Cap values for tone pot

[lazyfinger]

What's the difference in tone between 500k tone pot with .047 cap vs .022 and .033?

How come most single coils with 250k pots come with .022 caps, why not .047? And vice versa for HBs with 300k/500k pots and .047 caps, why not .022?

Thanks.

 

[skynyrd]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

The lower the pot value the darker the tone, hence a single coil uses a 250K to tame the shrillness it can reach, humbuckers need 500K to keep from being to dark and muddy unless they are very bright to begin with. Cap values depend on what kind of tone you want, the smaller the number the less highs it rolls off as you turn the tone knob from 10 to 1. A .047 will roll off the highs much earlier than a .022, alot of guys on humbuckers use a .015 or .01 on their neck pup so they can roll the tone back and it doesn`t turn to mud. It all depends on what sound you the user wants,,factories or guitar companies just stick with the standard rule of thumb when sending out the door.

 

[FuseG4]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

the higher the value of the cap, the more treble is rolled off as the pot is turned down.
with a 500K pot turned all the way down, .047 is the darkest, and .022 is brighter.

a lot of people actually do use .022 caps on 500K pots with buckers. It's not as muddy when the tone is rolled back.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

Lower value caps = less treble rolloff as you turn down...or, rather, a rolloff of higher and higher frequencies, making it so as you go down in value, less and less of the midrange is lost when you turn down the pot.

Imagine a graphic equalizer with 20 bands, low frequencies on the left and high frequencies on the right. For sake of illustration, let's say a 0.047mF cap causes the tone knob to pull down sliders 9-20, leaving 1-8 unchanged. Then a 0.022 cap would change it so that the tone knob only pulls down sliders 13-20, leaving 1-12 unchanged. And a 0.01 cap would only pull down sliders 17-20, leaving 1-16 unchanged. See what I mean? As you go farther down with cap value, the cutoff point for what frequencies the pot will affect is shoved to the right.

That is why I prefer lower values for the most part. They make so your tone knobs pull out only the higher frequencies, while leaving the lower ones unmolested. The tone knob becomes more like a treble reducer than a treble and midrange reducer.

It's a matter of trial/experimentation to find what works for you. I keep going lower with cap values until I get tones at both 0 and 10 that I might actually use from time to time. That places my "normal" tone somewhere in between the two.

250K pots and 0.047mF caps might work OK in some twisted electronics tech's mind, but not in reality IME. IMO it is too much rolloff, even for something like a '50's wind Strat bridge pickup. It makes your tone pots practically unusable for anything but a heavily muffled jazzy tone. I just realized that that dumbass combo came stock in my Aerodyne Tele, and got rid of it. I went to 500K pots, and tried 0.022 caps, but still too much rolloff for me. I can use the tone controls down to about 5 (which is an improvement), but anything lower is too muffled. 0.01's are the next step, and I would have gone straight to them if I had had them lying around instead of the 0.022's. But at any rate, the guitar actually has a usable neck pickup now!

My favorite combo for most humbucker equipped guitars is a 1Meg pot and a 0.01mF cap, and 500K/0.01mF for Fender single coils.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

I had always found that the value of the tone pot affects the taper or "how fast" the tone is rolled off. a 250K pot has a smoother more even transition from bright to rolled-off, and a 1 meg pot is like an on-off switch.

Depends more on the taper specs than on the value, I think. My 1M pots don't do that. I use audio taper for volume and linear taper for tone.

 

[FuseG4]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

yeah I was thinking of something different.

after some reading it seems that the tone pot affects the range of frequencies that are affected by the cap. Is that right? has anyone done a lot of tone pot value experimentation?

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

yeah I was thinking of something different.

after some reading it seems that the tone pot affects the range of frequencies that are affected by the cap. Is that right? has anyone done a lot of tone pot value experimentation?

Thanks to this forum, I've learned a lot about using pots and caps to change tone. I've modified five or six guitars that I was considering aftermarket pickups for. After the mods, I am not considering aftermarket pickups for any of them. So I guess the knowledge here on the forum can be quite a bad thing for SD!

 

[lazyfinger]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

My favorite combo for most humbucker equipped guitars is a 1Meg pot and a 0.01mF cap, and 500K/0.01mF for Fender single coils.

500k pot for singles, and .01 cap for both? Wow! And I thought I liked my tone mud free and overly bright!

I also use 1 meg volume pot on my HBs, but the issue that I have with it when I roll down the volume, it always takes away a lot of the treble, which is especially noticeable on the neck pickup. It's not so pronounced with 500k volume pot.

Anyway, thanks a bunch for the wealth of info. You helped pinpoint what I was hearing but couldn't describe. Because I felt that standard value caps generally rolled off more than just highs, and it was sort of exponential, not gradual. Since anything below 5 on 250k/.022 or 500k/.047 was pretty much unusable for me. I understand now that it was actually rolling off mid mids, high mids, and treble. So what was left were mostly bass and low mids.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

Lower value caps = less treble rolloff as you turn down...or, rather, a rolloff of higher and higher frequencies, making it so as you go down in value, less and less of the midrange is lost when you turn down the pot.

Imagine a graphic equalizer with 20 bands, low frequencies on the left and high frequencies on the right. For sake of illustration, let's say a 0.047mF cap causes the tone knob to pull down sliders 9-20, leaving 1-8 unchanged. Then a 0.022 cap would change it so that the tone knob only pulls down sliders 13-20, leaving 1-12 unchanged. And a 0.01 cap would only pull down sliders 17-20, leaving 1-16 unchanged. See what I mean? As you go farther down with cap value, the cutoff point for what frequencies the pot will affect is shoved to the right.

That is why I prefer lower values for the most part. They make so your tone knobs pull out only the higher frequencies, while leaving the lower ones unmolested. The tone knob becomes more like a treble reducer than a treble and midrange reducer.

It's a matter of trial/experimentation to find what works for you. I keep going lower with cap values until I get tones at both 0 and 10 that I might actually use from time to time. That places my "normal" tone somewhere in between the two.

250K pots and 0.047mF caps might work OK in some twisted electronics tech's mind, but not in reality IME. IMO it is too much rolloff, even for something like a '50's wind Strat bridge pickup. It makes your tone pots practically unusable for anything but a heavily muffled jazzy tone. I just realized that that dumbass combo came stock in my Aerodyne Tele, and got rid of it. I went to 500K pots, and tried 0.022 caps, but still too much rolloff for me. I can use the tone controls down to about 5 (which is an improvement), but anything lower is too muffled. 0.01's are the next step, and I would have gone straight to them if I had had them lying around instead of the 0.022's. But at any rate, the guitar actually has a usable neck pickup now!

My favorite combo for most humbucker equipped guitars is a 1Meg pot and a 0.01mF cap, and 500K/0.01mF for Fender single coils.

That's a great explanation of how caps work. Hit the nail right on the head.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

Thanks to this forum, I've learned a lot about using pots and caps to change tone. I've modified five or six guitars that I was considering aftermarket pickups for. After the mods, I am not considering aftermarket pickups for any of them. So I guess the knowledge here on the forum can be quite a bad thing for SD!

That can definitely be true for some people.

For others of us, ...with greater understanding comes greater curiosity. Greater curiosity spurs us to search. That quest inspires us to experiment. In order to facilitate that experimentation, we buy lots of products (including pickups).

 

[bancika]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

agree with others who suggested smaller caps. I've used 0.01uF for a while and like it better than 0.022uF. I'd even use 0.0047 (that's a tenth of "standard" strat value, don't confuse it with 0.047uF). There's just no need for that amount of roll-off, less roll-off gives more usable range without mud.

 

[lazyfinger]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

Thanks for the schooling guys! I just needed to know what I was doing wasn't sacrilege! :friday:

Because at the moment, I have a 500K no load tone pot with .022 caps on the bridge p90. Although unconventional, I really like it. And for the first time, I am finding myself using the tone control to find the "sweet spot" for the particular application. Before I left everything on 10, and anything below 5 or 6 was too muddy for me for any kind of sweet tone.

What it does for me is that it creates more versatility. I can fatten up my lead/rhythm without muddying the sound. And when I use lower tuning on the guitar, now there's reserve of highs left to make it sound tighter.

 

[MasterKtulu]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

After experimenting with different pot and cap values in my different guitars, I generally prefer 500k pots & .022 caps with Humbuckers and 250k pots & .047 caps with single coils. Although in my Les Paul I have a 500k pot & .015 cap for my neck humbucker. And in my Ibanez Roadstar II with Super 70 pickups, I have 300k pots & .022 cap. So I guess every guitar and pickup combination is different depending what sounds you want from them.

 

[John E Rokker]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

IME Seymour Duncan bridge humbuckers sound best with 500k volume and tone pots with a .047 cap.

 

[PRSfan nym 1985]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

I agree knowing how to use pots/caps is actually beneficial. It shouldn't really hinder SD's business as this just enables you to use the right tools when you change pickups. I like using different valued caps for many of the reasons above. Some of the caps make your tone pot more subtle while others are more drastic. This can be very nice depending on the style of music you are playing and the tones you are trying to achieve.

Lindy Fralin uses a push-pull tone pot on one of his teles with two different valued caps and I think it's a great idea.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

Thanks for the schooling guys! I just needed to know what I was doing wasn't sacrilege! :friday:

Because at the moment, I have a 500K no load tone pot with .022 caps on the bridge p90. Although unconventional, I really like it. And for the first time, I am finding myself using the tone control to find the "sweet spot" for the particular application. Before I left everything on 10, and anything below 5 or 6 was too muddy for me for any kind of sweet tone.

What it does for me is that it creates more versatility. I can fatten up my lead/rhythm without muddying the sound. And when I use lower tuning on the guitar, now there's reserve of highs left to make it sound tighter.

No sacrilege at all. You are free, even encouraged, to do what works best for you.

I also use 500k pots, vol and tone, and .015 - .022 caps with my bridge P-90s.

You're absolutely correct about that combination helping to eliminate mud.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

Lindy Fralin uses a push-pull tone pot on one of his teles with two different valued caps and I think it's a great idea.

That's a great idea. I never would have thought of that. It would be very easy to do.

 

[bmwfreq]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

Lower value caps = less treble rolloff as you turn down...or, rather, a rolloff of higher and higher frequencies, making it so as you go down in value, less and less of the midrange is lost when you turn down the pot.

Imagine a graphic equalizer with 20 bands, low frequencies on the left and high frequencies on the right. For sake of illustration, let's say a 0.047mF cap causes the tone knob to pull down sliders 9-20, leaving 1-8 unchanged. Then a 0.022 cap would change it so that the tone knob only pulls down sliders 13-20, leaving 1-12 unchanged. And a 0.01 cap would only pull down sliders 17-20, leaving 1-16 unchanged. See what I mean? As you go farther down with cap value, the cutoff point for what frequencies the pot will affect is shoved to the right.

That is why I prefer lower values for the most part. They make so your tone knobs pull out only the higher frequencies, while leaving the lower ones unmolested. The tone knob becomes more like a treble reducer than a treble and midrange reducer.

It's a matter of trial/experimentation to find what works for you. I keep going lower with cap values until I get tones at both 0 and 10 that I might actually use from time to time. That places my "normal" tone somewhere in between the two.

250K pots and 0.047mF caps might work OK in some twisted electronics tech's mind, but not in reality IME. IMO it is too much rolloff, even for something like a '50's wind Strat bridge pickup. It makes your tone pots practically unusable for anything but a heavily muffled jazzy tone. I just realized that that dumbass combo came stock in my Aerodyne Tele, and got rid of it. I went to 500K pots, and tried 0.022 caps, but still too much rolloff for me. I can use the tone controls down to about 5 (which is an improvement), but anything lower is too muffled. 0.01's are the next step, and I would have gone straight to them if I had had them lying around instead of the 0.022's. But at any rate, the guitar actually has a usable neck pickup now!

My favorite combo for most humbucker equipped guitars is a 1Meg pot and a 0.01mF cap, and 500K/0.01mF for Fender single coils.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(I know I'm about 9 months late to this thread, but I thought a thank you would still be in order)
Awesome analogy!!!! Now if this could have been the first hit on the internet as I scambled to find the understanding of highpass filters that would have been awesome (it took some searching).

Thanks for taking the time to help those that don't understand to understand.

 

[Varg]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

I just use 0.033 caps for my neck humbuckers, as I like a fat, creamy lead tone, without being muddy. 500K pots and a 59 or DiMarzio PAF seem to work perfectly with that setup.

I don't change whatever comes stock on my bridge pickup controls, since I don't use tone on the bridge.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Cap values for tone pot

Thanks to bmwfreq for resurrecting this thread because it made me notice something that I missed the first time around.

...but the issue that I have with it when I roll down the volume, it always takes away a lot of the treble, which is especially noticeable on the neck pickup.

To help reserve that treble when rolling down the volume pot, it helps to use 50's independent wiring.