Changing the volume swell with 'vintage taper' potentiometers

Hello there! It can be hard to find time to write a blog in a busy workshop, after all, I should be working, but I’ll be trying to keep up. 

We’ve skipped right over the writing part to give you a short video on the difference in volume swell, referred to as taper, with modern potentiometers and vintage reproductions in a vintage 1965 Fender Jazz Bass. This customer had previously changed the worn-out original pots to some brand new CTS 250K ones. Although the scratchy sounding static was eliminated, so was the gentle increase and decrease in volume and tone. Turning the pots seemed to act almost like an on/off switch! One of the reasons for this is that as electronics have become more efficient over time potentiometers have developed a steeper curve. Whereas many vintage pots might be allowing 30-35% of the signal at halfway, most modern ones are around 10% of the signal at halfway. I’ll not bore you with all the details about why that is but instead mention that Mojotone does do a new range of CTS controls that do have a more accurate 30% vintage taper that really helped this bass recapture its smooth swells. Check out the video of us undertaking the repair and thanks for watching :)

-Kev