Vintage Inspired Pickups VIPot 550k short shaft

The magic of the «old» tone is not just hidden in somewhat magical pickups. The electronic components are just as important — especially the potentiometers used back in the golden age of guitar making.

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In the late 50s, Gibson® (and others) preferably used potentiometer by US maker Centralab®. The audio taper of these vintage pots has become synonymous with the perfect taper. It’s pretty steep on top (great to «switch» from lead to rhythm) and musically to the end. No wonder people pay $150 or more for a single vintage potentiometer.

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Thus, it has been really frustrating (not only) to us that the taper of currently available pots is nowhere near the old taper. So we went door to door and asked pot manufacturer if they would be interested in teaming up with VIP to make a real Centralab® replica pot. And while most of them either laughed at us or never even responded, Clement and the guys at Bourns® were excited to jump in and start a project that would take more than a year and a lot of work to finish. It included us buying and sacrificing several NOS Centralab® pots from the 50s and massive analysis of their taper, torque, etc.

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Finally, they are here! The VIPots are exact functional copies of the old Centralab® pots. With the same audio taper, the same torque and US fine spline split shaft for a direct drop-in replacement. 550kOhm with 15% tolerance, putting them in the range of all the tested NOS pots.

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NEW: We are now offering 280k VIPots spec’d to pots used in Fender® guitars made in the 50s and 60s. They will have a slightly altered taper compared to the 550k VIPots that represents the optimal taper we found after testing multiple pots sourced from vintage Fender® guitars.