Tone Cap's

[2manyguitars]

So, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions about replacing the tone capacitor in my Telecaster? I bought a brand new shinny Tele last week & in true "me" fashion the first thing I did when I got home was rip it apart & replace the pickups. I own 7 Strats, a Jag, Jazzmaster, Mustang, Duo Sonic & a whole bunch of other oddball Fender guitars most of witch I've modified with S.D. pups & I've been doing this since I was a kid. Now I do own 2 other Tele's but I use the name loosely because they are both H/H guitars one being a Fender F.S.R. & also a G&L A.S.A.T. Anyway, this is my first "REAL" Tele & I hated the stock pickups so they came out. I'm not a "Twang Thang" kind of guy but now that I'm getting older I do seem to be playing with less & less distortion & gravitating towards more bluesy cleans & vintage O.D., prob. because of all the tube amps I've collected over the past few years? So what I wanted was a Tele that would still keep it's Telecaster character but be a lot more ballsy! I went with A Quarter Pound Lead in the bridge & a Phat Cat in the neck. Now, I'm very happy with the pup selection & I think its exactly what it should be but it still has the puny stock cap in it. I've never really messed with tone caps much because there was no real need or one was suggested with whatever guard or harness I was building at the time? This time things are a bit different, these pickups are much hotter than the stock one's & I'm pushing a lot more output! Because of the increase in output the pickups have got quite a bit darker, as I knew they would & it was part of the reason I waned hotter pickups but I used a bit too much dynamite if you know what I mean? I think a cap swap would be beneficial??? I apologize for lengthy story & any feedback as far as what you guy's think might help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Rob...

 

[Artie]

Re: Tone Cap's

Welcome to the forum. One of the most useful "tools" you can have in your guitar toolbox, is a variable, (switchable), cap box. You can build one real easy. It only needs two wires. Tack solder them to where the cap would go, with the wires coming out from the pickguard or control cover. It's nice to have at least a .001, .015, .022, .033 and .047. Maybe a .067 too. Then you can switch them in and out in real-time and see what works best for each application.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Tone Cap's

What capacitor do you have now?

The best way to establish baseline for making it brighter is connect the pickup directly to the guitar cable (and a short one, low capacitance) without any of the pots. It doesn't get brighter than that, so if it doesn't do dump the pickup, or the guitar.

 

[swissmountain]

Re: Tone Cap's

Caps are cheap so you can get a bunch of different values and experiment. The best value is the one you like best.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Tone Cap's

So, are you saying that you tone is a little too dark now? Different caps are not going to noticeably change that. They only affect the amount of treble that rolls off when the tone pot is turned down.

What is the value of your volume pot? A higher resistance pot will make your tone brighter. You could also try a treble bleed mod as well as a cap change to help retain treble.