Dependent and Independent Volume Controls Explained 

As a follow up to my comment, I wired my Les Paul equipped with humbucker sized P90s in vintage 1950s style and also with independent volume controls, now it works & sounds perfect !! As the neck pickup is reverse wound/reverse polarity, the middle position is hum cancelling. This means that for this guitar I only need to keep it set to the middle position and I can blend the pickups, and if I want to use the bridge pickup then I can just blend it with a barely noticeable hair of neck pickup or vice versa if I want to use the neck pickup, and I've got a noise free P90 sound thanks to this wiring. I think I might wire all 3 of my Les Pauls this way and just keep it in the middle position all the time. Blending pickups is perfect and I get way more tones from this guitar than I ever got from it before I wired it this way. The middle position rules !! Thanks Dan. 👍

I agree. Checked now with LTSpice.

Couldn't a treble bleed setup help that?

The rapid loss of tone is annoying with independent wiring. Has anyone else experienced humming with volume controls on zero with independent wiring?

+Andrew Devonport Hopefully you've paid your medical insurance premiums. :)

Thanks... I appreciate it.

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@Elliott Mack Instablaster ;)

@Martin Shane Thanks so much for your reply. I got to the site thru google and im waiting for the hacking stuff now. Takes a while so I will get back to you later when my account password hopefully is recovered.

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@Elliott Mack Happy to help =)

Lleva el cable de la pastilla central al nuevo pote de volumen y de ahí, al selector de pastillas.

that way works also. Pretty much everyone but gibson does it that way.

Me too it's so much easier if you're mostly on the bridge puckup

Electronically it's the same.

Email directly at: brejatoneworks@gmail.com

+X Crow There are a lot of 'why' answers available on the internet but to me, the best way to learn is to do each scheme yourself and listen to how the controls interact with each other. You'll find that suddenly everything makes sense. Also - it doesn't matter electronically where a cap is connected on a tone pot. It only matters where the connection is made from the volume pot to the tone pot.

+Breja ToneWorks Thanks, great videos by the way

you can blend pickups with either Dependent or Independent wiring.

You can, but with dependant wiring as soon as you turn 1 volume knob near to zero both pickups go silent, but with this independent wiring you can blend more freely without the volume cutting out. It's especially handy if you're using P90s/humbucker sized P90s where 1 pickup is wound RW/RP and are hum cancelling in the middle position, like I do. For me it means that all I have to do is keep it in the middle position and use the volume knobs to select 1 pickup along with the tiniest amount of the other pickup and I get hum free P90s when it wouldn't be hum cancelling if I select the bridge or neck pickups on their own.

Try this Add ground cable from vol to ground output jack

All pots are grounded as per schematics.

@@pjm329 other solution change the problem pots it mybe have damage when soldering or the sweeper and lug not contact all to carbon

I have checked and it does. But without a tone knob I have to add some tone compensators aka capasitors to keep the treble close to original signal with tone pot when you roll of a volume.

Good Question... Technically the lug on the Tone pot that the Capacitor is connected to does not matter. I move them around only to make it easier when I troubleshoot to see how it's wired. In reality though it will not matter. What does matter is what lug it's connected to on the Volume pot. There are 3 reasons I used a Jumper in this video: 1: Most modern guitars are mass produced and the capacitor is already wired on the Pot for the assembler so it's more than likely the wiring that people will see when they open their guitar so I wanted to make it familiar to them. 2: A lot of first time guys who are modding guitars tend to not use a heat sink when soldering capacitors - meaning the apply too much heat and burn out the cap. You should use a small pair of alligator clips or something to help dissipate the heat. I'd hate for someone to spend money on high quality caps just to fry them. That's why I showed a jumper. 3: Dovetails on #2. The more you solder and unsolder/bend and rebend a cap the more likely it is to have a broken lead. Wire the cap once and use the jumper wire when modding. Don

Breja ToneWorks thank you sir. You've changed my whole outlook on life and society.

mrpres17 If at first you don't succeed then maybe skydiving isn't for you. Word Up!

so... what ya wanna do is: 1) wire each pickup to their own pot 2) then wire each of those vol pot outputs to the switch. 3) then wire the tone control so it's connected to the output of the switch ... or you could even wire the tone pot to the output jack (the output jack may be closer to the tone pot so it'll be a shorter cable run or just plain easier to wire ). This way you achieve each exactly what you want.

+Patrick Switches are cheap and easily replaceable. You really have to go nuts to hurt them. I would recommend that you replace the Epiphone box switch with a Switchcraft one though - they're better built.

Breja ToneWorks thanks. Nice, now i'm not afraid to do it on more expensive guitars. mehh i'll replace my epiphone switch when it breaks

My volume and tone knobs on my epiphone also suck pretty bad. my tone knobs do almos do nothing to the tone and then from 2 to one it suddenly kicks in and sounds like the tone knob is off. I heared that 50's wiring gives the tone knobs more controll. Do i have any chance it hepls mine? Do you happen to know if epiphone sg pups are splittable and do you know cheap/ semi cheap push pull pots that work ok? Thanks a lot man! Your videos help me out a lot Have a good day :)

+Patrick I use the vintage wiring myself in every HB guitar I own - it will help for sure with your tone control. However - with that said... It's really hit or miss with the quality of the pots that Epiphone uses. I have had some Epis with pots that come in at 450k or lower which will just suck the tone out of your pickups. I also had some where the pots were 500k and above and they sound great and I didn't replace them. The only way to tell is to test them. If you haven't watched my video on testing pots for resistance and choosing quality pots, I'd highly recommend it. Most Epis have splitable pickups. From what you're describing - it sounds like you could use some new/better pots.

Breja ToneWorks great, thanks

Just watched it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tLlYy216By8.html

thanks for the reply

+Andluth A combination of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and then Sony Movie maker.

Thanks!

Tone pots don't have an output per say... they go directly to ground. You are either coming off of lug 1 or lug 2 from the volume pot into either lug 2 or 3 on the tone pot and out directly to ground. if the volume goes to lug 2 then lug 3 goes to ground which is modern wiring and if the volume goes to lug 3 then lug 2 goes to ground which is vintage wiring.

You know, tradition, "vintage style", marketing...

I can’t wait to see you guys working together on your new webcast discussing guitar electronics and other topics of electronic artistry in music. You both have a lot to offer! Rock & Roll!