I recently resurrected an old ?80?s style strat-type guitar, refinished it, replaced old parts, etc. One major change I made was replacing the 0.022?F with one of these:
http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/item.a ... id=5162030
All of a sudden my tone control works like never before so I?m considering replacing all the tone control caps in my guitar with these. Question is, has anyone tried them in a build?
Or has anyone tried these? http://www.tubedepot.com/cp-ho-022-1000v.html
They?re a bit pricey but it?s only for one build. Just curious?
-Steve
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AUTO AVIO COSTRUZIONI 815
Signal capacitor choices
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Signal capacitor choices
Last edited by stink on Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Signal capacitor choices
I have the Hovland in a couple guitars.
Seemed to make the tone control much more controllable and the roll off is real smooth.
These Jupiter film and foil caps are supposed to sound great as couplers.
[img:300:300]http://www.specialtyguitars.com/mm5/gra ... 210-lg.jpg[/img]
http://www.specialtyguitars.com/p/07-20210.html
Also available in Beeswax-Paper and Foil for old school.
[img:300:300]http://www.specialtyguitars.com/mm5/gra ... 211-lg.jpg[/img]
http://www.specialtyguitars.com/electronics/caps.html
Seemed to make the tone control much more controllable and the roll off is real smooth.
These Jupiter film and foil caps are supposed to sound great as couplers.
[img:300:300]http://www.specialtyguitars.com/mm5/gra ... 210-lg.jpg[/img]
http://www.specialtyguitars.com/p/07-20210.html
Also available in Beeswax-Paper and Foil for old school.
[img:300:300]http://www.specialtyguitars.com/mm5/gra ... 211-lg.jpg[/img]
http://www.specialtyguitars.com/electronics/caps.html
Tom
Don't let that smoke out!
Don't let that smoke out!
Re: Signal capacitor choices
Yes, I used them in 2 of my LPs and my BFSR amp in one stage - the coupling cap leaving V2, the reverb channel. I did about 7 LPs total, BTW, five for friends. I think there is something to them and my friends would agree but I also did all the vintage correct hardware changes, as well, aluminum tailpiecs, ABR-1 bridge, and 500K volume pots and Classic 57 pickups for most of them. So, the gtrs were so different when I got done it might be hard to isolate how much the caps improved things.
In the gtrs, one thing that noticably changed things, way more than the tone caps, was the 500pf cap across the volume pots - this was a KF value and I had always run a higher value. This alone was probably the single biggest difference on all the gtrs, FWIW. Do you run with this? I do this with my Strats, too. There's a soundclip on the post 'Hammond 1650G OT' using one of my TW amps. At the very end of it I pot down to 6-7. That cap is very noticable compared to not using one at all.
In the gtrs, one thing that noticably changed things, way more than the tone caps, was the 500pf cap across the volume pots - this was a KF value and I had always run a higher value. This alone was probably the single biggest difference on all the gtrs, FWIW. Do you run with this? I do this with my Strats, too. There's a soundclip on the post 'Hammond 1650G OT' using one of my TW amps. At the very end of it I pot down to 6-7. That cap is very noticable compared to not using one at all.
Most people stall out when fixing a mistake that they've made. Why?
Re: Signal capacitor choices
Those beeswax caps look totaly "military" - $27 though!!! - what the hell, I'll try a couple. The mojo caps were used because my old guitar had old Sprague oil-filled ones and I kinda wanted to keep it the same. I must say, I'll be giving these Jupiter caps a try.... I just need a handfull.
I've never truly played a guitar that had a real "working" tone control before. Quite a nice experience.
Have you tried them in an amp?
-Steve
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I've never truly played a guitar that had a real "working" tone control before. Quite a nice experience.
Have you tried them in an amp?
-Steve
________
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Last edited by stink on Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Signal capacitor choices
Did you use the Jupiter mustards or the beeswax version? You also replace the other cap over the pot as well with 500pf? I'm just amazed how much of a sonic difference this made. The gtr is now warmer/sweeter and the high end "bite" (for lack of a better word) has vanished.rooster wrote:Yes, I used them in 2 of my LPs and my BFSR amp in one stage - the coupling cap leaving V2, the reverb channel. I did about 7 LPs total, BTW, five for friends. I think there is something to them and my friends would agree but I also did all the vintage correct hardware changes, as well, aluminum tailpiecs, ABR-1 bridge, and 500K volume pots and Classic 57 pickups for most of them. So, the gtrs were so different when I got done it might be hard to isolate how much the caps improved things.
In the gtrs, one thing that noticably changed things, way more than the tone caps, was the 500pf cap across the volume pots - this was a KF value and I had always run a higher value. This alone was probably the single biggest difference on all the gtrs, FWIW. Do you run with this? I do this with my Strats, too. There's a soundclip on the post 'Hammond 1650G OT' using one of my TW amps. At the very end of it I pot down to 6-7. That cap is very noticable compared to not using one at all.
Thanks for the tip,
-Steve
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How to roll a joint
Last edited by stink on Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Signal capacitor choices
Woah, lot of things. I used the mojotone metal body caps in the LPs and my BFSR. I have used the Jupitor Tone yellow caps in my tweed Super and a couple of Strats (.022). Eh, they sound OK. (Those metal body Mojotones conduct to ground so you have to isolate or heat shrink them in the LPs, BTW.)
Yeah, in regard to the 500pf cap, silver mica, and just across the two 'open' lugs of the volume pot, nothing to do with the lug going to ground. Righto?
Yeah, in regard to the 500pf cap, silver mica, and just across the two 'open' lugs of the volume pot, nothing to do with the lug going to ground. Righto?
Most people stall out when fixing a mistake that they've made. Why?
Re: Signal capacitor choices
Thanks for the tip Rooster... I'll try that out this weekend. Again, I'm just amazed at the difference.rooster wrote:Woah, lot of things. I used the mojotone metal body caps in the LPs and my BFSR. I have used the Jupitor Tone yellow caps in my tweed Super and a couple of Strats (.022). Eh, they sound OK. (Those metal body Mojotones conduct to ground so you have to isolate or heat shrink them in the LPs, BTW.)
Yeah, in regard to the 500pf cap, silver mica, and just across the two 'open' lugs of the volume pot, nothing to do with the lug going to ground. Righto?
-Steve
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Last edited by stink on Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Signal capacitor choices
rooster wrote:Woah, lot of things. I used the mojotone metal body caps in the LPs and my BFSR. I have used the Jupitor Tone yellow caps in my tweed Super and a couple of Strats (.022). Eh, they sound OK. (Those metal body Mojotones conduct to ground so you have to isolate or heat shrink them in the LPs, BTW.)
Yeah, in regard to the 500pf cap, silver mica, and just across the two 'open' lugs of the volume pot, nothing to do with the lug going to ground. Righto?
Rooster is the 500pf cap like a treble bleed cap?
Just curious,on some guitars I use treble bleed cap/resistor.
Thanks Steve
Re: Signal capacitor choices
Yes, treble bleed cap is the proper name. The value I had read from sources dating about 1972 onwards, was always .001uf. I have seen resistive/capacitance 'networks' built around this value going back to about 1995 in VG mag - but still using the .001uf cap in combination with the other parts.
.........And then I found this article in on the net that has interviews with KF. In one of them he talks about this and how he used this treble bleed cap on his gtrs..........However, in the ariticle he mocks the use of .001uf (1000pf). He says that this value (.001uf, 1000pf - the same thing, righto?) is totally wrong and wrecks the gtr tone on turn down. ??? He then says he prefers a value somewhere between 100pf and 500pf, with 500pf being the highest value. Hmm. So I thought this is weird, does he know something? So I tried the 500pf cap and found that it actually WAS better! So then I swapped everything out for this.
I suppose I could treat every gtr as special and find the magic value for each one, but, hey, I had been using .001 for a number of years - 500pf was quite a change, I just went with it.
So I hope this answers your question. In this case, I think less - 500pf - is better than more - 1000pf. Thank you Ken!
BTW, he also talks about the tone caps as well, the .02s? Eh, he gets into it pretty deep by suggesting that you need to clip the cap into the circuit - and then reverse it (hence the aligator clips) to see if it doesn't actually sound better. ??? OK, he may have a point, but with the caps I was using, the mojotone type, I honestly could hear no difference. Disappointing actually, because KF seemed so sincere about this. Eh? Maybe you will have better luck. ...........OK?
.........And then I found this article in on the net that has interviews with KF. In one of them he talks about this and how he used this treble bleed cap on his gtrs..........However, in the ariticle he mocks the use of .001uf (1000pf). He says that this value (.001uf, 1000pf - the same thing, righto?) is totally wrong and wrecks the gtr tone on turn down. ??? He then says he prefers a value somewhere between 100pf and 500pf, with 500pf being the highest value. Hmm. So I thought this is weird, does he know something? So I tried the 500pf cap and found that it actually WAS better! So then I swapped everything out for this.
I suppose I could treat every gtr as special and find the magic value for each one, but, hey, I had been using .001 for a number of years - 500pf was quite a change, I just went with it.
So I hope this answers your question. In this case, I think less - 500pf - is better than more - 1000pf. Thank you Ken!
BTW, he also talks about the tone caps as well, the .02s? Eh, he gets into it pretty deep by suggesting that you need to clip the cap into the circuit - and then reverse it (hence the aligator clips) to see if it doesn't actually sound better. ??? OK, he may have a point, but with the caps I was using, the mojotone type, I honestly could hear no difference. Disappointing actually, because KF seemed so sincere about this. Eh? Maybe you will have better luck. ...........OK?
Most people stall out when fixing a mistake that they've made. Why?
Re: Signal capacitor choices
the reason, in my world anyway (lol, my world is special) the reason for reversing the cap is because of the way it is constructed. With foil caps such as mallory 150's, Sozo, mustards, etc. is that one of the leads goes to the outside foil. This lead, in any circuit, should go to the lower impedance side. So, for a tone control in a guitar you would want the outer foil to be the side going to ground. This helps reduce picking up stray noise, hum, etc.
Some caps are marked as to which end is the outer foil end with a band.
As for the treble bleed cap, it also depends on the value of the pot. I don't use treble bleed caps any more but when I did, I liked the .001 (yes that is 1000pf) for a 250k pot. It is way too much for a 500k or 1 meg pot. Scale it proportionally and you wind up with a 250p for a 1 meg pot.
The results also vary a lot with the type of pickup being used and the style of music. A 250k pot with a .001 bleed cap worked great on a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails. Roll off the volume and it became really crisp for a nice crunchy rock rhythm. With lower output single coils, however, it was a bit too much.
I think it is a case where you need to find the right value for each guitar. Different pickups and pots contribute a lot to the overall response from that cap.
Another thing I would do is wire the treble bleed cap onto the tone control so that not only was the tone control a tone control, but also it served to roll off the treble bleed cap. From 0 to about 7 on the tone control was "Tone" and 7 to 10 was the bleed control.
My $.02, adjusted for inflation.
Some caps are marked as to which end is the outer foil end with a band.
As for the treble bleed cap, it also depends on the value of the pot. I don't use treble bleed caps any more but when I did, I liked the .001 (yes that is 1000pf) for a 250k pot. It is way too much for a 500k or 1 meg pot. Scale it proportionally and you wind up with a 250p for a 1 meg pot.
The results also vary a lot with the type of pickup being used and the style of music. A 250k pot with a .001 bleed cap worked great on a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails. Roll off the volume and it became really crisp for a nice crunchy rock rhythm. With lower output single coils, however, it was a bit too much.
I think it is a case where you need to find the right value for each guitar. Different pickups and pots contribute a lot to the overall response from that cap.
Another thing I would do is wire the treble bleed cap onto the tone control so that not only was the tone control a tone control, but also it served to roll off the treble bleed cap. From 0 to about 7 on the tone control was "Tone" and 7 to 10 was the bleed control.
My $.02, adjusted for inflation.
Re: Signal capacitor choices
this is what I mean for the treble bleed control:
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Re: Signal capacitor choices
Yeah, I tried a 1000pf years ago and just never looked back.
This is on ~250K pots.
I should try some other values and hear the difference.
I also parallel a 150K resistor on the cap in most cases as well.
This is on ~250K pots.
I should try some other values and hear the difference.
I also parallel a 150K resistor on the cap in most cases as well.
Tom
Don't let that smoke out!
Don't let that smoke out!
Re: Signal capacitor choices
I put in a .022uF oil in my LP Jr with a Fralin P-90 and holy batshit batman what a differnce. Not only with the tone contol but the overall tone was much spankier and alive. I figured at 10 the tone control is 300K (in this guitar) with a .022uF parallel to ground, it has to affect the sound.
Re: Signal capacitor choices
Jana - Interesting suggestion with the .001 attached to the tone pot, BTW. Where did you learn of this? Yeah, I have run with the .001s for so long maybe I am just tired of them? Well, other suggestions aside, the 500pf is pretty cool on all my gtrs to my ear.
And as I understand the treble cap bleed theory, the smaller the value cap, the higher the frequency that passes. So this means that I must like a little more 'sparkle' than what I had when I pot down. And I do. I think the pf value shifting with the pot value is not really something that interests me. Right or wrong, if 500pf is passing everything above 4.5K, and .001 is passing everything above 3.5K, I want less midrange and more sparkle - which means I like what 500pf does better than the .001.
If it is a humbucker with a 500K pot, what I want is for freqs above 4.5K to remain in the signal as I pot down. Granted, with the perfect bleed cap paired to the particular pickup, the pickup might sound more typical for its type. But this is not my game. I just want a little bit of 'cut' to the pickup as I turn it down. If that 'cut' frequency is static for all my gtrs, fine, I'll deal.
As to the cap direction, this really wasn't where KF was going. I mean it could well be that a particular brand of cap is banded to ground, but it wasn't his point that the end of the foil should go to ground - or to the hot side - at all. It was that you try it both ways to see if you could hear a better reaction to the cap as you used it. ?? And it was also stressed by KF that you try many different brands because he thought some had it going on while others did not. OK? So not a directional thing per se, but a magic voodoo thing that might exist given the right cap and pickup combination.
FWIW, C Diaz, SRVs amp tech, once claimed that he measured old black beauty caps in old LPs and found that they drifted low. He measured them at .015, not the marked .022. He maintained that THIS was a huge tone ingredient. ......So maybe KF was running into caps that were low in ufs? (I have run this way, too, in the past, and I think there is something to be said for the .015uf value.)
OK, out of breath...
And as I understand the treble cap bleed theory, the smaller the value cap, the higher the frequency that passes. So this means that I must like a little more 'sparkle' than what I had when I pot down. And I do. I think the pf value shifting with the pot value is not really something that interests me. Right or wrong, if 500pf is passing everything above 4.5K, and .001 is passing everything above 3.5K, I want less midrange and more sparkle - which means I like what 500pf does better than the .001.
If it is a humbucker with a 500K pot, what I want is for freqs above 4.5K to remain in the signal as I pot down. Granted, with the perfect bleed cap paired to the particular pickup, the pickup might sound more typical for its type. But this is not my game. I just want a little bit of 'cut' to the pickup as I turn it down. If that 'cut' frequency is static for all my gtrs, fine, I'll deal.
As to the cap direction, this really wasn't where KF was going. I mean it could well be that a particular brand of cap is banded to ground, but it wasn't his point that the end of the foil should go to ground - or to the hot side - at all. It was that you try it both ways to see if you could hear a better reaction to the cap as you used it. ?? And it was also stressed by KF that you try many different brands because he thought some had it going on while others did not. OK? So not a directional thing per se, but a magic voodoo thing that might exist given the right cap and pickup combination.
FWIW, C Diaz, SRVs amp tech, once claimed that he measured old black beauty caps in old LPs and found that they drifted low. He measured them at .015, not the marked .022. He maintained that THIS was a huge tone ingredient. ......So maybe KF was running into caps that were low in ufs? (I have run this way, too, in the past, and I think there is something to be said for the .015uf value.)
OK, out of breath...
Most people stall out when fixing a mistake that they've made. Why?
Re: Signal capacitor choices
I came up with that on my own about 15 years ago. Not saying I invented it, but I didn't read about it anywhere. I was experimenting with the bleed cap and sometimes liking it, sometimes not. Looking at that unused terminal on the tone pot really bugged me. So, what if... And there it was. I suppose it's like the people who build a twreck and get obsessed over that unused half of the triode, it has to be used for something! I suppose that is one reason why I have never built a wreck, I could never leave that triode unused. LOL....with the .001 attached to the tone pot, BTW. Where did you learn of this?
Supposedly Clapton liked the .015uf tone cap value.
.015 is a nice value for a tone cap.
True, but not quite that simple. The value of the resistor also plays an important role. The treble bleed cap can be thought of as a capacitor and resistor in parallel. It is a high pass filter. If, for example, the pot is turned so that there is 100k on the top side and 150K on the side to ground (250K pot) then you have the pickup feeding a parallel network of a 100k resistor and .001uf cap (bleed cap) with a load to ground of 150k. A .001 uf cap in parallel with a 100k resistor will not give the same response as a .001 in parallel with a 400K resistor (which is what it would be if the 250k pot was changed to a 1 meg pot and it was adjusted to the same position).... as I understand the treble cap bleed theory, the smaller the value cap, the higher the frequency that passes.