Tone caps ?

[gtrplayr1976]

How do the tone caps affect the sound ? What I really want to know is which way the tone goes say ..from a .022 -.047 ?

Thanks Folks !

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

There are graphs that display this nicely, though I don't have any on hand. The value of the capacitor will change where the sound starts to roll off. A high value will roll off frequencies starting at a lower frequency, and sound "darker". This is true when the capacitors are wired to ground (as in a tone control circuit). The tone pot serves as resistance to this circuit controlling how much this effect is introduced to the overall sound.

The short answer is the higher the value, the darker the tone, but that is a touch of an over simplification. They have a habit of revoicing the overall sound of the pickups slightly which is good to some, annoying to others. If you're going to experiment, I'd suggest having a .033 uf capacitor in the mix, too. If you order only from guitar supply companies they can sometimes be hard to find, but I really like their sound.

As for the matter of capacitor material type, I won't go there. I could, but there is enough mud slinging on this board as it is.

[gtrplayr1976]

Thanks Funky, I will experiment with different values, and materials. I just recently put PIO caps in one of my Les Pauls ,and rewired it 50s style ,and I love it. I haven't tried poly yet. This will be for a set of P90s in an old Melody Maker.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

gtrplayr..... if you haven't tried soldering on leads with alligator clips to try stuff, I highly recommend it! I'm in the process of trying all sorts of capacitors right now, really just for my own curiosity, and it has been a lot of fun.

Poly what? There is polypropylene film (Sprague Orange Drops), polyester film (the other orange drop that no one seems to use), metalized polyester (mallory 150 series) and a few others. I really like the mallories... and I get them for less than $.50 each! They don't have the high end timbre of the PIO, but they seem to hold together better as I roll down. They feel more useful on tone settings other than 10. The sprague 715Ps I'm sure are great in amps, but in guitars I think they are a touch overrated. EE guys really like the polypropylene film for their relative efficiency per dollar spent. I'm waiting on some way over priced ptfe film capacitors that are used in high end audio. I'm already regretting shelling out the money, but it is one of those things that I just have to know. It is almost like an addiction.

I haven't experimented with the whole "50s style" thing, though I'll probably play around with that tomorrow. What are your thoughts on that?

[Mark Hammer]

Caps serve as a low-impedance path for higher frequency content. What "higher" consists of depends on the value of the cap. the smaller the value, the higher up "higher" begins.

Note that NO cap will function like a brick wall. That is, the bleed-off of higher-frequency content is graded in that there is some, at the point where the bleedoff starts, but more the higher up you go.

The Tonepot functions like the spigot of a leaky faucet. If you shut it off, there may still be a drip (which is why some folks like "no load" tone pots that completely eliminate any connection when turned all the way up), but as you turn it on, the amount of water leaking out increases.

I usually try to make a case for using different value tone caps for neck and bridge pickups. very few people ever want to use their tone control to make a bridge pickup sound dark and mute. They DO, however, like to be able to "round off" the sound of a bridge pickup, sometimes because it improves the sound when plugged into an overdrive pedal or overdriven amp. What I recommend is to use a cap for the bridge tone control that is around half the value of whatever is used for the neck. So, if you like .022 for the neck, go with .01-.012 for the bridge, and so on. That will help to tailor each tone control for the purpose of the the pickup it is assigned to.

[gtrplayr1976]

Cool. Thanks Mark

[gtrplayr1976]

gtrplayr..... if you haven't tried soldering on leads with alligator clips to try stuff, I highly recommend it! I'm in the process of trying all sorts of capacitors right now, really just for my own curiosity, and it has been a lot of fun.

Poly what? There is polypropylene film (Sprague Orange Drops), polyester film (the other orange drop that no one seems to use), metalized polyester (mallory 150 series) and a few others. I really like the mallories... and I get them for less than $.50 each! They don't have the high end timbre of the PIO, but they seem to hold together better as I roll down. They feel more useful on tone settings other than 10. The sprague 715Ps I'm sure are great in amps, but in guitars I think they are a touch overrated. EE guys really like the polypropylene film for their relative efficiency per dollar spent. I'm waiting on some way over priced ptfe film capacitors that are used in high end audio. I'm already regretting shelling out the money, but it is one of those things that I just have to know. It is almost like an addiction.

I haven't experimented with the whole "50s style" thing, though I'll probably play around with that tomorrow. What are your thoughts on that?

Orange drops are what I was referring to . The PIO are the first I have experimented with...so far. I like the idea of the clips too. To me ...my Les Paul sounds smoother ,and warmer than it did....more tone variations with the pots .

[pdf64]

My R8 LP came with '50s wiring', 250k vols and 500k tones, both audio taper; basically, the tone controls hang off the vol pot wiper, rather than being across the pickup.
The effect of the tone control is different according to the vol control setting; much less effective as the vol is turned down.
This means that if the tone is set halfway, at low vol the sound is still quite bright, then as the vol is rolled up the tone gets fatter, which is very handy. Totally opposite to the normal thing with 500k vol contols, where the tone loses bite at low vol settings, but gets too toppy at full volume. But by the same token, it's very difficult to get a consistant 'soft' tone over the range of the vol control - muted soft tones at low volume settings aren't really possible, at least to the same degree as a full volume.
So I'm undecided at the moment.

Orange drops can be polyester film or polypropylene film, according to the series type (225 or 715 / 716).

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

So, it seems 50s wiring is running the tone from the wiper lug instead of the side lug and putting the capacitor before the tone pot. On the first part, that makes sense to me. It means that less signal is available to pass through the cap when you turn down the volume, making it incredibly useful for people who roll back their volume controls. When you lower the volume, you are unintentionally raising the tone control beyond 10 in a way. At full volume it would make no difference.

On the second part, I'm not so sure. I'd love to experiment some day, but haven't gotten around to it. Basically you can wire a tone control so that the signal path is capacitor -> resistor (pot) -> ground - or - resistor -> capacitor -> ground. I always do the second one because I want wires between pots instead of capacitors. That way if a pot starts spinning and a player procrastinates on tightening it back down, there is much less chance for breakage. I'm not sure if there would be any sound difference on that part, though. Has anyone tried this?

pdf64... what you say about the Orange Drops seems right. Mouser for example calls any of the Vishay/Sprague film capacitors "Orange Drops".... but as far as I know, when people in the music world talk about Orange Drops they are exclusively talking about the 715P? Or are the 225s worth looking at?