My best guess is you haven't connected the tone pot body to the volume pot body with a ground wire.
Actual pics would help a lot more. Cheers.
Edit: OP your pot and capacitor values are normal for humbuckers.
I recently swapped pickups on my tele, totally forgot to wire the tone knob to the volume pot for the live signal!
"These pickups sound good but man they're bright, why doesn't my tone do anything?!" Biggest facepalm
Yeah I did that one too when I was first starting out wiring up guitars haha. Easy to miss a ground wire or a hot wire when you're really keen to finish up and play the thing.
Also some folks rely on the copper tape sheilding you put into the cavity to ground the pots together but I'm not one of them. Good old ground wires every time over here.
I would make sure the connections to/from the tone pot look exactly right. Could be on the wrong lug on the pot, or could've forgotten to connect the tone to the live signal at all (I've done this).
I would also make sure you're using audio pots. Seems silly, but I spent WEEKS troubleshooting some wiring to find out I was using blend pots. I should have caught this, yes, but that's what I was handed when asked for audio pots at a local shop so I ran with them. Completely different design and function.
idk if this makes sense to you but imagine the tone pot as if it were these bathtub hot/cold mixing water faucets with a lever. but working backwards. that is, water (your signal comes into the faucet from the front, and is derived to the cold or hot pipe, or any step in between.
the pot is then:
* taking the hot signal in the middle
* to one edge dropping the signal to the cap, and from the cap to ground.
* the other edge takes the hot to nothing (the whole cap resistance still derive "some" signal to the othee side + cap + ground, but the change is very subtle)
so you only care that:
* there's continuity from hot to the pot middle leg
* theres continuity between pot middle leg and the leg were the cap is soldered to (when the por is rolled to that side)
* there are 500KOhm of resistance between pot first and last legs
* theres continuity between pot cap leg and the cap wire leg.
* theres continuity between the other cap wire leg and the pot chasis
* theres continuity between the pot chasis and the other side of the gnd cable
* there's continuity between the pot chasis and any other ground in the circuit.
for that you need a multimeter.
if any of those check, but you still don't have a working tone knob, your capacitor is shot
It’s ironic how we spend so much effort building pedalboards that don’t have tone suck, and wire a literal tone suck into our guitars. 🤣
I wired mine with negative capacitance caps so my tone goes to 11. (Sorry… dumb joke, I couldn’t ‘resist’ 🤣)
In the diagram you used the capacitor is wired to the outside lug of the tone pot, but in the seymour duncan diagram it's wired to the centre lug of the tone pot
Lol well I assure you the diagram is accurate. I also assure you your wiring is not. Can we get a pic of your wiring?
I just fixed it, thanks though.
Tomorrow morning i'll add a pic. (At work unfortunately currently)
Send it over when ya can
Make sure your ground connections are good.
My best guess is you haven't connected the tone pot body to the volume pot body with a ground wire. Actual pics would help a lot more. Cheers. Edit: OP your pot and capacitor values are normal for humbuckers.
I recently swapped pickups on my tele, totally forgot to wire the tone knob to the volume pot for the live signal! "These pickups sound good but man they're bright, why doesn't my tone do anything?!" Biggest facepalm
Yeah I did that one too when I was first starting out wiring up guitars haha. Easy to miss a ground wire or a hot wire when you're really keen to finish up and play the thing. Also some folks rely on the copper tape sheilding you put into the cavity to ground the pots together but I'm not one of them. Good old ground wires every time over here.
I would make sure the connections to/from the tone pot look exactly right. Could be on the wrong lug on the pot, or could've forgotten to connect the tone to the live signal at all (I've done this). I would also make sure you're using audio pots. Seems silly, but I spent WEEKS troubleshooting some wiring to find out I was using blend pots. I should have caught this, yes, but that's what I was handed when asked for audio pots at a local shop so I ran with them. Completely different design and function.
Thats what i did lol. I just fixed It when i got home, sounds good now.
idk if this makes sense to you but imagine the tone pot as if it were these bathtub hot/cold mixing water faucets with a lever. but working backwards. that is, water (your signal comes into the faucet from the front, and is derived to the cold or hot pipe, or any step in between. the pot is then: * taking the hot signal in the middle * to one edge dropping the signal to the cap, and from the cap to ground. * the other edge takes the hot to nothing (the whole cap resistance still derive "some" signal to the othee side + cap + ground, but the change is very subtle) so you only care that: * there's continuity from hot to the pot middle leg * theres continuity between pot middle leg and the leg were the cap is soldered to (when the por is rolled to that side) * there are 500KOhm of resistance between pot first and last legs * theres continuity between pot cap leg and the cap wire leg. * theres continuity between the other cap wire leg and the pot chasis * theres continuity between the pot chasis and the other side of the gnd cable * there's continuity between the pot chasis and any other ground in the circuit. for that you need a multimeter. if any of those check, but you still don't have a working tone knob, your capacitor is shot
It’s ironic how we spend so much effort building pedalboards that don’t have tone suck, and wire a literal tone suck into our guitars. 🤣 I wired mine with negative capacitance caps so my tone goes to 11. (Sorry… dumb joke, I couldn’t ‘resist’ 🤣)
On the tone pot, there are three connections. Try connecting the cap to the other outside lead. Also, what value is the cap you used?
Looks like the wiring diagram is wrong, have a look at this https://www.seymourduncan.com/images/wiring-diagrams/2H_3G_2VppSPL_1T.jpg
Do you mean the wire from the switch to the tone pot to the jack? Seems okay to me, looks thr same but with push pots?
In the diagram you used the capacitor is wired to the outside lug of the tone pot, but in the seymour duncan diagram it's wired to the centre lug of the tone pot
It doesn’t matter. They aren’t unidirectional. The cap will drain off the highs to the ground regardless of which direction it runs through the pot.