Volume pot reverse wiring

mart

I was tweaking the wiring on my jazzmaster today, and noticed something strange:  on the rhythm circuit the volume pot was wired "backwards", i.e. the hot wire from the pickup was going to the middle tag on the pot, and the output was taken from the outer tag.

I've seen this on two pickup guitars with two volume controls, as a way of making the controls work independently. But why would you do it for just a single pickup? What difference does it make?

ICBM

It reduces the impedance load on the pickup as you turn down the volume, which makes the tone softer.

It also has a major disadvantage, which is that it leaves the output almost 'wide open' - rather than grounding it - when the volume is right down, so you get noise instead of silence.

mart

Ok, thanks, that makes sense. What with the weird wiring of the tone pot, it's looking like they were determined to make the rhythm circuit as soft/dark as possible. 

I am proud to say I undid all their dirty work.