Two very similar guitars, but one is way too bright

[GuitarStv]

120 pF is in the range of the cable capacity and is barely audible. I had good results with 500pF to 1000pF means .0005 to .001 uF. When using a 4700 pF, your strat will sound like a Les Paul.

Awesome, I just dug through my electronics bin and found some 1000, 470, and 270 pF caps. Just straight across the hot and ground right, so I could do this in the input jack cavity? That should make testing different values with some alligator clips pretty very easy. Definitely going to give this a try on the weekend.

 

[AdrianSD]

Awesome, I just dug through my electronics bin and found some 1000, 470, and 270 pF caps. Just straight across the hot and ground right, so I could do this in the input jack cavity? That should make testing different values with some alligator clips pretty very easy. Definitely going to give this a try on the weekend.

Yeah, the alligator clips will make testing quite easy. Start with what ever capacitors you have lying around and then try with 2.2nF, perhaps 4.7pF as suggested and compare the results. Swapping the pickguards altogether is another very cool idea, but it's more involved. Curious how it all pans out, have fun

 

[Aceman]

You know - this might sound excessive, but just to be sure...


These guitars sound Stratty, am I right? Not too hard to do a complete pick guard swap. Capo, neck off, unwire / swap, rewire. If problem still happens with Duncans - you know it is the guitar. If not, you know it is pickups/wiring.

I'd say it isn't impossible for the wood/mojo to really bring out the bright. Acoustic factor is like Res. Peak. Correlated, but not necessarily.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Another option you might consider is a neck swap.
On Strats, necks often seem to affect the tone more than bodies.

 

[Juanhanglo]

You can also open the cord end cover and hook the caps across the wires there.

No need to take anything apart until you know what you want to install.

 

[freefrog]

You can also open the cord end cover and hook the caps across the wires there.

No need to take anything apart until you know what you want to install.

+1. I do this all the time.

Regarding the capacitance to choose: the effect of cable lenght on tone can be used as an aural reference. Listen the vid below and consider that in most cases, each foot of cable added equates a capacitor of 30pF to 45pF. IOW, when the guy passes from 75' of cable to 0', it's as if he pulled off a capacitor from hot to ground measuring between 2,2nF and 3,3nF (= 0.0022µF or 0.0033µF).

https://youtu.be/u2sjeVQpS94?t=409

Bill Lawrence recommended a 2.4nF cap to emulate the curly cables used by Hendrix: http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/All_About_Tone.htm/CableandSound.htm

For ages; I've a 1nF cap mounted on a TBX pot in my main Strat. It adds itself to the 750pF of my cables. That's what gives me a Hendrix midrange when needed and what avoids to my ears to be killed by high frequencies when I crank up my Marshall...

But the "optimal" value always depends on the pickups + guitar + rig used so some trial and error is needed here.

Sometimes, some additional tweaking on pot resistance is also useful because more capacitance = a narrower resonance. Again, it really depends on the concrete situation involved.

Let us know if it the ol' cap trick does the trick for you, GuitarStv.

 

[chadd]

Since you like the clean sound, maybe an EQ pedal could help with the distorted tones. Something programmable, like an EQ200, would give you the chance to use one curve for clean and one for dirt, as well.

 

[Silver]

Not read the whole thread so sorry if this has already been mentioned. But it might be worth getting out the multimeter and finding out what the pot/cap values ACTUALLY are… my understanding is that the tolerances can be quite wide, wide enough to affect tone.

Imagine two guitars with a 500k pot, but one is 450k and the other is 550k. That’s only 10% out for each but when you compare the two it’s a fair distance.

 

[Aceman]

Another option you might consider is a neck swap.
On Strats, necks often seem to affect the tone more than bodies.

Seymour says this...

 

[freefrog]

Yes, the importance of necks in the final tone is well known by professionals.

https://www.frudua.com/neck_influence_in_guitar_tone.htm

I've once redimed a dull sounding Strat just by swapping its neck. The original one wasn't defective and works fine with another body. it just didn't work in the original assembly...

 

[Chistopher]

Yes, the importance of necks in the final tone is well known by professionals.

https://www.frudua.com/neck_influence_in_guitar_tone.htm

I've once redimed a dull sounding Strat just by swapping its neck. The original one wasn't defective and works fine with another body. it just didn't work in the original assembly...

I agree with you, but that link has some issues. The claim that 70% of the strings vibrations travel through the neck is wrong. He mentions the headstock making a difference in sound but doesn't elaborate. He also says Spruce can't be used in guitar necks which makes me wonder if he knows what a truss rod is even for.

 

[freefrog]

I agree with you, but that link has some issues. The claim that 70% of the strings vibrations travel through the neck is wrong. He mentions the headstock making a difference in sound but doesn't elaborate. He also says Spruce can't be used in guitar necks which makes me wonder if he knows what a truss rod is even for.

Just to be clear: I'm not affiliated to Galeazzo Frudua. I've quoted him because...

1-He's of the same generation than my Mentor in lutherie,

2-He"s relatively well known here in Europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galeazzo_Frudua ),

3-He puts numbers and pics on an idea evoked above.

Personally, I don't expect such a page of vulgarization to be accurate. His 70% / 30% stuff appears to me as some "heuristic metaphor". The fact that he doesn't explain the role of the headstock sounds to me as a voluntary imprecision about trade secrets... And about spruce, he seems to simply have hardened the idea that it's not a great wood for necks of electric guitars, which is what I generally hear from local luthiers too...

That's the issue with Internet IMHO, or even in any explicative context: it's always difficult to be clear and accurate, with all the nuance that our complex human reality would require...

 

[GuitarStv]

Well, after several hours with alligator clips and a (very) little bit of soldering, the problem guitar has transformed from shrill into great!

1000 pF and 1200 pF both sounded great with gain, but seemed to lose some of the single coil-ness of the sound. It's weird, not sure if I'm hearing things right but it seemed like the mids increased along with dropping a touch of highest treble by adding the cap. Both caps sounded pretty good on the bridge pickup, and I liked the sounds with gain in all positions . . . but didn't sound right clean. 470 pF ended up being perfect for what I wanted though . . . nice cleans, screechy sound is gone from the sound with gain. Anyway, all the positions and switching on the guitar is usable now, so I'm happy.

ABing the former problem guitar with the good guitar they're both in the same ballpark now. The former problem guitar is maybe slightly more mid-rangey and the good guitar maybe a hair brighter. Both work well with the same OD pedals and effects, and the same amp settings. It's still bright enough that I need to roll back the tone knob from time to time, but it's very manageable now.

Thanks everyone for your help, I would never have thought of doing this!

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Yes, the importance of necks in the final tone is well known by professionals.

https://www.frudua.com/neck_influenc...uitar_tone.htm

I've once redimed a dull sounding Strat just by swapping its neck. The original one wasn't defective and works fine with another body. it just didn't work in the original assembly...

Yah, I've always felt that tone tends to follow the neck when you're swapping necks & bodies.
But I also completely agree it's the way they combine that's the key to great tone.

When a neck doesn't sound good, it isn't necessarily a bad neck - it could simply be mismatched.
Sometimes it can shine when attached to a different one.

Of course, one does occasionally encounter pieces of dead wood that just have no music in them.
But in my experience that's actually been pretty rare, even among cheap guitars.

I'm a big believer that every piece of wood has character, in terms of both tone and liveliness.
Still, the real magic is in the way different pieces of wood work together as a whole.

With set neck guitars you're stuck with pieces that probably were selected pretty much at random, unless it's a boutique builder.
But with bolt-ons you can swap 'em around if you need to. Or if you just want to experiment.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Well, after several hours with alligator clips and a (very) little bit of soldering, the problem guitar has transformed from shrill into great!

1000 pF and 1200 pF both sounded great with gain, but seemed to lose some of the single coil-ness of the sound. It's weird, not sure if I'm hearing things right but it seemed like the mids increased along with dropping a touch of highest treble by adding the cap. Both caps sounded pretty good on the bridge pickup, and I liked the sounds with gain in all positions . . . but didn't sound right clean. 470 pF ended up being perfect for what I wanted though . . . nice cleans, screechy sound is gone from the sound with gain. Anyway, all the positions and switching on the guitar is usable now, so I'm happy.

ABing the former problem guitar with the good guitar they're both in the same ballpark now. The former problem guitar is maybe slightly more mid-rangey and the good guitar maybe a hair brighter. Both work well with the same OD pedals and effects, and the same amp settings. It's still bright enough that I need to roll back the tone knob from time to time, but it's very manageable now.

Thanks everyone for your help, I would never have thought of doing this!

Some player like to use a very low value for their tone cap, especially with bright pickups..
And, when rolled back, it seems to boost midrange as well as rolling off treble.
Here's a link to a post about that from 2015:

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/foru...88#post5053288

 

[freefrog]

Well, after several hours with alligator clips and a (very) little bit of soldering, the problem guitar has transformed from shrill into great!

Glad to read that and that's my main message... The rest of my reply below is just side notes.

1000 pF and 1200 pF both sounded great with gain, but seemed to lose some of the single coil-ness of the sound. It's weird, not sure if I'm hearing things right but it seemed like the mids increased along with dropping a touch of highest treble by adding the cap.

You're hearing things right. What you find weird is just the resonant peak relocated in the high mids. Here's a page explaining clearly what happens: http://zerocapcable.com/?page_id=209

Both caps sounded pretty good on the bridge pickup, and I liked the sounds with gain in all positions . . . but didn't sound right clean. 470 pF ended up being perfect for what I wanted though . . . nice cleans, screechy sound is gone from the sound with gain. Anyway, all the positions and switching on the guitar is usable now, so I'm happy.

1000 to 1200pF is really the critical value where the tonal action of capacitance starts to be noticeable with a Strat. That's the cable capacitance emulated in Line6 Variax models and the reason why some people find these digital emulations not bright enough. But that's my value of choice because I use bright amps and because it drags regular Strat pickups towards the tone of overwound single coils (minus the output level, of course).

470pF is the equivalent of 3 or 4m of wire added to your usual cable, FWIW.

ABing the former problem guitar with the good guitar they're both in the same ballpark now. The former problem guitar is maybe slightly more mid-rangey and the good guitar maybe a hair brighter. Both work well with the same OD pedals and effects, and the same amp settings. It's still bright enough that I need to roll back the tone knob from time to time, but it's very manageable now.

Thanks everyone for your help, I would never have thought of doing this!

I do such things for decades and for decades, I see the "old cap trick" most often ignored, even though it was recommended by famous pickup winders - Bill Lawrence but also... Seymour in his old FAQ.

Glad to see someone has finally tried it and can testify of what it does.

For those who use Fuzz Face circuits: cable capacitance has also a drastic influence on their tone. So much that the cable plugged after a Fuzz Face is no less than an external tone control. Link: https://www.mylespaul.com/threads/do-cables-matter-with-a-fuzz-face-tests.449103/

Anyway and to come back on topic: GuitarStv, enjoy with your tonally tuned guitar!

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Glad to read that and that's my main message... The rest of my reply below is just side notes.



You're hearing things right. What you find weird is just the resonant peak relocated in the high mids. Here's a page explaining clearly what happens: http://zerocapcable.com/?page_id=209



1000 to 1200pF is really the critical value where the tonal action of capacitance starts to be noticeable with a Strat. That's the cable capacitance emulated in Line6 Variax models and the reason why some people find these digital emulations not bright enough. But that's my value of choice because I use bright amps and because it drags regular Strat pickups towards the tone of overwound single coils (minus the output level, of course).

470pF is the equivalent of 3 or 4m of wire added to your usual cable, FWIW.



I do such things for decades and for decades, I see the "old cap trick" most often ignored, even though it was recommended by famous pickup winders - Bill Lawrence but also... Seymour in his old FAQ.

Glad to see someone has finally tried it and can testify of what it does.

For those who use Fuzz Face circuits: cable capacitance has also a drastic influence on their tone. So much that the cable plugged after a Fuzz Face is no less than an external tone control. Link: https://www.mylespaul.com/threads/do-cables-matter-with-a-fuzz-face-tests.449103/

Anyway and to come back on topic: GuitarStv, enjoy with your tonally tuned guitar!

I knew that buffers in front of a Fuzz Face will mess with the cleanup.
But I always thought of it strictly in terms of pickup-&-volume-pot interaction
It never occurred to me that a buffer downstream would affect its tone significantly.
I know it's a pretty common FF mod to change the output cap for increased or decreased bass response.

A few perhaps-dumb questions:
Would it be a viable mod to add a cap, loading the output for use in front of a buffer?
Would increasing the value of its regular output cap do the same thing?
True bypass prevents any mods from affecting tone when the pedal's disengaged, right?

 

[freefrog]

A few perhaps-dumb questions:
Would it be a viable mod to add a cap, loading the output for use in front of a buffer?
Would increasing the value of its regular output cap do the same thing?
True bypass prevents any mods from affecting tone when the pedal's disengaged, right?

There's no dumb questions IMHO but i'm totally able to produce dumb answers. Let's try to avoid this possibility...

Q1- Yes, it's viable IME. The home brew FF that I've in my pedalboard for Fender amps includes precisely what you describe: a cap to ground emulating a long cable when the effect is enabled, while the pedal is before a buffer.
Q2 - No: A series output cap is a high pass ("low cut") filter. Any capacitive load between hot and ground is a low pass ("high cut") filter.
Q3 - Yes, a true bypass should avoid the tone to be affected once the modified circuit disabled... although a true bypass opens the road to cable capacitance with its darkening effect on passive PU's (reason why I've at least one buffer in each of my pedalboards).

HTH.

 

[GuitarStv]

1000 to 1200pF is really the critical value where the tonal action of capacitance starts to be noticeable with a Strat. That's the cable capacitance emulated in Line6 Variax models and the reason why some people find these digital emulations not bright enough. But that's my value of choice because I use bright amps and because it drags regular Strat pickups towards the tone of overwound single coils (minus the output level, of course).

470pF is the equivalent of 3 or 4m of wire added to your usual cable, FWIW.

I went back and forth between having the cap and not, and then kept checking against the guitar that I liked the sound of to make sure my ears weren't going deaf. With the 470 pF cap, there wasn't much difference I could hear with cleans, but it was noticeable with gain on a couple particular problem frequencies.

I'm usually plugged into a 15 ft Planet Waves cable that then goes through three true bypass pedals connected by short planet waves patch cables and then hits a pedal with a buffer . . . so maybe a little over 20 ft of cable in front of all my guitars? I'm surprised that only 3-4 meters of wire would make such an audible difference. Maybe there's something specific to the pickups and a frequency that my amp or speakers are emphasizing that really didn't like where the resonant peak was.

For those who use Fuzz Face circuits: cable capacitance has also a drastic influence on their tone. So much that the cable plugged after a Fuzz Face is no less than an external tone control. Link: https://www.mylespaul.com/threads/do-cables-matter-with-a-fuzz-face-tests.449103/

I should dig out my germanium fuzz face to check with this guitar. Found I didn't like it (would get too bright/scratchy) when playing guitars with treble bleeds, but I'm wondering if this capacitance change might make it more usable.

 

[freefrog]

I'm surprised that only 3-4 meters of wire would make such an audible difference. Maybe there's something specific to the pickups and a frequency that my amp or speakers are emphasizing that really didn't like where the resonant peak was..

You sum up what I was trying to explain in a dedicated topic on another forum years ago: according to the capacitance involved, the resonant peak of a pickup can align itself with the frequential peaks OR dips of a loudspeaker / cab... and when both promote a frequency altogether, it can become extremely irritating (even with much capacitance, actually). That's why trying various caps is so important.

Paradoxically, that's also why extremely low capacitance can lead a passive pickup to sound "hollow" and weak instead of pristine clean: if the resonant peak of a PU is way above the spectrum reproduced by a cab, a good part of its stenght is lost for music, so to speak...

Regarding the fuzz: if ever it doesn't sound to your liking, you can always do the same than with your PU's: add a cap between hot and ground on the volume pot of your fuzz and listen how it softens the tone...