Newport Issue with Volume Control

[shankyboy]

I have a Newport that I bought new and have had this problem from the beginning. I think it is something that is inherent with the PhatCat pickups but perhaps I actually have a bad Volume pot. From Zero, you have to turn the knob about a third of the way up before you actually get any volume and then there is little volume change until you turn it all the way up. The tone sounds great when not wide open but the sound gets really "Ice-Picky" when you open it up. As a result, I don't gig with it very often which is a shame because the guitar plays wonderfully. Is this a PhatCat issue or should I be looking at installing a new Volume pot?

[Disturber]

I'll check if my vol.pot acts the same way. But The damn Phat Cats get very "ice-picky" in my guitar too. I changed the mags in the bridge PH. Put an A8 in there, and it enables me to have it further from the strings with the same output, which makes it sound a bit less "ice-picky". I usually, when I play the Newport through my Marshall amps, keep the tone knob on about 2 - to tame the treble spike. My Newport sounds great on home volume through my Fender amps. But when cranked with distortion it gets very trebly, in an unpleasant way.

[Jakeboy]

Huh. That sounds like a bad volume pot to me. I have had several pickup sets in my Newport but when I had the original Phat Cats in there,the volume pot worked just like all my other Hamers. There is a big bump from 9-10…the solo boost feature! But it worked fine from 0-10 like any other. Try a new pot, you can always throw the original back in.

[HamerCustomEr]

I agree that is probably a bad pot.  I just tested my Newport Pro (with the Seth Lovers), and the volume kicks in at 1/10, and then gets progressively louder.  My Artist has Phat Cats, and that also has a smooth onset and volume increase.  Jakeboy is right, in my opinion:  change the pot!  By the way, with my Artist, I notice no ice-pick sounds at all, but then again, I was raised on Stratocasters.

[tomteriffic]

Hamer also designed in a bit of a treble boost into the tone control and the equivalent of everybody else's "full on" is at about at 9 on yer rock 'n' roll dial. That might tame a bit of the ice-pickiness.