Tone caps of different materials in a guitar = different tones?

[Mike Sulzer]

Afterthought: Some kinds of ceramic capacitor show a large voltage coefficient of capacitance, so I suppose some kinds of ceramin capacitor can be detected by ear, in a sufficiently controlled lab experiment. What isn't clear if one can detect this effect outside the lab.

I doubt that a guitar pickup puts out enough voltage to alter the capacitance much. If you are willing to put a large voltage across a ceramic you can produce significant distortion as well as capacitor changes, but not with a guitar pickup.

[freefrog]

Never a "Duh!" Moment around here...

Eh eh eh... Although English is not my mother tongue, you don't imagine how I agree with this sentence! :-))

My "duh" moment is still to come: in a few months, I'll have to "realize" if it's meaningful to share online several years of work done here about tone caps with lab gear (and not only by me as a hobbyist).

Duh?

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
The scientific answer would probably be no, however we do not want to cloud the discussion with to many facts as it usually fails to move this issue one way or the other in the VERY FEW times it has been discussed.

[DrStrangelove]

Freefrog,

I'ma get Moderator on your ass and close this thread.

Edit:

g-one very sensibly suggested that this thread be moved to the Guitar Tech forum instead of being locked or sandbagged into the Parking Lot without preamble.

I note that guitar tone capacitors aren't just a contentious old topic, but a contentious old been-there-done-that-got-the-Tshirt-went-to-the-reunion-and-got-shitfaced-puking-on-my-shoes-drunk topic.

Kinda lost my taste for silly scuffles.

You kids git offa da lawn!

[Lyrebird Steve]

Check this series of vids on this exact topic.

[Silvertone Jockey]

Check this series of vids on this exact topic.
[video=youtube_[/video]

To my ears the caps that stood out were the Mallory, the CDE 'yellow cylinder' and the mustard cap. I think that the CDE might have a small edge in leading the pack

[freefrog]

Edit:

g-one very sensibly suggested that this thread be moved to the Guitar Tech forum instead of being locked or sandbagged into the Parking Lot without preamble.

I note that guitar tone capacitors aren't just a contentious old topic, but a contentious old been-there-done-that-got-the-Tshirt-went-to-the-reunion-and-got-shitfaced-puking-on-my-shoes-drunk topic.

Kinda lost my taste for silly scuffles.

You kids git offa da lawn!

THANKS to g-one and to you for this idea and decision!

I totally understand how and why it's a beaten-horse-to-the-point-to-be-disgusting.

Nevertheless, silly scuffles were and are still not my goal.

All my peaceful gratitude to those who accept(ed) to contribute, especially if they find this topic stupidly naive. :-))

Check this series of vids on this exact topic.

Thx! I've often watched these vids. A few others are interesting to watch, like those:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJq7YBJrhCU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UeCheIPXsg

David Collins also did an impressive work in several topics and vids (on MLP and Youtube respectively). He came to the expected conclusion that dielectric materials make no difference in guitar tone circuits.

He has also underlined the influence of psycho-acoustic influences: if a listener knows that a cap has been changed, he will "hear" a difference...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=817JHiYV_Po


According to some other experiments here, some other factors might interfere.

More later (if the dual "work in progress" mentioned in my first post reaches its end as desired), with a problem to solve in the meantime: how to make some unexpected results reproductible, knowing that physical idiosyncrasies appear to be a major factor?

Nothing important. Just an intellectual challenge, at least for a hobbyist like me - especially when I have to understand and to translate with my limited knowledge the explanations of real engineers :-/

I'll tend now to post less often, because I've to work AND because I don't want to cloud my own topic with personal thoughts.

[Mark Hammer]

I look at it through the following lens:

1) The properties and materials of caps may be of more relevance when they are in series with the signal path, as opposed to simply bleeding off high end to ground.

2) The properties and materials of caps may be of more relevance when passing multi-source signals with wide bandwidth. Guitar is a single source, with fairly restricted bandwidth.

3) What is relevant in hi-fi and sound production can often be of much less relevance when amplifying a guitar.

[tedmich]

what about Neutrik TimbrePLUGs?

only $25!

Easier than this

or this

[freefrog]

what about Neutrik TimbrePLUGs?

Hey, I've (home) made the same kind of thing with a roto-switch at the end of the cable going to my pedalboard for stage ! Each "step" brings the capacitive equivalent of an added lenght of cable thx to styroflex caps...

There's a world to explore in "cable capacitance emulation", "coily cords modeling" and so on. Thx for the link!

FWIW, the question asked in this poll was not related to any "advice": I don't recommend any cap (my own personal guitars are all fitted with different ones... when they have a tone pot). I'm just intrigued by the "paradox" of these capacitors-supposed-to-sound-the-same-while-so-many-musicians-say-the-contrary. That's why I've started experiments then involved other persons in the question.

[Leo_Gnardo]

I look at it through the following lens:

1) The properties and materials of caps may be of more relevance when they are in series with the signal path, as opposed to simply bleeding off high end to ground.

2) The properties and materials of caps may be of more relevance when passing multi-source signals with wide bandwidth. Guitar is a single source, with fairly restricted bandwidth.

3) What is relevant in hi-fi and sound production can often be of much less relevance when amplifying a guitar.

My thoughts 'zackly Mark. In a guitar tone control, you're "throwing away" high frequencies by dumping them to ground thru the tone capacitor. So it's a "garbage can". What it's made of, platinum, steel, cardboard, doesn't matter so much. Just capacity. Very entertaining that Gibson offers a pair of new fake bumble bees for $130 when a pair of low voltage ceramic discs do the job just fine for 1/200 the price, or even less. However cheap discs do sometimes act microphonic and personally I avoid them. Who needs some pockety-pock noises going on, unless that's what I intend, then I'll play it.

There's something to be said for the pickup inductance reacting with the tone capacitor, involving the cap's "Q", that may have some relevance to tone shaping. If I'm not mistook the width of the resonance peak would be affected by Q. A narrower peak might sound more "wah wah" like, a broad peak not so much, if that's what a player is looking for. In this case it does depend on the guitar (pickup) and the ability of the player/engineer/producer/audience to hear it - so I'll check off the third option.

[Mark Hammer]

I find it interesting that things like the Tone-Styler ( Stellartone - ToneStyler <I>GUITAR</I> ) have become popular for the way in which they can alter the pickup's voice, yet they use teeny SMD caps, and nobody EVER does "shootouts" of SMD tone caps, or compares SMD to thru-hole types.

[rjb]

I open a poll because it will avoid these long polemical and sterile discussions that this theme always feeds…

I'm also interested in the cultural / psychological / sociological factors involved when it comes to this (futile) question...

it's a way to collect infos about the most current opinion of people who are specialized in guitar tones

I've purposedly asked a "risky" beaten-to-death question in order to evaluate the "ambiance" (the collective mood)...

What I'm wondering is...

Is this really a poll, or is it a cultural / psychological / sociological study of the reaction of knowledgeable people when they are presented with simple-minded polls designed more for ease of tabulation than for gathering of useful information?

If you were to get every forum member to answer this one-question poll, but did not read the related discussion, you would not be one step closer to understanding the forum's "collective mood".

IMHO, instead of "Yes", "No" and "Maybe", the answers to polls of this ilk should be "Yes", "No" and "Let me explain:"

So far, those who have replied have either poked fun or chosen the "Let me explain" option.

Please rate your emotional response to this post from 1 to 10.

[Jazz P Bass]

I find it interesting that things like the Tone-Styler ( Stellartone - ToneStyler <I>GUITAR</I> ) have become popular for the way in which they can alter the pickup's voice, yet they use teeny SMD caps, and nobody EVER does "shootouts" of SMD tone caps, or compares SMD to thru-hole types.

Maybe that is because of the fact that manufacturers, in all their highly esteemed glory, do not 'mark' smd capacitors with the value.
How stupid is that?

Hmm. Then again, now that the component has to be measured, that little anomaly is no longer part of the equation.

[freefrog]

What I'm wondering is...

Is this really a poll, or is it a cultural / psychological / sociological study of the reaction of knowledgeable people when they are presented with simple-minded polls designed more for ease of tabulation than for gathering of useful information?

The goal of this topic is explained in its first post. It's certainly not a way to treat other people as idiots whatever is suggested by a metonymic shift between simple choices and simple mind (the YES / NO alternative being rooted in aristotelician logic).

The result of the enquiry will be useful whatever happens in this thread.

And I'll avoid any "emotional response" tending to filter the "tone" of my posts as an "impulse response" would do. ;-)