Re: Capacitors, Resistors for better tone???
I've heard I can tweak my tone by attaching either resistors or capacitors to the vol pot. Anyone know about this? Any info greatly appreciated. -- Guitar in question is alder body, maple neck, JB and 59, 1 vol no tone pot, 3way switch. The guitar is too bright for me. Before I try a 250k pot or new SD pick-up, I'd like to exhaust other options. Thanks guys, Brian.
IME, two easy and good ways to tame the brightness of a passive PU are resistive and capacitive networks added to the wiring. Let’s recall how we do that and what they do.
1)Lowering the resistance of a control as said above : it can be done simply with a lower value pot or with a resistor linking the hot point & ground of a PU/ of the output jack.
When I wire a Strat, most of the time, I use 500k pots and I add 500k resistors to the neck & mid PU’s, in order to lower the resistance of their controls. It sounds the same than a Strat with 250k pots but allows to use the tone control with the bridge PU. NOTE: it changes the taper of the volume pot but it's not an issue for me.
What happens sonically when you reduce the resistance of a pot?
You lower (flatten) the height of the resonant peak produced in the high range by any passive pickup. See below fig. 14:
http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/
2)Increasing the capacitance of your wiring.
What happens in this case?
You shift down the place of the resonant frequency in the audio spectrum. Not the same than flattening it with a lower resistance. Sounds different.
See fig.15 in the link above (by Helmuth Lemme).
How do we increase this capacitance?
A-With more cable between guitar and amp, simply.
A pickup too bright through 3m of cable will sound beefier and mellower through 6m or 9m of cable. 15 or 30m will give a really darker sound.
Back in the days, people often used long and/or high capacitance cables.
Nowadays, the hype favors low cap cables because they give more sparkle.
That’s why some vintage style pickups are described as “too bright”.
B_If you don’t want to use longer cables with higher capacitance, you can emulate them with onboard capacitors soldered between hot point and ground. Styroflex caps work well. 150pf = 1m of virtual cable. 1000 pf (1n, 0.001µ) = 6m of cable = the value where PU’s typically start to sound mellower, with an emphasis on the mids.
NOTE: the capacitive effect is more "amp dependant" than the resistive tweaking. Line6 modelers, for example, are largely "deaf" to capacitance...
I periodically share these infos here : sorry for those who have already read them . I just try to help those who haven’t read it yet.
If ever my statements need some background, BTW, here are some excerpts of the OLD Duncan FAQ (those available online ten years ago):
228.
Capacitors can be used to reduce brightness in a pickup by soldering one side to ground and the other to the hot output.
234.
7. Cables:
A. guitar cords and length.
The length and conductor used in making guitar cords can determine brightness of your instrument.
291. How do I get more bass out of my pickup?
First I would turn the treble control counter clock-wise to knock off the high end of a pickup. You can also solder one side of a capacitor to the hot terminal of a pickup and solder the other side to ground. I would start with low values until you find the desire roll-off.
