No Load Volume Pot; volume pedal

[Guitarist]

I meant to do this to a 100K volume pedal that I took apart just now, and then got to thinking, "Hmmm, this wont work." So I called Fender, who sells such pots, and they have no record of such a resistance-breaking pot being used in a volume application.

Wired with two lugs; Hot and Ground.
Hot will open at max setting and look like a wire connecting In and Out.

This will work, no? But how well, and what of the taper? I suspect most of the change would happen close to ground. So perhaps wire an audio pot in reverse? I have heard the terms voltage divider and variable resistor.
The best dialogue I found on this was here: No load volume? - Telecaster Guitar Forum

If this wont work I must add a buffer, such as the always buffered Boss pedal (a J201 made a huge tone difference for Q1) , before that passive volume pedal. I just wanted to keep my first pedal line all true bypass; got A/D convertors ahead! Maybe I just should've called Pete Cornish I do like my tube buffers.

[Mark Hammer]

I think the reason why they have no record of it is because it never existed.

The thing is that for a volume pot to be effectively removed from the circuit such that there is essentially a "straight wire" connection between input and output, much more is involved than would be required for a no load tone control.

Keep in mind that a tone pot is generally tied to the input lug of the volume pot. So, if you bring the tone control up to max brightness and it is disconnected from the volume pot at that point, the signal still goes through to the volume and out to the jack. In a standard passive volume pot, would the signal still be connected to anything if the wiper stopped being in contact with the resistive strip at one extreme of rotation? No.

Your motives for wanting to remove the loading effect of a 100k volume pot are sensible and appropriate, but I think you are taking the wrong route by focussing on the pot.

Volume pedals with pots that low are principally for keyboards (which will feed them from a lower-impedance source than a guitar will) and pedal-steel guitars where the loss of top end will not be missed quite as much. What you want is either a buffer at the input, as you have suggested, or simply swap out the 100k for 500k or 1M.