ES-339 volume and tone pots question

[tuscland]

Hi !

 

I just got a wonderful ES-339, and I am new to Gibson guitars.

I thought I knew how the volume and tone pots worked, but I am having an issue with this guitar, and I would like is this is normal or not.

 

When the pickup selector is on the extreme positions (bridge or neck pickup), each volume and tone pots are working as expected. However, I have always found the usable range was a bit narrow. For example, the volume drops almost completely when the volume pots is at 6.

 

When the pickup selector is at the center position (both pickups), turning down completely either volume pot will turn off the output of the guitar. Same thing with the tone pots, turning down completely of one them with have an action on the other pickup as well. It is a bit hard to explain, sorry if this is confusing.

 

I was expecting that the pots respective to each pickup would have an action on them exclusively. Do you think there is a problem with the wiring on my guitar.

 

Since I have a good experience at servicing Fender type guitars, I have no fear to use my soldering iron, but I would need some pointers on how to perform a modification on this guitar, since the electronics are not easily accessible.

 

Thanks you in advance for any input that would help me figure out what is happening or learn a bit more on how to use these controls.

 

 

Best Regards,

Camille

[bobv]

It's normal on Gibsons for the entire guitar to go silent if only one volume control is dropped to zero with the pickup selector in the middle. It's useful for turning the guitar off between sets. It's possible to make the two volume controls independent (you run the pickup to the center lug and the output to the outer lug on the volume pot, essentially reversing the normal setup) but nobody bothers to do that.

 

Incidentally the taper on the ES339 is rather abrupt, with a big volume change from 10 to 8, but the rest of the knob has a useful range also.