Tone caps question

frobro808

frobro808

New member
Hello all,
It's been a while since my last post. Since I've been gone, which I'm sure nobody noticed, I finally rewired my guitar with the p-rails, triple shots and series series-parallel switch and phase switch on vol and tone knobs respectively. I flipped both pups with the ts switches on the bottom. I must say that made a world of a difference in tone and looks cooler too IMO.
After all the tweaking I got curious about all the different tone caps I've come across on the net. My question is what do all the values mean? Does it affect the tone? And if so is there a 'best' one?
 
Re: Tone caps question

No, there of course is no such thing as a "best" tone, only different. Higher value tone caps will dip further down in to the frequency range in what they cut from the signal when turned down. The effect of lower value tone caps will be limited to higher frequencies, leaving a bit more of the mid range in the signal. It gets a bit more complicated than that, with resonant peaks and such, but that's a basic summary.

And the value of the cap will have no effect when the tone knob is on 10. Unless you get in to the extremely low values (generally too low to be considered useful for tone controls, below the region of .01㎌) they value of the cap does not come in to play until you turn your tone knob down to at least the 3-5 range, below which point a difference in tone cap value can make a real difference. If you never turn your tone knob down past half way, it really doesn't make any difference what you put in there.

And all the fancy boutique tone caps will only sound different than a cheap ceramic or mylar of the same tested value if you believe they will. In blind tests, I've never met a person who can reliably identify a difference.
 
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Re: Tone caps question

frobro808 said:
Hello all,
It's been a while since my last post. Since I've been gone, which I'm sure nobody noticed, I finally rewired my guitar with the p-rails, triple shots and series series-parallel switch and phase switch on vol and tone knobs respectively. I flipped both pups with the ts switches on the bottom. I must say that made a world of a difference in tone and looks cooler too IMO.
After all the tweaking I got curious about all the different tone caps I've come across on the net. My question is what do all the values mean? Does it affect the tone? And if so is there a 'best' one?
Click to expand...

All the values? I only ever see the capacitance published for capacitors.

There are somewhat audible differences between different kind of capacitors (at same actual capacitance) but they are small and not generally what you expect. More expensive == better doesn't have to be true.
 
Re: Tone caps question

frobro808 said:
My question is what do all the values mean? Does it affect the tone? And if so is there a 'best' one?
Click to expand...
Capacitors typically have 2 values printed on them; capacitance and voltage.
Voltage is meaningless for this application and only applies in that the higher the voltage the larger the capacitor.
There are three capacitor types used in most guitars; ceramic disk, polyester film/mylar film, and paper-in-oil.
They are made to differing tolerances, ie., just how closely their capacitance is to what it is supposed to be. Typically, anywhere from 5-20% with the tighter spec possibly being more expensive.

Typically, capacitance values can be anything from .015 to .047mf.
The exact values can be anything that sounds good to you.

The variations are usually subtly different and can be guitar/pup specific.

Premier Guitar has a couple of articles on it here, and here.

MM
 
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Re: Tone caps question

Thanks guys. I was just wondering since I just recycled my stock tone cap. I figured it'd do the job
 
Re: Tone caps question

To reflect on what's been said already... Grab different values of different type caps and swap them out once a day... play one for awhile and then change it... Even if you come back to the first cap, you'll have that reference of tone in your head for future use... Some impacts on tone can't be described very well.... Ya just have to discover them for yourself... Besides it's rather fun exploring all the options...

Personally i settled on Orange drops... .022uF in for single coils and .047uF for HB's... Turns out that's kind of the industry standard... Go figure!
 
Re: Tone caps question

So, for all you Fender Strat guys without rear control cavities . . . how do you choose which capacitor to use? Just keep swapping them out every time you change strings and remove the pickguard until you find one you like?
 
Re: Tone caps question

GuitarStv said:
So, for all you Fender Strat guys without rear control cavities . . . how do you choose which capacitor to use? Just keep swapping them out every time you change strings and remove the pickguard until you find one you like?
Click to expand...

External test harness. There's no reason why any of the pots/caps have to be inside the guitar.
 
Re: Tone caps question

GuitarStv said:
So, for all you Fender Strat guys without rear control cavities . . . how do you choose which capacitor to use? Just keep swapping them out every time you change strings and remove the pickguard until you find one you like?
Click to expand...

I use this. :D

electest1.jpg
 
Re: Tone caps question

No reason to go overboard.

Looks a bit different from the pic today. I added a 3-way Tele switch that switched between 250/250/47 and 500/500/22 and the customizable panel and added shielding.

img_5482_harness_manual.jpg
 
Re: Tone caps question

Wow . . . you guys are significantly less lazy than me. I was just gonna solder different stuff in there every time that I change strings to tweak things if it needs it.
 
Re: Tone caps question

I would never make anything like this if I were just trying to choose a tone cap. The goal in the test rig I made was to be able to simulate virtually any scenario or pots/caps/arrangements, then demonstrate in real time what alterations will affect what changes in that context. It's more of a teaching tool than a test chassis, but I'll admit that it is nice to have around when I want to tweak something. :)

The simplest version is of course a couple of lead wires to the tone pot and some alligator clips.
 
Re: Tone caps question

Well, if you just want to hear different types of caps, this one guy put up a blind tone test up on the web where you can hear different types of tone capacitors of the same value (one has a different value.) Of course, how they sound in your guitar might not be the same as they sound in his, but it kinda gives you a feel for how they sound, relative to one another.
 
Re: Tone caps question

Those are far from truly blind tests that he is conducting in those videos. I respect the man for putting forth the time and effort, but unfortunately his testing methods are so very, very terribly flawed as to render them essentially useless in my opinion.

I've conducted some similar surveys, done truly double-blind and with much better controls, and my results have been quite different from his conclusions.
 
Re: Tone caps question

Ok, here's the scenario: One bassline pup in a henchmens axe fretless bass I built. I do however want different tones. So . . . I thought push/push. One cap seriously lowering the low frequency and one lowering the highs. Anyone, Anyone, Anyone? Cap ideas? Wiring ideas?
 
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