• Volume controls

Many people often don't realize that the volume control on a guitar also sets the tone of the guitar. The potentiometer is a load on the pickups, and the more they're loaded, the less treble they have.

Typically you see 250K pots for single coil pickups and 500K pots for humbuckers, but this isn't set in stone. The higher the value for the pot, the more treble your pickups will have. My '76 Telecaster came with a 1Meg pot and a treble bypass cap, and I found it way too bright. Some Les Paul aficionados feel that a pot about 300K is optimal. This isn't a standard value, but probably came about by drift over time and bad tolerances. Now you can find them custom made.

The other thing about the volume control is the taper, linear or audio. This is how the pot responds as you twist the knob. With a linear taper, each number on the dial is the same increment of resistance. Unfortunately our ears don't work that way, so the audio taper is better suited. With audio taper, each number on the knob sounds like they are the same increment, but the resistance varies, slowly with the low numbers and then faster with the upper numbers.