the tone cap myth...

[Possum]

I've been working on this new PAF sets for months now and got really close to where I want to be, but something was just "wrong" I couldn't put my finger on, very frustrating. They would sound good in my Vibrolux then in the Victoria they would kind of lose something, kind of darkish scrambled treble or something weird.

I thought I had rewired this guitar, and opening the control cavity discovered I had changed the pots and nothing else, the original green little ceramic caps were still there. So I made a note to change those but didn't think it would do much, never convinced that caps made much difference.

I have some caps I got from singlecoil.com, I had used them in my other test LP but replaced them with some real NOS "bumblebee" caps I did a trade for, I didn't hear any change in tone when I swapped in the bees for the singlecoil.com ones so forgot about it. I had an extra set so I swapped them into this test guitar for the green .047's. the singlecoil.com's are .022uf. HOLY MACKEREL, what a difference. The pickups brightened up, and became way more "musical." The bridge got brighter, the neck more articulate, the middle tone got really sweet like this PAF should be! Anyway, if anyone tells me caps don't make any audible difference now I know for sure they DO. I think its probably more than just the value change, the ceramic caps just didn't have this "musical" quality to them, they are in the garbage can now, repenting their sins :-) As for the singlecoil.com ones, they sound exactly like real NOS bumblebees, swapping them for the real thing made no difference whatsoever in tone....cool.

[belwar]

I flirted with different caps and found that the ones made by LUXE are phenominal. I think a good Paper-in-oil cap is an important part of the tone, but it is just a *part* of the equation. Luxes caps are vintage russian PIO caps with an epoxy bumblebee or greytiger shell overtop.

They sound killer though and WAAYY cheaper than the vintage clone ones. Plus the owner Donovan is a great guy to deal with .. Though his payment terms are a little wierd.

b.

[Possum]

....

I had a tech tell me that most of the vintage LP's he worked on the pots were all over spec on the ones that sounded best, 550K-600K. I used Alpha pots from StewMac in this guitar and there were some around 550K in the batch I ordered, I used the higher ones in the neck and lower in the bridge. One of my customers also likes the Luxe caps too. Probably cheaper to buy the Russian caps without the fake shell, I see alot of them on Ebay but not sure which ones are good...

[JGundry]

I have the Russian PIO caps in my pickup test guitar. They are good but I do think they give the guitar a bit of a darker tone and feel. If you are not going to do PIO caps Mallory M-150 Mylar caps sound very good and are not as dark toned as the Russian caps.

[Possum]

...

Well heck, maybe I'll stick with these:
http://www.singlecoil.com/shop.html
scroll down to the "workalike" caps and read the info, they are five bucks apiece and aren't old stock they are currently being made but they sand off the identifying information so you can't tell the manufacturer. As I said I couldn't tell the difference between them and good NOS bumblebees.

[essemfraise]

They really look like the Wima class X RFI caps
http://www.wima.com/EN/mp3ry2.htm

[Steve A.]

Well heck, maybe I'll stick with these:
http://www.singlecoil.com/shop.html
scroll down to the "workalike" caps and read the info, they are five bucks apiece and aren't old stock they are currently being made but they sand off the identifying information so you can't tell the manufacturer. As I said I couldn't tell the difference between them and good NOS bumblebees.

Thanks for the tip! BTW those "little greenies" are pure crap- you are talking about those little green mylar ones that they sell at the local electronics parts houses- right? I stopped using them in guitar amps because they sounded terrible.

So is there a source for these "workalike" caps in the US? Do you have to pay customs for a ~$50 shipment?

Steve Ahola

P.S. I have heard good things about the Hoviland Musicaps (.033uF for a tele) but I suspect that the BumbleBee copies would be better with humbuckers.

[TD_Madden]

Possum,

I've always used .047 caps in my humbucking guitar (although my Guild Bluesbird wiring diagram shows the .022 in use.)

The .022 would "open-up" the highs more and I'm guessing that is contributing to he "airier" sound.

So, the question is: is it a cap-construction difference or a value difference?

[Joe Gwinn]

They really look like the Wima class X RFI caps
http://www.wima.com/EN/mp3ry2.htm

Bingo! It's even the same product photo, only cropped more tightly, and with the markings photoshopped into oblivion. Compare the reflections in the tabletop.

Metallized paper AC capacitors are quite common. Mouser has the Evox Rifa equivalent, for about $1.00 each.


For those with an Extech LCR meter, one can tell many capacitor types apart by setting the meter to capacitance (at 1 KHz) and looking at the "d" (dissipation) value. The higher the number, the greater the likely coloration. In larger-valued capacitors, the 120 Hz dissipation may also give useful information. In rough order:

Electrolytics are simply terrible.

Ceramic disc capacitors are pretty high, and the high-value ones are inherently microphonic. What saves ceramic disk capacitors in guitars is that the disks are small and have very high resonant frequencies is that pickup microphonics usually dominate.

Paper capacitors (including dry paper, epoxy paper and oiled paper) have the highest dissipation of film capacitors.

Polyester (mylar) is lower.

Mica is even lower. (Exact rank depends on frequency.)

Polypropylene and polystyrene are the lowest, and these caps are cheap and available.


One can make some very pointed tests by wiring up a test guitar with two or three kinds of capacitor of the same capacitance value (matched using the Extech), with a selector switch, and have at it.

[Possum]

where to order?

OK, on their website it says Mouse is a distributor, any idea what part number it would be for .022uf if they even have these?

[Possum]

oops

Mouser is listed as a distributor not mouse....

[David Schwab]

Bingo! It's even the same product photo, only cropped more tightly, and with the markings photoshopped into oblivion. Compare the reflections in the tabletop.

Metallized paper AC capacitors are quite common. Mouser has the Evox Rifa equivalent, for about $1.00 each.

Well that's good to know!

Polyester (mylar) is lower.

Mica is even lower. (Exact rank depends on frequency.)

Polypropylene and polystyrene are the lowest, and these caps are cheap and available.

I have a .02 mylar cap in my Tele... One of the little green ones from Radio Shack. It actually sounds really good in this guitar. It has a very usable range, and gets a great fixed wah tone when the control on zero.

[GlennW]

IME (little) anything larger than a .022uF will just about ruin the sound of HB's and P-90s; 250K pots can make them sound funny too. The next time I order caps I might try a .01 on a neck P-90 to see if it'll brighten it a bit.

Here's a good place to get OD's and Mallory 150s.
http://www.mouser.com/catalog/629/666.pdf

[Edward R]

I like to wire up most of my tone controls will caps all the way down to .0047uf or .0033uf. I think this give me a wider range of control, instead of going pretty much straight to the darker sound at about 8 on the dial.

I like to wire up my tele's like a broadcaster, so for the cap on that I also use the low value .0047uf cap, which helps give me a MUCH more usable neck/cap tone, instead of very dark and muffled I find with .047uf or such.

But that is just me!

ER

[Steve A.]

They really look like the Wima class X RFI caps
http://www.wima.com/EN/mp3ry2.htm

From the singlecoil.com website:

"So again and because sometimes people read what they want to read: Our tone caps are new caps that are currently in production and NOT old original, worn out Bumblebee caps from the 50´s. Our workalike caps DON`T have the tubular shape like the old Bumblebees, they have the typical modern rectangular shape with short legs (see the pic above). It doesn´t make any sense to open the caps to see what´s underneath, we use a standard industrial case from the WIMA company to seal our caps, so there is no chance to see the inside of them without destroying the cap."

I suspect that they also used the stock photo supplied by WIMA as well.

The case of a capacitor does not necessarily indicate what is inside...

The important thing to me in Possum's original post in this thread is that he said he had A/B'd these caps with real NOS Bumblebee's and thought that they sounded the same. Presumably in that test, all of the caps were nominally 0.022uF.

When someone gets in the WIMA caps from Mouser (or wherever) perhaps they can send 2 of them to Possum to A/B with the ones he got from Singlecoil.com. I really doubt that they will sound the same or even similar.

My friend who recommended the 0.033uf Hovland Musicap for my tele said that one of the big differences was how the tone control responded as you turned it up and down: really great sounds at many of the settings.

He also shared a secret about teles to get a great blues sound from them with the stock Fender pickups: you back off both of the controls, and then finetune it from there. So *that* is how you deal with that harsh icepick tone... D'oh! (Throughout most of the 43 years I've been playing guitar, my volume and tone controls were always set to 10, and I have only recently learned the value of moderation. )

Steve Ahola