Telecaster Guitar Forum - View Single Post - Tone control works more like volume control

hoops · July 5th, 2009, 07:24 AM

Well I did what I should have done in the first place and ran a multimeter across it, but it all looks OK.

No, it doesn't go to zero volume when the tone is turned all the way down, which I guess would indicate that something is shorted to ground. And the tone pot is NOT grounded, I don't think it should be because that would put it in parallel with the volume pot. The tone cap goes from the middle lug of the tone pot to ground.

I thought maybe there was something screwy about the wiring of the switch, which was a 5-way, so I replaced it with a new 3-way. What I notice now is that for the neck humbucker the tone control is actually working even though it lowers the volume significantly. But for the single-coil neck pickup the tone control actually makes it thinner (and softer) when you turn it down. As I said, turning down the volume control actually rolls off the tops because I removed the bleed cap.

I'll do some more research on having a humbucker and single-coil together, I'm sure you can't just wire them as if they were the same. I realise that having a 1 meg pot will make the single-coil very bright, but so long as I can counter that with a working tone control I don't really mind (and I've been living with it for years anyway).

July 5th, 2009, 07:24 AM	#5 (permalink)
hoops NEW MEMBER! Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Australia Posts: 5	Well I did what I should have done in the first place and ran a multimeter across it, but it all looks OK. No, it doesn't go to zero volume when the tone is turned all the way down, which I guess would indicate that something is shorted to ground. And the tone pot is NOT grounded, I don't think it should be because that would put it in parallel with the volume pot. The tone cap goes from the middle lug of the tone pot to ground. I thought maybe there was something screwy about the wiring of the switch, which was a 5-way, so I replaced it with a new 3-way. What I notice now is that for the neck humbucker the tone control is actually working even though it lowers the volume significantly. But for the single-coil neck pickup the tone control actually makes it thinner (and softer) when you turn it down. As I said, turning down the volume control actually rolls off the tops because I removed the bleed cap. I'll do some more research on having a humbucker and single-coil together, I'm sure you can't just wire them as if they were the same. I realise that having a 1 meg pot will make the single-coil very bright, but so long as I can counter that with a working tone control I don't really mind (and I've been living with it for years anyway).