Thank you all for answering! I shouldn't have posted this before going out of town, now I'll have to wait to try changing it.
I'll try to find a logarithmic pot. And play with higher Ohm resistors.
Tom, I do remember getting zero volume with the pots I tried. If I visualise the pot sweep action as a timeline it went something like this:
000000000138!!000000
Where ! = Really loud and 0 = no sound
I'll report back soon.