engineer professional. I’ve been playing and rebuilding all types of electric guitars during the past 50 years. I enjoy using my acquired skills to help others play guitars but also have a guitar that plays well and sounds good. Yes, I have too much time on my hands. LOL I just received this volume and tone control kit for an imported precision bass guitar I am upgrading. You can get a cheaper set of Chinese or Korean components, but these are excellent quality CTS pots. The capacitor is the best you can get (IMO), and I consider this kit to be an excellent value. I just installed a similar set of pots (both CTS A250k) in a different guitar and they sound good and function well. This is the first time I have purchased from The Art of Tone and it won’t be the last, for reasons detailed below. Important facts: I put a multimeter to work and measured response from the pots and cap. Both pots were right on 251k ohms. The capacitor measured 46.7nF (.047uF rounded off). The taper on both pots are definitely audio (logarithmic). These are the readings from my ohm meter. Continuity - 0.0 1/4 - 100k 1/2 - 230k 3/4 - 240 Full Resistance - 251k I rarely see that good of tolerance on pots or caps, and someone probably tested and verified a match. The large orange drop capacitor is physically robust but the much smaller more delicate green caps produce the same result and will last for decades. Unless of course you plug your guitar into an electrical outlet (LOL). I have verified the function of both these types of caps with an oscilloscope and my ears. Even so, it does seem logical to put the more robust higher cost cap in if you have it. The guitar I’m putting these in currently has mini sized pots and a much smaller green cap. Fortunately the cavity is standard size and I have verified these components will fit using the existing pickguard. As far as installation, you will need to have some basic soldering skills but The Art of Tone includes a very nice connection diagram (see pic). Another plus is the kit has all the necessary hardware, wire, and jack needed. The jack is identical to Switchcraft. All nuts, washers, and lock washers were included. I constantly get kits that are missing parts. Not this one. Without getting into the greasy details of resistance and capacitance, the pots and cap provided with kit will produce a more smooth vintage sound and it will work well with brighter single coil pickups. Humbuckers tend to not be as bright and harsh as single coil, and so more resistance to ground is needed to output the higher frequencies. Most of these imported guitars use linear taper pots for volume and logarithmic (audio) taper pots for tone. Fender uses audio taper pots for both functions. Other American guitars use an audio pot for volume, and a linear pot for tone. I think Fender does it right because our ears are not linear when it comes to perceiving changes in loudness or tone. When I use liners taper pots, I don’t perceive the change in volume or tone until the pot is turned up almost the entire way, and then it becomes very sensitive. Perhaps others have more precise linear hearing abilities than I do, but I do acknowledge that everyone has their own preferences.

Product delivered as advertised, a great upgrade for an inexpensive bass. This went into a Squier P-Bass that is my "beater bass with flatwound strings". I'd also replaced the pickups with some units out of a Classic Vibe bass.

I got these for my Squier P Bass. Huge improvement! Would definitely recommend doing this upgrade. These pots sound good. And that’s a good price.

Quality, comes with all you need to solder up a pbass. CT’s pots and push wire.

I liked it so well that I bought it twice. You need to know how to solder if you are going to use a kit like this.