Tone Pot Cap Values: Update after tests!

[Dallas Marlow]

Hey All,

I just recently changed out a tone pot cap on one of my guitars to a Jupiter 473uf cap, I think that's the right value, it's the standard used for humbuckers, from a much smaller little cap of the same value, and holy smokes it made a HUGE difference in not only the sound, but more than anything the FEEL of the guitar has changed, it's not as hard it's a bit softer and I was really surprised at how much of a difference it made.

What's everyone's favorite did you all try different ones, and how have they effected your sound, I've also got an Orange drop one I might try some time but digging this one for the time being, it's really great!

Dallas

 

[Giga]

Ha, that would be one huge ass cap.....

AFAIK .022 is "usual" for bridge HB's; sometimes .015 for the neck.

IME different brands of caps and/or values for the tonepot have at least as much influence as the value of the cap.

Giga

PS: the 473 means 47 x 10x10x10 = 47000 pF = 4.7 nF = .047 uF

 

[gbsmusic]

I've been buying pots and caps from Jim Wagner at WCR Pickups. Pots are 500's but they are around 565 to 575. Caps are the paper oil. The most noticable part about them is you lose nothing tone-wise when you roll back the volume.

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Ha, that would be one huge ass cap.....

AFAIK .022 is "usual" for bridge HB's; sometimes .015 for the neck.

IME different brands of caps and/or values for the tonepot have at least as much influence as the value of the cap.

Giga

PS: the 473 means 47 x 10x10x10 = 47000 pF = 4.7 nF = .047 uF

Hey man I was told that .022 is usually used for single coils where the .047 is normally used for humbucker circuits? Is this not right? Keep in mind I'm using a one tone one pot setup, not a les paul set up where there's two vol two tones? Is this not correct? Assuming your using a 500k pot btw

 

[Dallas Marlow]

I've been buying pots and caps from Jim Wagner at WCR Pickups. Pots are 500's but they are around 565 to 575. Caps are the paper oil. The most noticable part about them is you lose nothing tone-wise when you roll back the volume.

I use WCR darkbursts in the guitar I changed it in, what are the values of the caps with the 500k pots?

 

[moltenmetalburn]

Tone pots are for sissys

+1 I dont use em!

 

[Giga]

Ha, that would be one huge ass cap.....

AFAIK .022 is "usual" for bridge HB's; sometimes .015 for the neck.

IME different brands of caps and/or values for the tonepot have at least as much influence as the value of the cap.

Giga

PS: the 473 means 47 x 10x10x10 = 47000 pF = 4.7 nF = .047 uF

Hey man I was told that .022 is usually used for single coils where the .047 is normally used for humbucker circuits? Is this not right? Keep in mind I'm using a one tone one pot setup, not a les paul set up where there's two vol two tones? Is this not correct? Assuming your using a 500k pot btw

It does make sense, but it's not what I've noticed on my HB guitars.... Keep in mind that the bigger the cap is in value the lower the frequency at which it still conducts. In this case (since it is a bleed to ground) the lower the frequency it rolls off at lower tonepot settings. The amount of rolled off highs doesn't change so much.

Giga

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Ha, that would be one huge ass cap.....

AFAIK .022 is "usual" for bridge HB's; sometimes .015 for the neck.

IME different brands of caps and/or values for the tonepot have at least as much influence as the value of the cap.

Giga

PS: the 473 means 47 x 10x10x10 = 47000 pF = 4.7 nF = .047 uF

Hey man I was told that .022 is usually used for single coils where the .047 is normally used for humbucker circuits? Is this not right? Keep in mind I'm using a one tone one pot setup, not a les paul set up where there's two vol two tones? Is this not correct? Assuming your using a 500k pot btw

It does make sense, but it's not what I've noticed on my HB guitars.... Keep in mind that the bigger the cap is in value the lower the frequency at which it still conducts. In this case (since it is a bleed to ground) the lower the frequency it rolls off at lower tonepot settings. The amount of rolled off highs doesn't change so much.

Giga

So your saying I get more low end from a bigger cap value? Like for example when the tone pot is all the way open, at 10, whatever you want to call it, I'd have more low end with a .047 vs a .022 cap? I normally don't roll off the pot very much, but just a bit to take the edge off in certain situations, I use it a lot more with single coil guitars for sure.

 

[luxxtone]

Ha, that would be one huge ass cap.....

AFAIK .022 is "usual" for bridge HB's; sometimes .015 for the neck.

IME different brands of caps and/or values for the tonepot have at least as much influence as the value of the cap.

Giga

PS: the 473 means 47 x 10x10x10 = 47000 pF = 4.7 nF = .047 uF

Hey man I was told that .022 is usually used for single coils where the .047 is normally used for humbucker circuits? Is this not right? Keep in mind I'm using a one tone one pot setup, not a les paul set up where there's two vol two tones? Is this not correct? Assuming your using a 500k pot btw

It does make sense, but it's not what I've noticed on my HB guitars.... Keep in mind that the bigger the cap is in value the lower the frequency at which it still conducts. In this case (since it is a bleed to ground) the lower the frequency it rolls off at lower tonepot settings. The amount of rolled off highs doesn't change so much.

Giga

So your saying I get more low end from a bigger cap value? Like for example when the tone pot is all the way open, at 10, whatever you want to call it, I'd have more low end with a .047 vs a .022 cap? I normally don't roll off the pot very much, but just a bit to take the edge off in certain situations, I use it a lot more with single coil guitars for sure.

No, doesn't work that way. It doesn't add more low end. It shouldn't have any effect on your tone until you actually start to turn the tone knob. But having the tone pot on there in the first place will add a small amount of capacitance, that's why I personally don't usually use them.

It's like Giga mentioned. When you use your tone pot, the larger the value of the cap, the more treble frequencies are cut....which basically means the sound will be darker. So a .047 will cut off more treble and be darker sounding, and a .022 will be brighter sounding. That's why .022 are generally used with humbuckers...to keep them a little brighter and .047 with single coils...to tame down the brightness. Again, this is only when the tone pot is actually turned.

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Ha, that would be one huge ass cap.....

AFAIK .022 is "usual" for bridge HB's; sometimes .015 for the neck.

IME different brands of caps and/or values for the tonepot have at least as much influence as the value of the cap.

Giga

PS: the 473 means 47 x 10x10x10 = 47000 pF = 4.7 nF = .047 uF

Hey man I was told that .022 is usually used for single coils where the .047 is normally used for humbucker circuits? Is this not right? Keep in mind I'm using a one tone one pot setup, not a les paul set up where there's two vol two tones? Is this not correct? Assuming your using a 500k pot btw

It does make sense, but it's not what I've noticed on my HB guitars.... Keep in mind that the bigger the cap is in value the lower the frequency at which it still conducts. In this case (since it is a bleed to ground) the lower the frequency it rolls off at lower tonepot settings. The amount of rolled off highs doesn't change so much.

Giga

So your saying I get more low end from a bigger cap value? Like for example when the tone pot is all the way open, at 10, whatever you want to call it, I'd have more low end with a .047 vs a .022 cap? I normally don't roll off the pot very much, but just a bit to take the edge off in certain situations, I use it a lot more with single coil guitars for sure.

No, doesn't work that way. It doesn't add more low end. It shouldn't have any effect on your tone until you actually start to turn the tone knob. But having the tone pot on there in the first place will add a small amount of capacitance, that's why I personally don't usually use them.

It's like Giga mentioned. When you use your tone pot, the larger the value of the cap, the more treble frequencies are cut....which basically means the sound will be darker. So a .047 will cut off more treble and be darker sounding, and a .022 will be brighter sounding. That's why .022 are generally used with humbuckers...to keep them a little brighter and .047 with single coils...to tame down the brightness. Again, this is only when the tone pot is actually turned.

Ahh ok, hmm that's interesting because even at 10 I noticed a HUGE change in the sound and feel of the guitar, it's really weird if your saying it shouldn't be much different?

 

[Dallas Marlow]

BTW I know I'm not crazy theres a MAJOR difference between the 473uf flat ceramic cap and then this 473uf Jupiter Poly cap, the jupiter is 600v and the other was 500v, so on paper they aren't that different, but they sound and feel a HUGE difference.

 

[Dallas Marlow]

So no more help?? I'm confused!

 

[Giga]

BTW I know I'm not crazy theres a MAJOR difference between the 473uf flat ceramic cap and then this 473uf Jupiter Poly cap, the jupiter is 600v and the other was 500v, so on paper they aren't that different, but they sound and feel a HUGE difference.

Voltage-rating has no influence (as the voltage coming out of your PU's is practically zero). It's the difference in materials and construction in the cap you're hearing (see my first post in this thread)

Giga

 

[Giga]

Ahh ok, hmm that's interesting because even at 10 I noticed a HUGE change in the sound and feel of the guitar, it's really weird if your saying it shouldn't be much different?

You have to understand what a cap does: it blocks DC and conducts AC. Since low frequencies are closets to DC and high frequencies are AC the cap lets through the highs and blocks lows more as the frequency goes down.

In your example this means that effectively the high frequencies are connected to ground through 250k (500k volumepot in parallel with a conducting cap and the tonepot at 500k) and the low frequencies are connected to ground through 500k since the tonecap is blocking the way to the tonepot.

In reality it's not as black and white as I describe but that's just to make my point.

So: disconnecting the tonepot gives a brighter tone as there is no more treblebleed going on.

Giga

 

[Giga]

No, doesn't work that way. It doesn't add more low end. It shouldn't have any effect on your tone until you actually start to turn the tone knob. But having the tone pot on there in the first place will add a small amount of capacitance, that's why I personally don't usually use them.

It's like Giga mentioned. When you use your tone pot, the larger the value of the cap, the more treble frequencies are cut....which basically means the sound will be darker. So a .047 will cut off more treble and be darker sounding, and a .022 will be brighter sounding. That's why .022 are generally used with humbuckers...to keep them a little brighter and .047 with single coils...to tame down the brightness. Again, this is only when the tone pot is actually turned.

The result will be like you say but your reasoning isn't totally accurate: the larger cap will not cut off more treble but through a larger frequency-range. The range is extended towards the low frequencies the bigger the cap is. F.i. a .022 and a .047 will behave the same at 5000hz, a .022 will roll of 6db at 1000Hz while a .047 will roll of 9db at 1000 Hz. (still) F.i. at 750 Hz the .022 doesn't roll of at all while the .047 still rolls of 3db
Semantics come into play: it depends on what we call treble, high mids, low mids etc.

Giga

 

[Stratboy151]

I've been buying pots and caps from Jim Wagner at WCR Pickups. Pots are 500's but they are around 565 to 575. Caps are the paper oil. The most noticable part about them is you lose nothing tone-wise when you roll back the volume.

thats what im looking for, to retain highs when you lower the volume. i know on strats they have treble-bleed mods, but wasnt sure how to accomplish the same thing with 'buckers

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Thanks so much for the info giga, I'm going to change the cap to a bit lower value I noticed I lost some clarity of the highs and it' got a bit muddy as well, for whatever reason my brain damage didn't think about whether or not the pot value change I did from 250k to 500k would have much of an effect but I'm sure it did in the long run.

Dallas

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Thanks so much for the info giga, I'm going to change the cap to a bit lower value I noticed I lost some clarity of the highs and it' got a bit muddy as well, for whatever reason my brain damage didn't think about whether or not the pot value change I did from 250k to 500k would have much of an effect but I'm sure it did in the long run.

Dallas

Update on the tone cap values and type that I decided on:

Hey all, so I wanted to give you a heads up from my results, for my personal tastes DO NOT use Jupiter Tone Caps as guitar caps, they have a very unique sound and someone that likes really really old school sounds MIGHT like them, but they seemed kind of papery and just not very clear, they did have a cool kind of grind to them... however I feel the Orange Drop BLOWS the Jupiter away, which is surprising considering the Jupiter is about 3x the price all of 5-6$, but it seems these are best inside amps not inside guitars. Also I settled on a value of .022uf, the .047uf was just to muddy and gnarly and nasty.

Hope this helps some people, oh and by the way I ended up using the Vishay Sprage PS Polyester Film Orange Drop Capacitor, theres a few varieties and while I didn't try the Polypropylene Film & Foil Sprage's I heard that they are dryer and punchier, while the one I use makes the highs a bit sweeter, which I did notice right away, it kind of just makes these WCR pickups really sing, and give it that rich harmonic breakup as the sustain starts to end.

Dallas

 

[moltenmetalburn]

you might like to try this:

Altering Pickup Characteristics



Change the external load. This method is inexpensive but can be very effective. With only a little expense for electronic components, the sound can be shaped within wide limits. Standard tone controls lower the resonant frequency by connecting a capacitor in parallel with the pickup (usually through a variable resistor to give some control over how much the capacitor affects the pickup). Therefore, one way to change the sound is to replace the standard tone control potentiometer with a rotary switch that connects different capacitors across the pickup (a recommended range is 470 pF to 10 nF). This will give you much more sound variation than a standard tone control (Fig. 8).

SO basically get a rotary switch that can handle 6 capacitors, put it where a tone pot used to be, connect the common tabs on the rotary across the positive and ground.

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Those are really useful charts man, where did you find those???