What capacitor is this?

I dunno about that, but the truth is, caps are inexpensive, unless ya go into the stratospherically expensive Gold foils... so it just makes sense to use whatever the heck ya want... what's 5 bux, or 25 bux.. and just as David Collins mentioned in one of his videos.. even though it makes about zero difference, he, as I, use an upgrade cap, for no other reason than it make sense. And I know YOU don't wanna pop the hood on a custom guitar and find a 3 cent chiclet in there..


r

 

With caps that just drag highs to ground there will likely be no noticeable difference.
The differences can be heard in amplifier circuits, where the full signal is passed through the capacitor.

 

Oh no my freind, just a general statement of these subjective things, as they usually end up leaning towards QUALITY of the cap ( best brand, tolerance, yada yada yada) instead of what REALLY MATTERS.

Here's the deal:

I call the cap a tool the tone pot uses in its job. The higher the value, the faster/darker things will get as you turn the pot from about 6-0.

It's a player preference thing, do you want a subtle tone change? I don't use the tone much so like .022µF in almost everything (250Kpot). Nice thru the sweep.

If you want it more aggressive....then .047µF or even as high as .1 µF, or a .1 because you want the wah wahhhhhhhh.

How do you want your tone control to work ?? I always say, YOUR geetar, YOUR ears.

So when you use (if you do) your tone control, does it do what you want it to do for the most part ?? Then you have the right value cap. Most likely if it's stock, a .022µF

On one of my Strats, I took and ran a wire from the tone pots out into the trem block cavity via the
trem claw ground wire hole. Then used the trem claw for a ground (other cap lead) and tried different
value caps with test leads on the wire to the tone pot. When you get a winner, tape it up and hide it in
there (under the trem cover). Then solder it in on the pot next time you do a string
change.

Stealthy !!

The only other thing to mention as long as we are talking Strat caps is a person might what to consider rewiring the switch so that you have tone control of the bridge pup. Some can be pretty harsh so having the ability to knock some shrill out if it at times is like haveing two bridge pups to choose from.

Happy pickin'

 

You mean to tell me I wasted $300 bux on my boutique Almighty Banana cap made from Strontium Dichloride and dust from a unicorn's horn?
The guy on Ebay said it was legit!

 

Before obsessing about caps,i found out that you ll get more tone options and control by just making the second pot a blender one and blend a bit of neck or a bit of bridge pickup on the fly to get the tone you want.Bridge pickup too shrill? Blend a little neck pickup to round it out...neck pickup too muddy?Blend a bit of bridge to balance it out....

 

It was a typo.. I'm sure if ya ask him he'll say he meant, ILLegit.. and he'll swear to it.. . . honest mistake ya know...

 

You can also get a lot of tonal variation from the way you hold the pick and the angle it hits the string at. Playing around with it yields a lot of different sounds. Not sure its relevant to the thread but there you have it lol.

 

Mojo

But functionally, the Gibson Custom Shop "bumblebees" are superior to what they are made to look like.
The BS is that they are simply modern yellow mylar caps encased in the "bumblebee" housing... and sold for $80 :facepalm:

Orange drops, yellow Mallory's, Chiclets.... all good.

 

I love this thread...

 

The only time I ever care about a specific cap type (over value) is if I'm doing some sort of clone build where there are 'silly' cosmetic things I try to match.
But other than that I'm more about the value......and often attaching 2 caps of different values to the tone pots to maximise the tonal rolloffs of the pickup position they are attached to.

 

Download the service

If its original to the guitar, its definitely 0.022. If you want to test how different ones sound when you roll off the tone knob, solder a couple of alligator clips to one end of a couple of 6 inch wires. Solder the other ends of the wires to where your current cap is soldered and desolder the current cap. Then bridge the two alligator clips with different values and types of caps. It's a good learning experience that will keep you from needing to ask questions that nobody can give you an objective answer for that will be very subjectively useful on tone, as there are lots of caps and your ears are exclusive to you. Caps, 6" wires, and clips are generally cheap, so go crazy and get a bunch to try. Then do it again every time your experience level has increased significantly. You'll hear more as experience tunes your ears. Hearing for yourself is worth more than reading the opinion of any and every "expert" in the whole wide world, and will educate you to decide personally.

 

Some kind of poly. I love those. I got some in a Fender wiring kit/pot set, put them (.022, which is all I use) in my Les Paul. Small, and they sound really good. I eventually got a bag of them on ebay - I think they're Panasonic - and use them in all my guitars.

 

what I find surprising is that so many will assign such sonic importance to something like the cap, when there exists a plethora of very well produced video illustrations demonstrating exactly the opposite. Many of which are done by very well respected individuals active in the world of guitars. Those guys are only trying to help.

Guys will go on and on about this even when, in the best of circumstances, no demonstration can be made that suggests the difference in the architecture among caps produces sonic variances that rise above a level that becomes even subtlety noticeable in a real world playing situation, particularly when weighed against the many other rather simple situations that DO create quite noticeable changes.

Different strings, different picks, style of picking, come to mind immediately, but never once in over 50 years have I been listening to a guitarist and have found myself motivated to walk over and say, "Nice cap, man, Oh your playing is fantastic too." In fact never once in almost 60 years now, have I ever even thought to ask the question, What cap does that guy have, while listening to anyone playing a guitar.

The Cap NEVER produces sonic results that rises above that threshold of noticeability. Never, and it HAS to rise above that threshold to be of any use, period.

Now, that doesn't mean what cap YOU choose isn't important.. But that importance resides solely within the deep dark coffers of the "Id". The subconscious can have a profound influence on you and your "melding" with your guitar. Little nuances like, is the Binding really Celluloid Acetate, or the paint Nitro, or is it a one piece body, or are the pots Vintage CTS, or it the cap the same type used in 1959. All that cognitive debris, can back up and clog your enjoyment of what is often a superb guitar, when any one of those thoughts might be insignificant enough to be no more than a small pebble on a super highway, but that one pebble, along with a huge pile of others can stop the the most determined traffic.

Thus you SHOULD install whatever capacitor your animal instincts suggest, but the only reason you need is "I just plain wanted it is all." What you don't need is a litany of "manufactured" technical reasons that fester up cognitive discord to those with even a most basic understanding of the forces at work within the confines of the typical electric guitar. Why, because no one gives a hoot, nor should they. No one gives a rat's azz if you choose a Chiclet or a very exotic, and expensive, gold foil PIO cap.. AND in a simple comparison, no one could pick the 3 cent cap or the 1000.00 cap with anything resembling consistency, and ain't that some kinda cack.. what damn good is it is no one can tell ya got it?

r

 

So yeah, worry about the value, not the type. I like sjtalon’s description that the capacitor is the tool the tone pot uses to do its job. Without the capacitor, the tone pot would be another volume pot. By adding a cap, you are controlling the volume for only certain frequencies. Those frequencies start at the top end and the larger the capacitor value, the more frequencies get rolled off. I like to picture it as an eq pedal - I’m guessing at the actual frequencies, but it works for illustrative purposes: a 0.047uf cap might affect the frequencies above 500 hz, whereas a 0.022uf cap might only affect those above 1.5k, and a 0.015uf cap might just be those frequencies above 2.5k. And turning the pot down is like pulling the sliders on our imaginary eq pedal down, so different cap values will have different sounds when rolled off: you can approximate the sound of a lower-value cap by rolling of a higher-value cap less, but since the actual frequencies are affected, they will never sound exactly the same.

The point being, which frequencies do you want to control? Personally, I found I would never use my tone control that much with a 0.047uf cap because too many frequencies were being rolled off, and turning it down fully made the guitar sound too muddy (for reference I’ve set up my strat with a master tone and a blender pot on the second tone control). I’m much happier with the current 0.022uf cap, but even that starts to get into muddy territory at the limit, so next time I pull the pick guard off, I’ll put a 0.015uf cap in. Contrary to what some say, I feel this gives me more versatility: if none of the tones sound “bad” to my ear, I have an easier time finding the sounds I like, and more control over those sounds.

 

I did this to get a wider range of tone.

 

OOPS!! Two copies of the schematic. To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer,