Pots

I received a great looking custom Legacy last night in an ever-so-sexy shell pink. I'll post pics of it soon...promise!

In checking everything out, all looked perfect: great neck, excellent paint finish, no sharp frets, etc. Until I came to the pots. What a disappointment

I was pretty bummed when I turned the tone pots and experienced the same thing I would with cheap, overseas made lefty guitars. For 90% of the sweep range of the pot, there is absolutely no change in tone whatsoever. Then when I get down to about 1 or 2 on the knob, it then switches off and goes completely dull. That was for tone pot #1. Tone pot #2 did absolutely nothing no matter which pickup combo was on.

We lefties have come to expect crappy pots in our Tributes and overseas guitars. I have an S-500 Tribute I love except for the pots. The specs on it claim there is a treble bleed circuit installed. Doesn't do much good to install a treble bleed circuit if the tone pots don't work. Same is true for the Tribute ASAT Classic and Bluesboy I have previously owned in addition to several MIM Fenders and other manufacturers.

While I and many others have grown to accept the pot issue with cheaper guitars, I simply cannot and will not accept this happening in custom, US built guitars. I recently traded in an American Professional Fender Strat for this Legacy and the tone pots on the Strat worked flawlessly.

The dealer I did business with checked their inventory of custom G&L builds and, sure enough, others in their inventory have the same problem. This topic has been discussed several times on various lefty forums and sites, most recently is this conversation on the sub-reddit I moderate: https://old.reddit.com/r/Leftyguitarist ... _and_tone/

Craig, I would ask you please reach out to the good folks at G&L and inquire about this. My dealer is willing to send me new pots and pay to have them swapped out, which was very nice of them. However, spending $1300+ for a custom built guitar only to find out the pots don't work properly will leave a pretty bad taste in lefties' mouths.

Thanks for your time.

The pots in the guitar have an audio taper, which is logarithmic. That type of pot is biased so that most of the roll off occurs towards the end of travel. I have purchased many high quality CTS pots to retrofit my Asian made guitars and they work like you state. If you want a gradual roll off you need to use a linear taper potentiometer, but these are not generally used in guitar electronics. Furthermore, your Legacy uses a PTB tone control system, where one of the controls cuts the high frequencies (treble) and the other cuts the low frequencies (bass). These filters are applied to whatever pickup combination you select. If you are used to a Fender Stratocaster, the tone controls on your Legacy work very differently. Sounds to me like your guitar is performing as designed. I would play it for a while to get used to it before you decide to change anything.

Nubs, something isn't right there, all my G&L's, old and new, have decent function of the pots, gradual roll off. You should seek a solution to that. Have dealer check wiring 1st. If not faulty, have them switch out the pots for you. You spend that kind of money, you deserve great!

The pots in the guitar have an audio taper, which is logarithmic. That type of pot is biased so that most of the roll off occurs towards the end of travel. I have purchased many high quality CTS pots to retrofit my Asian made guitars and they work like you state. If you want a gradual roll off you need to use a linear taper potentiometer, but these are not generally used in guitar electronics. Furthermore, your Legacy uses a PTB tone control system, where one of the controls cuts the high frequencies (treble) and the other cuts the low frequencies (bass). These filters are applied to whatever pickup combination you select. If you are used to a Fender Stratocaster, the tone controls on your Legacy work very differently. Sounds to me like your guitar is performing as designed. I would play it for a while to get used to it before you decide to change anything.

Hey thank you for the explanation. After I read it, I went back and tried the Legacy again. The pots do work as you describe, so apparently this is by design. It wasn't what I was expecting, so I may have jumped the gun a bit. My apologies.

Even though this is most likely by design, I'm still going to swap them out. I am wanting the tone knobs to gradually reduce the tone when turned. Thanks again!

You're welcome. Just remember to get the same values as the parts in the guitar otherwise you will change the tone. I checked guitarelectronics.com and they have CTS linear taper pots in 250K and 500K values. Good luck.

Pots for lefty guitars are reverse taper. They are a special order pot from CTS. Regular taper pots if wired for lefty function have almost no range like you describe. My lefty 2000 S-500 pots have a wide range of effect so it sounds like you may not have the right pots in your lefty.