Bigsby Tone & Volume Pedal Pots

Joe Burke · Post by **Joe Burke** » 15 Oct 2020 6:45 am

I have this great old Bigsby volume & tone pedal, but the pots are starting to go. I spray them with Deoxit, but that only lasts a couple of jams.

Does anyone know the values of these?

Maybe 250k for the tone and 500k for volume?

Thanks.

Stephen Cowell · Post by **Stephen Cowell** » 16 Oct 2020 10:40 pm

Measure across the outside terminals with an ohmmeter and you'll get closer than we could. Probably about what you guessed.

Joe Burke · Post by **Joe Burke** » 18 Oct 2020 3:47 am

Thanks Stephen. Iâ€™ll try this.

Mike Auman · Post by **Mike Auman** » 18 Oct 2020 1:08 pm

+1 on measuring the resistance. Found a couple of photos that may help, I'm seeing tone pot as 100k and volume as 500k. Not sure about the taper, though. Mike

Landon Jarrel · Post by **Landon Jarrel** » 18 Oct 2020 8:35 pm

The taper for the tone pot will be logarithmic - this produces a "doo wah" effect. For really dramatic and quick effect, use a linear pot. The volume pot will be logarithmic to ensure an even-sounding change in signal output.

Cool pedal!

Stephen Cowell · Post by **Stephen Cowell** » 19 Oct 2020 11:17 am

Landon Jarrel wrote:The taper for the tone pot will be logarithmic - this produces a "doo wah" effect. The volume pot will be linear to ensure an even change in signal output.

Cool pedal!

Audio taper was created just to combat the situation you describe... linear taper pots don't work well for volume.

Thomas Stone · Post by **Thomas Stone** » 19 Oct 2020 2:25 pm

You should ideally have the pots out of circuit when you make your measurements, otherwise you will be measuring some parallel combination of the two pots.

George Biner · Post by **George Biner** » 20 Oct 2020 3:01 pm

Preferably with one side of the pot disconnected, just turn it to halfway and if the resistance is half of the total, it's linear; if it's way off from half (like 1/3), it's log.