Tone pots for SD LiveWire Metal

A

antonismavrou

New member
I recently installed a LiveWire LWML1S set on my Washburn X-series. The set is a Metal LiveWire Humbucker for the bridge position and two Hot Strat LiveWires for the middle and neck position, and 5-position toggle switch. There's one volume pot and two tone pots. The first tone pot works with the first 4 toggle positions (b, b-m, m, m-n) while the other seems doing nothing. The opposite happens when the neck pup is selected, the second tone pot works while the first seems doing nothing. Is this how the tone pots are suppose to work in this config? Should the two tone pots work together or individually and how? Please help me out.
 
Re: Tone pots for SD LiveWire Metal

are you sure you did all of the wiring right, it sounds like maybe you forgot to do something
 
Re: Tone pots for SD LiveWire Metal

I didn't carry out the installation myself. I had a tech do this for me, but I'm not 100% sure if he did everything correctly. I just want some guide here, before I take it back to him for checking it again.
 
Re: Tone pots for SD LiveWire Metal

Actually, that could be completely normal, although, I'm surprised that the 2nd tone control doesn't overlap the first in at least one position. There's a couple of things that might be happening here.

If this guitar uses only one cap, but two pots, its possible that in the "overlap" position, you wouldn't hear much difference on one pot. It sounds like the shared position should be neck/middle. Put the 5-way in that position, then turn the pot that you know works to "10". Move the other back and forth. Then turn the one that works to "zero", and turn the other back and forth. There should be some difference, even if subtle.

If the Washburn uses a superswitch-style for the 5-way, it would be possible to have completely independent tones for one position and the other for the other four.

Edit: Just thinkng about this some more - if there's only one cap, and the pots are wired in parallel, then having one on zero will cause the other not to work. You'ld need to put one of them on "10" in order to test the other. Maybe.
 
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Re: Tone pots for SD LiveWire Metal

Are the 2 tone pots bridge and neck tone respectively? Because, if that's the case then each knob should work on its own 2-toggle positions (b, b-m for the bridge tone - n, m-n for the neck tone) and they should overlap in the middle pup, right?
 
Re: Tone pots for SD LiveWire Metal

Not necessarily. A 5-way switch only has three active lugs. They're connected as 1, 1-2, 2, 2-3, 3. If one tone is connected to 1 and one is connected to 3, you won't have any at 2. Same thing if you have one at 1 and 2, you won't have any at 3 by itself.

This is why I like one single master tone on Strats. That other hole can be used for all kinds of cool stuff. ;)
 
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