BEST TONE CAPS

[guitar Dan]

Hi all

ive just fitted some gibson burstbucker 1 & 2 into my lads jap made 70,s columbus and it sounds great

just wondered if i could up date the tone caps and wich are the best brand to buy. for epiphone lp fitted with a p 90 neck,burstbucker 2 bridge,rg320 fa ibanez fitted with a jb4 sey & dunc bridge and sh-1 neck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOdX6vxOnO4 (Dan playing his lp epi with standard epi p,ups through marshall valve combo )

thanks
Steve in sunny Almeria

[WRGKMC]

Most like the orange drop or bumble bee caps. I think the square porcelin are the best tone wise. I dont use tone controlls much except on my tele when I have new strings. The tele has a small square green one which are made of the same stuff the orange drops are.

[guitar Dan]

thanks for the info
are thair difrent rated caps for diffrent pick ups,or can i just simply order by name ie orange drop or bumble ,with no rating.

thanks

Steve & Dan

[WRGKMC]

Most tone cape are between .01 to .05 uf. the higher the value the more it will cut high frequencies. Best way to go since they're cheap is get a few different values and test them out to see what you want.

A quick way to test the maximum cut is to unscrew a guitar jack in one end so the connections are visable and then take the cap across the center connector and ground. keep all the other controlls turned up and then just touch the contacts with the two wires after strumming the guitar. Keep in mind the pot will vary the ammount when installed, but you can get an idea of the maximum cut you may want.


The most used values are

.047uf (microfarads) typically used with humbuckers and guitars with 500K pots

.022uf are used typically used on guitars with single coils and 250K pots.

On gibsons, with humbuckers I usually opt for .033 which is a middel of the road for both guitars. I dont like a super muffeled guitar. I like to just take the edge off with new strings. HBs .033uf usually does the job.

Prices will vary alot on the orange drops. I've seen outrageous prices on them by pirates trying to rip people off. I'd stick with a place like Mouser and price some up. If you see much more than a dollar each, keep looking. Just google Sprague orange drop caps and then dig. Heres the Mouser prices.

http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine....rop+capacitors




Heres some .047 at the bottom of this page. they're a bit pricey here.
http://www.pedalhackermods.com/servl...ors/Categories

Heres some for less than a buck each but you got to buy at least 10.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Sprague-715P-.03...d=390024386602

Not sure what the exchange rate with euros is but heres some more variety.
http://www.tubeampdoctor.com/english...-Drop-c-35_80/

[guitar Dan]

thanks for the info really helpfull.
keep on rocking
Steve & Dan

[customtele]

Rat Shack has the small square green ones cheap. And in the 2 common values found on guitars.

[guitar Dan]

ok,thanks will give it a look, Steve

[Mr.Grumpy]

I'm seriously skeptical about this business of some type of caps "sounding" better than others - especially when used as a guitar's passive tone control. As long as the capacitance value is correct, it shouldn't matter, right? I can see where a "wound" capacitor (foil & dielectric film rolled up) might have some stray inductance, but enough to make an audible difference, compared to say, a ceramic disc cap? Has anyone seriously tested this with "blind" A/B testing? If you know of some reason(s) the orange drop or "bumblebee" caps sound better, I'd love to know.

[mhn433]

Honestly, when I rewire a guitar I don't pay that much attention to the caps. I've put ceramic disc caps in some guitars and they sound as good to me as orange drops. I've noticed that Gibson uses ceramic discs on the Melody Maker and my MM sounds great. I've had the worst luck with the square ones from Radio Shack. I'll only use those in an emergency.

[SoldierStape01]

Ya know the blind A/B test would be a good test. I might have to try this. I'm going to do it 2 ways I think. One with my fiance who has about no understanding of guitars and such, and my buddy who plays and has done some work, more so just hangs out and bugs me in my shop....

Originally Posted by Mr.Grumpy

I'm seriously skeptical about this business of some type of caps "sounding" better than others - especially when used as a guitar's passive tone control. As long as the capacitance value is correct, it shouldn't matter, right? I can see where a "wound" capacitor (foil & dielectric film rolled up) might have some stray inductance, but enough to make an audible difference, compared to say, a ceramic disc cap? Has anyone seriously tested this with "blind" A/B testing? If you know of some reason(s) the orange drop or "bumblebee" caps sound better, I'd love to know.

[customtele]

Blind A/B test is all good & fine. But you'll have to rig up that thang that WRG posted to make it work. 2 identical guitars aint gonna be identical. I'd like to know how this goes. I'm of the cap type don't matter school of thought as well. I don't see it making any difference. The people who sell the expensive caps are full of bovine feces & trying to rip us off IMO.

[SoldierStape01]

I agree. But, I do like to see the evidence for myself. I plan on rigging up a setup like WRG mentioned above. I have a small little box thingy that I think mounting the pot and well as my clips on will work very well...

Yea I don't see there being any mindblowing difference in the caps, but I'm always open to what i find and seeing how it plays out.

[stratotak]

Yeah..But I would think you would need to do more than 2 people to have it mean anything. what If the 2 people you do this test with have bad ears and couldnt tell the difference anyway. I believe ears are just like eyes..Some people have perfect vision some people.. not so much. Some people are color blind. What If buddy hasn't cleaned his ears in ages and has enough wax in there to wax a surf board??ARe you going to make sure they have cleaned there ears before hand..lol..I think a blind test ..to mean anything would have to have more than 2 people involved..More like 50 ..thats like doing a blind test of which is better coke or pepsi and only do 2 people..Not going to mean to much..By the way..coke for me.lol.

[customtele]

When doing a true blind test you do need lots of people & a control group. But we're talking about testing cheap ass caps here. I'll bet you could get a gov't. grant but I'll just keep using the rat shack caps. I've had good luck with them. And I'll bet if you get green caps from Small Bear or anywhere else they will be from the same manufacturer/s as the rat shack ones.

[SoldierStape01]

Good Point. I love when people say shit like I got these Pots and switches here or there or GC or all that shit, I hate tell everyone but 99% are produced by Weimhammer (sp) and just packaged differently
lol

[WRGKMC]

Where you might notice it most is if you plug the guitar into a high quality amp with decent headphones set real flat and clean.

I notice a bit more mids retained with the orange drops kinda like a mild wah pedal set in the middel, vs a complete blanket rolled across the high frequencies muffeling it up. I like to retain mids when using tones and its all in how sharp the caps rolloff the high frequencies.

Still, with the use of a pot the ammount of dimming can be adjusted so it isnt hyper critical, but when you're running a hot tube amp those mids that are retained can make a nice edge in the breakup. An example might be the kind of sound Mark Knofler gets to the chords to that song, "I want my MTV".
(He may be using any kinds of parametric eqing in the studio I'm sure but as an example of tone rolloff on a strat it can be a good example of mids retained with trebble rolloff)

[Victory]

I have a buddy that uses SOZO caps and swears by them. He finally gave me one to put in my LP doublecut to try out. It has a subtle difference from the original cap , sounds better IMO , not a dramatic difference though. the value I used was .022uf for the Burst bucker pro's I have. They are availible here. http://www.sozoamplification.com/