Ibanez Roadstar II Load Cap?

P

Praxis

New member
Greetings --

I just picked up a 1983 Roadstar II, brought it home and did what any sane guitarist would do -- I pulled the strings off it and took it apart. :eek5:

Anyway, it's got a load capacitor across the lugs of the output jack. The cap is smeared and smudged pretty badly; I can't read anything on it, even with a magnifier, so I have no idea what the value is. Does anyone know if this might be stock? Did Ibanez send these out that way? I'm not used to seeing load caps on factory guitars, so I'm wondering if someone put that in later. It does have an aftermarket telecaster switch in it, so I know it got fiddled with at some point.

It sounds pretty dull, but I'm not sure if the cap is the culprit, or if it's just the Super 70's. I'm going to try snipping the cap out first and see if I like it better, but I imagine I'll end up gutting it completely anyway. I've got a Zhang Brownbucker that needs a home, so it might end up in this guitar, with something fun in the neck position. It is a sweet player, with a real nice neck. It just sounds bassy and dull.

Here's a pic, so I can prove it happened.

Roadstar.jpg
 
Re: Ibanez Roadstar II Load Cap?

That's a nice guitar and if it has the super 70 ( paf with alnico 8 ) it should sound good .
As regard capacitors and strange resistance that some put on the wiring , I never had any , and even more , I remove the tone pot to have the most direct signal from the pickups : one volume pot plus a coil split , with good CTS pot mogamy cable and witchcraft jacks and selector .
That's all you need really !
 
Re: Ibanez Roadstar II Load Cap?

Excerpt of the old Duncan FAQ (those inline 10 or 15 years ago; this one was the suggestion "E" in the number 822 as I've downloaded it in 2006):

"If the pickup is too bright, the tone control can be used to reduce the treble and also putting a small capacitor from the hot side of the jack to ground. By using the capacitor to ground will reduce overall treble in the instrument. I’ve used a .0022 mfd. capacitor that works well to reduce the treble on some instruments".

Bill lawrence was also recommanding a 2.2n cap for a mellower sound, if memory serves me.

As a matter of fact, varying the capacitive load is a simple and effective way to obtain a rounder tone from a passive pickup by lowering its "resonant frequency". Some people use long/coiled/cheap cables to do that but a cap does the same for a few cents.

So, yes, if you snip it, you should notice a brighter tone. :-)
 
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Re: Ibanez Roadstar II Load Cap?

Tha would be the same as a tone pot turned all the way down, so it must be a very small cap to be even usable and not tone pot on zero muddy. But even a small value cap it's obviously something someone put in it, not a stock cap. Someone probably had a super bright amp or such and was trying to tame it or some such thing. But thats wacky way to do it. Never heard of that but it's a ridiculous thing to do IMO. I'd simply remove it. No matter how small you don't want that there. Guitars have tone controls that will darken them more than you'd ever need so no reason to darken it in a way thats not reversible with the turn of a pot.

Praxis said:
Greetings --

I just picked up a 1983 Roadstar II, brought it home and did what any sane guitarist would do -- I pulled the strings off it and took it apart. :eek5:

Anyway, it's got a load capacitor across the lugs of the output jack. The cap is smeared and smudged pretty badly; I can't read anything on it, even with a magnifier, so I have no idea what the value is. Does anyone know if this might be stock? Did Ibanez send these out that way? I'm not used to seeing load caps on factory guitars, so I'm wondering if someone put that in later. It does have an aftermarket telecaster switch in it, so I know it got fiddled with at some point.

It sounds pretty dull, but I'm not sure if the cap is the culprit, or if it's just the Super 70's. I'm going to try snipping the cap out first and see if I like it better, but I imagine I'll end up gutting it completely anyway. I've got a Zhang Brownbucker that needs a home, so it might end up in this guitar, with something fun in the neck position. It is a sweet player, with a real nice neck. It just sounds bassy and dull.

Here's a pic, so I can prove it happened.

View attachment 84886
Click to expand...
 
Re: Ibanez Roadstar II Load Cap?

This topic is a good occasion to say once again that...
1) a guitar cable reacts like a small value capacitor (with an average value of 147pF per meter, plugs included, according to my measurements of these last decades);
2) a long guitar cable and its mellowing effect can therefore be emulated by a low value capacitor;
3) there's many interesting values when it comes to capacitive tone values. Between 1.5nf and 10 or 15nF, the extra capacitance won't only diminish the highrange but will also enhance the high mids. That's the reason why "gadgets' like the ToneStyler can be really useful when it comes to tone.

FWIW.

BTW, a cap between ground and ground is something else: it's there to prevent electric shocks.
 
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