Dearmond Starfire - tone control question

[Mustwang67]

I have a late 90's Starfire which I believe to be all orginal.

It sounds great, BUT I find the tone/volume control circuit(s) to be a little screwey and wonder if anyone has advice.

Issue one: Neck pickup especially, when the volume is up all the way, the tone control works well. As you roll off volume, the tone control starts to lose effect. Below a volume of say "5" - there is no tone control at all.

Note: there are no pops or cutouts, the dropoff of control is smooth but annoying.

Issue two: In the middle switch position (both on) volume control seems to be driven by whichever pot is higher - I can't blend the two pickups like I can on my Les Paul.

The LP has the same basic setup (2 volume/2 tone + 3 way switch) and exhibits neither of these issues.

The wiring diagram shows the vol pots as B500K, tone pots as D500K.

here is a link to the diagram
http://www.dearmondguitars.com/pdfs/...ng_Diagram.pdf

Any ideas would really be appreciated!!

thanks

[Fred Buzz]

I can only say something about issue #1, when the volume is rolled back, a lot of the high tones are lost, and therefore your tone pot won't be able to do much with the high tones. Many guitars have that problem when the volume pot is rolled down, a treble bleed could be the answer, but don't expect too much of it.

Changing the resistance of the tone pots and/or changing the value of the tone caps could also help, but I don't know anything about Dearmond guitars, so I can't tell you if it would actually work.

[mad dog]

Must: Is it the Special or the Custom? I had the Special. Ditched the stock pots and cap, as I've done on every Dearmond I have. It can be a huge improvement, depending what's in there now. It sounds like you might have a treble bleed on there already ...

The controls should work more like you would expect, certainly in terms of mixing the two pickups.