To control couple or not to control couple volume pots?

[Kazwell]

While doing some prework on my RS Replacement Kit project for this weekend, I stumbled across this page:

 

http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/stockgibson.php  or read below    Anyone have an opinion on this? Anyone actually prefer the uncoupled to the coupled?

 

Here's what the author states:

 

Please notice the comments in the upper-right corner of the schematic.  A lot of people don't wire the volume controls properly on these guitars.  If you wire them the way a Fender guitar is wired then the controls are "coupled" and either volume control will completely kill the output of both pickups when it is turned down all the way.  Actually, Gibson has been wiring guitars this way for at least a couple of decades now, but that is unfortunate.  I much prefer the earlier wiring that didn't couple the controls.  I think you will too, and that is why I present the earlier scheme here.  Another common mistake people make is to wire two or more volume controls as shown here but then try to use a single master tone control with them.  For reasons that are way to technical to get into here, that is not a good idea because usually the volume controls will drastically alter the affect of the tone control.  You can somewhat offset that by leaving the ground end of the volume pots floating (disconnected) but then you cannot turn the pickups completely off when feeding a high input-impedance amplifier or effect.  So, the best solution is to use an individual tone control for each volume control.  Finally, note that decoupling the tone controls, and reducing loading on the pickup when both are selected (which puts the two volume pots in parallel) is probably the real reason Gibson used 500K pots (which then started the "use 500K pots with humbuckers" rule of thumb).

 

Here is the diagram-note comments.

 

[High Flying Bird]

I will take the camera to by bud's place tomorrow night and get a shot of the inside of his H-150.  I have been wanting to get some new pictures of the guitars.  I have seen film caps in one of the 535s. 

We will be able to geek out on the schematic for a while to boot.

[jacques]

Neil, I'd go for the separate volume control this John Atchley suggests. I never really understood why turning down the volume of one pickup (when the toggle switch is in middle position) would have to turn down the overall volume of the TWO pickups. I'd say you would get more control with seperate controlling.