I've read about 50s wiring, but never tried it. Isn't the trade-off that the tone knob lowers volume, instead of the volume knob rolling off tone?
tone knob becomes more interactive with the volume control. For example, when your volume is set to 10, the tone behaves as usual.
Now let’s say you lower the volume to 5. Your tone knob won’t do much between 10 and 5, and it only starts cutting treble normally once you go below 5. In other words, the tone control has to be set lower than the volume to really start reducing highs. If you’re not someone who frequently uses the tone knob, this isn’t a big deal—you’ll barely notice it.
For me, ’50s wiring makes more sense if you like to tweak the volume knob and understand what’s happening. Let me explain. Strat players using a lot of gain often prefer their tone slightly rolled off to tame the sharp treble spike common to single-coil pickups. So let’s say you like your gain sound with the volume on 10 and the tone on 6. Now you want to clean up your sound. With clean tones, people usually prefer more brightness (unless you’re playing jazz). What happens if you roll the volume from 10 down to 6 while leaving the tone at 6? The treble comes back as you lower the volume. So instead of adjusting both volume and tone to clean up, you only need to ride the volume knob, and the tone follows along. In other words, the tone range scales up and down with the volume control.
To be precise, when I said the tone doesn’t do much between 10 and 6 with the volume set at 6, I was simplifying. It doesn’t do “nothing.” Between 10 and 6, it acts more like a very subtle mid scoop. This depends a lot on the pickups and the amp you’re using.
For example, let’s say your clean sound is volume at 6 and tone at 10. When you roll the tone down to 9, 8, or 7, it removes a bit of low mids and mud, so the sound can actually feel slightly more sparkly and glassy than with the tone on 10. Once both controls meet at 6, and you go below that—5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0—the tone control behaves in the usual way and progressively cuts treble.
Essentially, if you understand how it works, you can create a wider range of sounds just by adjusting the volume knob and letting the tone control follow naturally.
try it its a lot more simpler than I described, its literately just rewire cap to middle instead of outer lug on volume pot.
Especially as I am getting ready to go down the pick up rabbit hole.
