Tokai P90 help

[EOengineer]

Hey all! So I have this beautiful Tokai LSS-124 that is a real looker and an awesome player, but I haven’t been in love with the tone recently.

I’ve not given up on the pickups yet, but I am thinking I might want to try making some electronics changes. Overall I’m finding the pickups to be overly shrill in the top, and balance between positions has been a bit of a challenge.

She came from the factory with all 500k pots. My old Gibson LP special was rocking 300k audio pots across everything and I LOVED the way that guitar sounded.

What do you think? Try 300k pots?

 

[itchyfingers]

Have you tried changing the height of the current pickups?

 

[EOengineer]

Have you tried changing the height of the current pickups?

I have but it was A WHILE ago. I should probably take another look. I’ve noticed I have some trouble balancing the bridge and neck pickups but ran out of room to drop the neck pickup. Guessing there might be a spacer under there or something.

 

[la szum]

I think Pots and trying different Caps/Cap Values on the Tone Pot is an easy (and cheap) step to try.

Nice guitar. P90s will definitely be in the next guitar I purchase.

 

[EOengineer]

I think Pots and trying different Caps/Cap Values on the Tone Pot is an easy (and cheap) step to try.

Nice guitar. P90s will definitely be in the next guitar I purchase.

I’m one of those dopes that never uses the tone controls on a guitar so the caps likely won’t matter much, but the guitar volume gets used a lot, so def pots and pot tapers matter.

These Tokais appear to use metric pots, which makes me think I might be in for a wild ride trying to find 300k vintage taper CTS pots.

 

[la szum]

"Shrill on the top" but doesn't use Tone pot.



Hmmmmm.......

 

[EOengineer]

"Shrill on the top" but doesn't use Tone pot.



Hmmmmm.......

I need a “more less” knob.

I do realize I could just turn the tone knob down, but something still isn’t right when doing so and I suspect it might be an impedance loading thing with the 500k volume pots.

 

[laxu]

I need a “more less” knob.

I do realize I could just turn the tone knob down, but something still isn’t right when doing so and I suspect it might be an impedance loading thing with the 500k volume pots.

Seriously, get friendly with your tone pots. They are super useful.

To give you a similar example, I have a Jazzmaster. 1M pots as originally intended. Super bright. It would be horrible to use with everything on 10. But roll those knobs back a bit and it's the sweetest thing and sounds fantastic.

I also have a G&L Legacy (Strat) which also uses 1M tone pots because of its treble/bass cut circuitry. Same deal, I need to turn its treble pots down to about 5 or less for it to be similar tonality to a typical Strat. But that just means it has a lot of adjustment range on the tone pots where it can go darker or it can go brighter.

These days it's very rare to have me run any of my guitars with tone knobs on 10. I usually set my amp sounds so that volume and tone on 10 is a bit too gainy and just slightly harsh. Then roll those back, happy days. Leaves room to go both ways.

If that still doesn't do it for you, it might be time to consider swapping pickups but I guess you could just try 250K pots at first. I wouldn't try hunting down some 300K ones specifically unless they are easy to come by, pot values have variance between 10-20% anyway.

You could also just try increasing the tone capacitor value so the rolloff when you use the tone knob is more drastic, that's even cheaper.

 

[Eagle]

250Ka volumes and some nice high voltage PIO caps will fix it. 500ka is normal though.

 

[laxu]

250Ka volumes and some nice high voltage PIO caps will fix it. 500ka is normal though.

Why would you pay extra for high voltage caps for a very low voltage usecase like guitar?

 

[Eagle]

Why would you pay extra for high voltage caps for a very low voltage usecase like guitar?

They sound different. Try it hook up a tone with croc clips and test them. They seem to kill the treble in a more musically useful way. Even with a high value capacitor they have a much wider usable range. Also make sure you have audio tapers on the pots.