2 Humbucker 3 way switch problem

[kick]

I have a 2 Humbucker guitar with a 3 way switch. 2 volumes and 1 tone.

One pickup is all the way up, the other all the way down. When the 3 way switch has the turned down pickup selected there is still a small amount of output.

Looking for suggestions on how to fix. 

[Yogi B]

My guess is that you have your volumes wired independently (or 'backwards'): the signal from the pickups connected to the wiper (centre lug) of the volume pots, and the output to the 3-way switch from the clockwise lug.

When this is the case, turning a volume to zero grounds the pickup output but leaves the output at the jack socket floating above ground — meaning you'll get a very thin and weak signal bleeding through to the output wire from anything that is capacitively coupled to it (e.g. the other pickup). I'd also usually expect a fair amount of background noise, rather than complete silence.

The other disadvantage of independent wired volume controls is that, when compared to a single master volume, they give poor performance in terms of taper & treble retention as the volume is lowered.

The usual fix is to use dependent wiring instead, switching the volumes' input & output wires, that is: the signal from the pickups connected to the outer clockwise terminal, and the output to the 3-way switch connected to the centre wiper terminal.

This does come with the caveat that, in the middle position, reducing one volume to zero will cut the output of both pickups. However, you'd only do that if you want just one pickup selected — in which case: that's what the 3-way switch is for.

The other potentially negative change is that the apparent taper of the volume controls will change. I'd likely call this a positive, but if you're used to the taper as it is now, you'd need to either add a couple of tapering resistors or switch to linear volume pots. Here I'm assuming you currently have log pots (as linear pots would be pretty unusable with independent wiring — with maximum attenuation of only around 5dB achieved for 90% of the rotational range, i.e. the volume sharply falling off only in the last 10%).

[kick]

Thanks! You are right that each pickup is connected to the center lug. I will reverse these and see what happens.