Left handed Strat: changing pots

[Flure99]

dear Squier community,

hope you are doing well! since I have my first Strat since a few month, im playing and improving. one thing that I did not like were the pots on my Squier Standard Stratocaster (2007) - im a left handed player and got a left handed guitar. its well known that squire guitars have a right-handed pots installed, so the tone pots don't chance the first positions (1-8) and then from 8-10 there is all the modulation. I did some research and changed the pots to left-handed pots, and all the advice where also for changing to 250k pots, because the 500k installed were to clear for my ears.

so I changed the two tone pots and volume pot to all parts CTS 250k left handed pots. Also changed the Cap to Orange Drop 47nF When soldering, I kept the wiring on the same position as on the old stock pots.
--> pots I bought:

Allparts CTS250K Left Handed Pot

Allparts EP-4385-L00 CTS250K Left Handed Pot, 250kOhm, logarithmisch, Riffelachse, im Gegensatz zu Linearen Potis sind Logarithmische Potis in Linkshänder-Versionen erhältlich, da eine umgekehrte Verdrahtung den logarithmische Widerstandsverlauf...

www.thomann.de

The result:

- Pots still have the wrong direction: I have to turn clockwise to turn level down / to bring the tone down. thought the left-hand pots change that? but im used to it, that's not a big deal
- tone pot is now fully working, there is a change in tone from 3 - 10
- volume pot: if I turn it fully up, it is very bright and I clearly hear a difference between the next position, it sounds more warm and not so ice-picky
- the overall sound is much better, its not extreme clear any more, Strat still got a lot of power.

so my question:

is the wiring I did wrong again and do I have to change the wiring to "left hand" with left hand pots? if yes, how do I do that?
the picture is with the old stock pots, but I soldered everything exactly the same

also a bonus question when we talking about that topic:

if I have the tone Pot at position 1 (for right-hand guitar must be 10 I think - so that the tone pot got NO effect at all) - is the pot + Cap bypassed and I got the "clean" pickup sound? also the same question for volume pot. if its turned to full volume, is the pot + cap bypassed?

im very happy with my Strat and it got a killer sound! if someone thinking about buying a standard Squier - DO IT

thanks

 

[Hal Nico]

As far as I know there's no such thing as left hand and right hand potentiometers. It's just a matter of swapping the live and ground where required on the tabs.

See this post,

Left Handed Wiring

Hey guys Well I need to redo my wiring on my build... if you saw my other thread you will see the disaster. Well I've desoldered the whole thing and I also decided that instead of using right handed pots, I am going to invest in some left handed pots for some improvement! so... Ive been...

www.strat-talk.com

As for pots I prefer A250K audio taper pots for both volume and Tone on my Strats and not B250k Linear ones.

 

[Dave M]

hello....Great question !!! , I'm a lefty but play righty...So lefties turn Knobs forward in a counterclockwise direction for more volume. .More tone comes on the same way. Right ?
Tone off -clockwise--vol off/down clockwise..
I'm guessing the pic is of your old Stock wiring ? check it with this diagram... see how the tone cap is wired ? Some like a 022 cap for less muffled tone....

 

[Eddie]

I've never heard of a lefty and righty knob. All knobs are turned the same direction.

 

[Dave M]

I've never heard of a lefty and righty knob. All knobs are turned the same direction.

get 'em here.....https://guitarelectronics.com/cts-2...MI8Zes3vqF-AIVdz2tBh0M8ADGEAQYAiABEgJmIvD_BwE
put 'em on the other side and you'll want them to do the same job but in another direction... ahh.... another learning moment for me too !!!!

 

[Flure99]

hello....Great question !!! , I'm a lefty but play righty...So lefties turn Knobs forward in a counterclockwise direction for more volume. .More tone comes on the same way. Right ?
Tone off -clockwise--vol off/down clockwise..
I'm guessing the pic is of your old Stock wiring ? check it with this diagram... see how the tone cap is wired ? Some like a 022 cap for less muffled tone....

hi,
thanks for your diagram - just checked it - the wires are the same on my guitar. so it stays the same - like you wrote it, counterclockwise for more volume and tone

 

[Rollmeaway]

So... Yes, I found there is such an animal as a left hand or reverse taper pot. I was kind of confused when the tech guy from Sweetwater directed me to the Allparts.com site to purchase them. The confusion was because the left hand pots and the right hand pots have the same part number. (CTS pots) As mentioned elsewhere, other manufacturers also make them.

But, then I noticed their SKU number was different. The lefty pot has L00 at the end. I don't know why the part number would be the same though.

After much research on every guitar forum that had a discussion about the lefty wiring issue, I found there is much misinformation and plain old preference, clouding the issue further.

So, here is the basic way I see it: Us right handed players wrap our pinky finger around the bottom of the volume pot, and it seems natural to pull up from the bottom (clockwise) to do volume swells. This keeps your picking hand up over the strings to do all that fancy finger and flat picking.

But, apparently some manufacturers, in their left handed guitars, either use right handed pots wired correctly, (clockwise to increase vol) which work properly, or RH pots wired lefty, which causes the taper of the pot to get wonky. To the point of the pot being almost an on/off switch.

And then some manufacturers use lefty/reverse taper pots which work properly when wired left handed. Meaning, they taper like a proper pot should. Only counter-clockwise to increase.

So, a lefty would essentially do the exact same thing for increasing volume and pulling up on the knob to do volume swells. What is good about that? Well when you pull up on the pot, your picking hand is staying over or closer to the strings. But for a lefty, if it's wired so that you have to push down (clockwise) to do volume swells, your picking hand is moving away from the strings.

This is just semantics if you learned on a lefty guitar that was wired to increase clockwise. You will just adapt to it and that will seem normal to you. I have read plenty of accounts from lefty's that got used to the pot increasing clockwise. They wouldn't have it any other way.
As long as the taper works properly. Nice, smooth increase in volume and tone.

The different manufacturers use of right and left taper potentiometers AND player preferences are all over the board.

Everything above is pertaining to audio/logarithmic pots. But, then there are linear pots. Now, there are no left handed linear pots that I have found, over months of pouring over this issue of right or left pots. A linear pot can be wired left or right and still have the same taper despite increasing clockwise or counter-clockwise.

The reason I was so intent on finding the facts about lefty wiring was for my lefty friend who put a lot of labor into finishing and fitting a Strat from parts. Beautiful, natural finish. He did a great job on it. It's just a beautiful thing hanging on the wall since last December.

But, he bought a right hand DYI wiring kit from Stew Mac. I told him that I don't think the pots are going to work the way he wants. Like on his left hand LTD LP type guitar. That guitar has proper left hand pots wired lefty. And the pots increase counter-clockwise.

He checked the pots for his new build with a multimeter and they did increase to their stated value and changed turning direction when switching lugs from left/middle to right/middle on the MM. So he is convinced that they will work properly despite all the information I dug up and sent to him about how they might work in the real world. So, he said he won't know until he tries.

That saved me a few bucks, because I was ready to pull the trigger on a proper pre-wired left handed wiring harness from a guy on eBay that makes custom wiring harnesses out of quality parts. Using left handed CTS pots, etc... Live and learn, right? I had to screw a lot of things up until I figured out how to do it right. I'm still learning.

Danny...

 

[DougMen]

So... Yes, I found there is such an animal as a left hand or reverse taper pot. I was kind of confused when the tech guy from Sweetwater directed me to the Allparts.com site to purchase them. The confusion was because the left hand pots and the right hand pots have the same part number. (CTS pots) As mentioned elsewhere, other manufacturers also make them.

But, then I noticed their SKU number was different. The lefty pot has L00 at the end. I don't know why the part number would be the same though.

After much research on every guitar forum that had a discussion about the lefty wiring issue, I found there is much misinformation and plain old preference, clouding the issue further.

So, here is the basic way I see it: Us right handed players wrap our pinky finger around the bottom of the volume pot, and it seems natural to pull up from the bottom (clockwise) to do volume swells. This keeps your picking hand up over the strings to do all that fancy finger and flat picking.

But, apparently some manufacturers, in their left handed guitars, either use right handed pots wired correctly, (clockwise to increase vol) which work properly, or RH pots wired lefty, which causes the taper of the pot to get wonky. To the point of the pot being almost an on/off switch.

And then some manufacturers use lefty/reverse taper pots which work properly when wired left handed. Meaning, they taper like a proper pot should. Only counter-clockwise to increase.

So, a lefty would essentially do the exact same thing for increasing volume and pulling up on the knob to do volume swells. What is good about that? Well when you pull up on the pot, your picking hand is staying over or closer to the strings. But for a lefty, if it's wired so that you have to push down (clockwise) to do volume swells, your picking hand is moving away from the strings.

This is just semantics if you learned on a lefty guitar that was wired to increase clockwise. You will just adapt to it and that will seem normal to you. I have read plenty of accounts from lefty's that got used to the pot increasing clockwise. They wouldn't have it any other way.
As long as the taper works properly. Nice, smooth increase in volume and tone.

The different manufacturers use of right and left taper potentiometers AND player preferences are all over the board.

Everything above is pertaining to audio/logarithmic pots. But, then there are linear pots. Now, there are no left handed linear pots that I have found, over months of pouring over this issue of right or left pots. A linear pot can be wired left or right and still have the same taper despite increasing clockwise or counter-clockwise.

The reason I was so intent on finding the facts about lefty wiring was for my lefty friend who put a lot of labor into finishing and fitting a Strat from parts. Beautiful, natural finish. He did a great job on it. It's just a beautiful thing hanging on the wall since last December.

But, he bought a right hand DYI wiring kit from Stew Mac. I told him that I don't think the pots are going to work the way he wants. Like on his left hand LTD LP type guitar. That guitar has proper left hand pots wired lefty. And the pots increase counter-clockwise.

He checked the pots for his new build with a multimeter and they did increase to their stated value and changed turning direction when switching lugs from left/middle to right/middle on the MM. So he is convinced that they will work properly despite all the information I dug up and sent to him about how they might work in the real world. So, he said he won't know until he tries.

That saved me a few bucks, because I was ready to pull the trigger on a proper pre-wired left handed wiring harness from a guy on eBay that makes custom wiring harnesses out of quality parts. Using left handed CTS pots, etc... Live and learn, right? I had to screw a lot of things up until I figured out how to do it right. I'm still learning.

Danny...

You can't just say right/middle or left/middle without defining which was you're looking at it. Is it looking at it with the lugs facing down or up, because right then becomes left, and vice versa, depending on the orientation.

 

[DougMen]

Are there lefty knobs? Otherwise, when wired properly for a lefty, then 1 would be maximum and 10 would be minimum on the knob when turned counter-clockwise to increase and clockwise to decrease.

 

[DougMen]

If using reverse taper pots, then wouldn't they be wired normally, and only reversed on the wiring to make right hand taper pots work in reverse?

 

[lost sailor]

I just replaced the vol. pot on my lefty partscaster......looking at the back of the pot (installed on the pickguard) the right lug goes to the switch, the middle from the output jack and on the left side, solder to the case to complete the circuit.
The old one was intermittent turning the vol down so I changed it.......here is the old one:

 

[Slacker G]

I have never heard of "left hand" pots and I have been in the repair business most of my life. However there are reverse log pots. Have you changed all the controls on your pedals or other electronics? Just flip the outer two connections to make a reverse log pot a lefty. Life can be so difficult.

 

[DougMen]

I have never heard of "left hand" pots and I have been in the repair business most of my life. However there are reverse log pots. Have you changed all the controls on your pedals or other electronics? Just flip the outer two connections to make a reverse log pot a lefty. Life can be so difficult.

According to what I've recently read on the subject, swapping the connections on the pots works, but then the pot has limited range, and does not change smoothly throughout its range, but has little affect over most of its range, and then changes abruptly at the last 20% or so of rotation, which is supposed to be eliminated by using truly reverse taper pots, which then work as well and have as smooth affect all through their range as regular pots do in a right handed guitar. That's why the use of reverse taper pots is preferable, as you just said. A "lefty" pot is just different semantics that means the same thing as a reverse taper pot.

 

[Slacker G]

linear, logarithmic (audio), and inverse logarithmic. are the tapers of pots. If you use a reverse log, you can simply reverse the end terminals of the pot and it will work fine. If you use a linear pot you can reverse the terminals and get a linear increase / decrease of the pot. Using a standard taper you get a rapid volume increase at the beginning and very little change, Use Tele knobs to deal with the numbered Strat knob problem

 

[Wronghanded]

As a lefty and changed many wiring harnesses, in basses and guitars, the pot doesn't know what handed you are as long as the values are snyced up, however caps change the sound, I found this for easy understanding.

How Does it Work?​

The capacitor is a filter in our tone circuit, which has a value. The higher the value of the capacitor, the stronger the filter it is. A stronger filter will remove more high-end frequencies, which will result in a warmer, sometimes “muddier” tone.

How Do You Choose the Right Value?​

There is only one sure way to choose the right value, and that is to listen to your guitar when you use the tone control. These are the things you want to listen to while you are playing:

• Your Tone – Does it get too dark and muddy when you turn down the tone; maybe it doesn’t get dark enough?
• Tone Control Travel – Does the tone change a lot when you turn down the knob a tiny, bit but then stay pretty much the same the rest of the way, or is there smooth travel from bright to dark?

If you’re disappointed by the way you respond to those questions, you might want to take a look at the value of your capacitor.

Standard Capacitor Values​

There have been several standard capacitor values over the years, and two are still very popular today: the .047uf, and the .022 uf. To a lesser degree, you might find some guitars that have a .1 or a .033uf capacitor.

dear Squier community,

hope you are doing well! since I have my first Strat since a few month, im playing and improving. one thing that I did not like were the pots on my Squier Standard Stratocaster (2007) - im a left handed player and got a left handed guitar. its well known that squire guitars have a right-handed pots installed, so the tone pots don't chance the first positions (1-8) and then from 8-10 there is all the modulation. I did some research and changed the pots to left-handed pots, and all the advice where also for changing to 250k pots, because the 500k installed were to clear for my ears.

so I changed the two tone pots and volume pot to all parts CTS 250k left handed pots. Also changed the Cap to Orange Drop 47nF When soldering, I kept the wiring on the same position as on the old stock pots.
--> pots I bought:

Allparts CTS250K Left Handed Pot

Allparts EP-4385-L00 CTS250K Left Handed Pot, 250kOhm, logarithmisch, Riffelachse, im Gegensatz zu Linearen Potis sind Logarithmische Potis in Linkshänder-Versionen erhältlich, da eine umgekehrte Verdrahtung den logarithmische Widerstandsverlauf...

www.thomann.de

The result:

- Pots still have the wrong direction: I have to turn clockwise to turn level down / to bring the tone down. thought the left-hand pots change that? but im used to it, that's not a big deal
- tone pot is now fully working, there is a change in tone from 3 - 10
- volume pot: if I turn it fully up, it is very bright and I clearly hear a difference between the next position, it sounds more warm and not so ice-picky
- the overall sound is much better, its not extreme clear any more, Strat still got a lot of power.

so my question:

is the wiring I did wrong again and do I have to change the wiring to "left hand" with left hand pots? if yes, how do I do that?
the picture is with the old stock pots, but I soldered everything exactly the same

also a bonus question when we talking about that topic:

if I have the tone Pot at position 1 (for right-hand guitar must be 10 I think - so that the tone pot got NO effect at all) - is the pot + Cap bypassed and I got the "clean" pickup sound? also the same question for volume pot. if its turned to full volume, is the pot + cap bypassed?

im very happy with my Strat and it got a killer sound! if someone thinking about buying a standard Squier - DO IT

thanks

 

[Roger66]

dear Squier community,

hope you are doing well! since I have my first Strat since a few month, im playing and improving. one thing that I did not like were the pots on my Squier Standard Stratocaster (2007) - im a left handed player and got a left handed guitar. its well known that squire guitars have a right-handed pots installed, so the tone pots don't chance the first positions (1-8) and then from 8-10 there is all the modulation. I did some research and changed the pots to left-handed pots, and all the advice where also for changing to 250k pots, because the 500k installed were to clear for my ears.

so I changed the two tone pots and volume pot to all parts CTS 250k left handed pots. Also changed the Cap to Orange Drop 47nF When soldering, I kept the wiring on the same position as on the old stock pots.
--> pots I bought:

Allparts CTS250K Left Handed Pot

Allparts EP-4385-L00 CTS250K Left Handed Pot, 250kOhm, logarithmisch, Riffelachse, im Gegensatz zu Linearen Potis sind Logarithmische Potis in Linkshänder-Versionen erhältlich, da eine umgekehrte Verdrahtung den logarithmische Widerstandsverlauf...

www.thomann.de

The result:

- Pots still have the wrong direction: I have to turn clockwise to turn level down / to bring the tone down. thought the left-hand pots change that? but im used to it, that's not a big deal
- tone pot is now fully working, there is a change in tone from 3 - 10
- volume pot: if I turn it fully up, it is very bright and I clearly hear a difference between the next position, it sounds more warm and not so ice-picky
- the overall sound is much better, its not extreme clear any more, Strat still got a lot of power.

so my question:

is the wiring I did wrong again and do I have to change the wiring to "left hand" with left hand pots? if yes, how do I do that?
the picture is with the old stock pots, but I soldered everything exactly the same

also a bonus question when we talking about that topic:

if I have the tone Pot at position 1 (for right-hand guitar must be 10 I think - so that the tone pot got NO effect at all) - is the pot + Cap bypassed and I got the "clean" pickup sound? also the same question for volume pot. if its turned to full volume, is the pot + cap bypassed?

im very happy with my Strat and it got a killer sound! if someone thinking about buying a standard Squier - DO IT

thanks

Left handed pots dont exist, my friend. I see what you mean about wanting them to act backwards. You can wire the pots backwards to get the proper rotation for turning the tone/vol. Up or down. Pots are ambidexterous and if you wire them "backwards" they really should work the way you would like them to. IE: counterclockwise to turn them up. Leave the middle tab as is and just reverse the wiring to the outer two tabs. That will work. Good luck. You can do this.

 

[DougMen]

Left handed pots dont exist, my friend. I see what you mean about wanting them to act backwards. You can wire the pots backwards to get the proper rotation for turning the tone/vol. Up or down. Pots are ambidexterous and if you wire them "backwards" they really should work the way you would like them to. IE: counterclockwise to turn them up. Leave the middle tab as is and just reverse the wiring to the outer two tabs. That will work. Good luck. You can do this.

That makes perfect sense. After all, any pot has a carbon track with terminals at both ends and a wiper that travels across the carbon track. If the wiper on a 250k pot in in the center, it's 125k from there to either end. The wiper doesn't know or care how the other two lugs are wired.
I feel like a fool for buying into the BS I read online from several "experts" that claimed that you somehow had to have a reverse taper pot to have the correct smooth taper, because that's impossible with a linear taper pot (because both would be identical), but could very well be true with an audio taper pot. I don't know enough about their construction to say one way or the other.

 

[Roger66]

So... Yes, I found there is such an animal as a left hand or reverse taper pot. I was kind of confused when the tech guy from Sweetwater directed me to the Allparts.com site to purchase them. The confusion was because the left hand pots and the right hand pots have the same part number. (CTS pots) As mentioned elsewhere, other manufacturers also make them.

But, then I noticed their SKU number was different. The lefty pot has L00 at the end. I don't know why the part number would be the same though.

After much research on every guitar forum that had a discussion about the lefty wiring issue, I found there is much misinformation and plain old preference, clouding the issue further.

So, here is the basic way I see it: Us right handed players wrap our pinky finger around the bottom of the volume pot, and it seems natural to pull up from the bottom (clockwise) to do volume swells. This keeps your picking hand up over the strings to do all that fancy finger and flat picking.

But, apparently some manufacturers, in their left handed guitars, either use right handed pots wired correctly, (clockwise to increase vol) which work properly, or RH pots wired lefty, which causes the taper of the pot to get wonky. To the point of the pot being almost an on/off switch.

And then some manufacturers use lefty/reverse taper pots which work properly when wired left handed. Meaning, they taper like a proper pot should. Only counter-clockwise to increase.

So, a lefty would essentially do the exact same thing for increasing volume and pulling up on the knob to do volume swells. What is good about that? Well when you pull up on the pot, your picking hand is staying over or closer to the strings. But for a lefty, if it's wired so that you have to push down (clockwise) to do volume swells, your picking hand is moving away from the strings.

This is just semantics if you learned on a lefty guitar that was wired to increase clockwise. You will just adapt to it and that will seem normal to you. I have read plenty of accounts from lefty's that got used to the pot increasing clockwise. They wouldn't have it any other way.
As long as the taper works properly. Nice, smooth increase in volume and tone.

The different manufacturers use of right and left taper potentiometers AND player preferences are all over the board.

Everything above is pertaining to audio/logarithmic pots. But, then there are linear pots. Now, there are no left handed linear pots that I have found, over months of pouring over this issue of right or left pots. A linear pot can be wired left or right and still have the same taper despite increasing clockwise or counter-clockwise.

The reason I was so intent on finding the facts about lefty wiring was for my lefty friend who put a lot of labor into finishing and fitting a Strat from parts. Beautiful, natural finish. He did a great job on it. It's just a beautiful thing hanging on the wall since last December.

But, he bought a right hand DYI wiring kit from Stew Mac. I told him that I don't think the pots are going to work the way he wants. Like on his left hand LTD LP type guitar. That guitar has proper left hand pots wired lefty. And the pots increase counter-clockwise.

He checked the pots for his new build with a multimeter and they did increase to their stated value and changed turning direction when switching lugs from left/middle to right/middle on the MM. So he is convinced that they will work properly despite all the information I dug up and sent to him about how they might work in the real world. So, he said he won't know until he tries.

That saved me a few bucks, because I was ready to pull the trigger on a proper pre-wired left handed wiring harness from a guy on eBay that makes custom wiring harnesses out of quality parts. Using left handed CTS pots, etc... Live and learn, right? I had to screw a lot of things up until I figured out how to do it right. I'm still learning.

Danny...

I have a left handed monkey wrench for sale cheap

 

[Roger66]

I have a left handed monkey wrench for sale cheap

Oh, the taper? Really? You want a left handed taper? On your pot? Wow. I never would have thought that that was really a thing. Sorry for belittling your quest. I understand now. Wow.
As someone who never turns his volume down and doesnt use tone controls, (we exist!) All I can say is 'pick your battles' on a Squier??!!
I submit that you should spend more time writing and practicing and, you know, PLAYING the guitar instead of worrying about a left handed taper on your pots.
Its the NOTES that count. I'M SO outta here!

 

[Roger66]

I have a left handed monkey wrench for sale cheap

I totally give up