Dual tone pots: What do they do?

[stratoskier]

Hey,
I was looking at a wiring schematic for an old Fender Esprit (the Robben Ford model) and the tone pots are labeled as "1M/250Kohm A dual pots." They appear to have 6 contacts, 2 of which are wired with separate resistors: an 83K and an 8.2M. There's also a .023 cap in line.

What the heck would the dual pot with two resistors do? A web search didn't help to clear it up for me.

Anyone?

Bert

[ryanb]

Sounds like a stacked, concentric pot, for having both volume and tone (or some combination like that) on the same control. One pot on the outer ring, one on the center inner knob.

[stratoskier]

That might be one application, but in this case there are separate tone and volume pots for both of the two pickups (four total). So the tone pots have only one function, with one knob controlling the tone of one pickup. The diagram shows a separate mini-toggle for coil splitting, so that's not the answer either. Very strange indeed...

[buddroyce]

It sounds like it might be the Fender TBX circuit. (Treble Bass Extender)

[stratoskier]

Yes, that's it! The Esprit Elite did indeed have the TBX tone control.

So... is that a worthwhile mod for a Les Paul style guitar, or just more clutter in the control cavity? Currently, this beast (an Esprit reissue without the TBX) sounds a little too dark for my tastes. I've been considering either a pickup swap, stepping up to higher ohmage pots (has 500K, so I'd have to go to 1M), or maybe the TBX route. Any suggestions?

[buddroyce]

Pickup swap would probably be the way to do. The Fender TBX only really makes a difference sonically on single coil pickups. But if you're itching to make use of the tone pot, I'm currently developing a passive mid cut that modifies a tone pot to suck out some of the mids(ie. making the tone pot more useful). PM me if you're interested and I'll do up another prototype to send out.