Guitar Tone Cap Question

[soupbone]

I  know  this  is  a  non-pedal  question,but  i  figure  everybody  on  here  plays  guitar  or  bass!lol  I  have  a  MIM  HSS  Strat.I  started  expermenting   with  differn't  tone  caps.I  forgot  what  was  in  it  originally? ( .O22uf?)  I  have  a  .022uf  Orange  Drop  cap  in  there  now.I  have  a  500k  pot  for  the  bridge (JB),and  a  250k  pot  for  the  single  coils.Is  there  some  way  i  can  a  cap  to  make  just  the  neck  and  neck-midle(the  next  position  down)  brighter?

[soupbone]

add  a  cap.Stupid  Auto-Correct!lol

[zombiwoof]

Actually, the value of the pots has more effect on the overall brightness of a pickup.  A pot that reads higher (or closer to the stated value) will brighten a pickup when the tone is on "10".  The caps mostly determine how much treble is rolled off at the lowest position of the tone knob, at "10" there is little or no effect on brightness.  Many players will put an .015uf cap on the neck pickup instead of an .022uf, what this does is make it so the tone doesn't turn to mud as the tone pot is turned down, but it doesn't effect the brightness of the pickup with the tone all the way up IMO.

Al

[soupbone]

Ok  cool!My Guitar has one tone cap.So,What your saying Al is a .015uf instead of .022uf would bring a little brightness to the neck pickup?What about a .018uf?Split the differnce?

[ashcat_lt]

That's not at all what he said!

He said that a smaller cap will keep it from getting quite so dark when you turn the T control way down.  If you want it brighter with T on 10, use a bigger pot.

[soupbone]

That's not at all what he said!

He said that a smaller cap will keep it from getting quite so dark when you turn the T control way down.  If you want it brighter with T on 10, use a bigger pot.

Oooo..k.So,Maybe a 300k or a 500k pot for the neck?Is that what you're saying?Are they audio taper?

[GGBB]

A higher value tone pot will make things a touch brighter, but you could also use a TBX control for the neck tone which will give you a both a standard tone control and a "brightness" control with the same pot.

[Paul Marossy]

A higher value tone pot will make things a touch brighter, but you could also use a TBX control for the neck tone which will give you a both a standard tone control and a "brightness" control with the same pot.

I had a Strat once with the TBX tone control, seems to work pretty well.

[Mark Hammer]

There are two functions of a tone cap.  One is to permit selective treble bleed.  A second is to alter the resonant frequency of the pickup signal (I say "signal" because the pickup is the pickup and the cap doesn't change that).

When the tone cap is a high enough value, one tends to hear primarily the treble bleed effects, and when the tone gets turned way down, any changes in resonant frequencies are so low down that we tend to hear them as merely a muffled bass.  When one uses smaller cap values, between 3300pf and 10nf or so, you start to hear the changes in signal resonance more.  That's one of the reasons why I like a bidirectional tone control.  I stick a 10-15nf cap at one end, and a 3900-6800pf cap at the other.  With the larger value cap you get the standard muffled sound at max rolloff.  With the smaller cap, you get a more vocal and rounded sound at max rolloff, that can often bring out the best in an overdrive.

[GGBB]

There are two functions of a tone cap.  One is to permit selective treble bleed.  A second is to alter the resonant frequency of the pickup signal (I say "signal" because the pickup is the pickup and the cap doesn't change that).

When the tone cap is a high enough value, one tends to hear primarily the treble bleed effects, and when the tone gets turned way down, any changes in resonant frequencies are so low down that we tend to hear them as merely a muffled bass.  When one uses smaller cap values, between 3300pf and 10nf or so, you start to hear the changes in signal resonance more.  That's one of the reasons why I like a bidirectional tone control.  I stick a 10-15nf cap at one end, and a 3900-6800pf cap at the other.  With the larger value cap you get the standard muffled sound at max rolloff.  With the smaller cap, you get a more vocal and rounded sound at max rolloff, that can often bring out the best in an overdrive.

Mark - can you explain how that's wired up?  Sounds interesting.  I have been moving toward lower values caps myself as of late - no need for the min-tone muffled sound and I like the resonant peak sound better at min - as you said it brings out the best in overdrives and distortion boxes.

[Paul Marossy]

There's a "three sound" tone control schematic using two caps and a single pot in Craig Anderton's book called "Do-It-Yourself For Guitarists". Mark's tone control sounds pretty much like what is shown in that book.

[zombiwoof]

The common pots that come in guitars these days usually have a 20% tolerance.  That means a 500k pot could read as low as 400k!.  Most read in the 420-440k or so range.  That's why many players are buying tested or custom-ordered pots that are guaranteed to be close to the stated value (either 250k or 500k).  It's worth the little bit of extra money to get pots that are the correct value IMO.

Al

[GGBB]

The common pots that come in guitars these days usually have a 20% tolerance.  That means a 500k pot could read as low as 400k!.  Most read in the 420-440k or so range.  That's why many players are buying tested or custom-ordered pots that are guaranteed to be close to the stated value (either 250k or 500k).  It's worth the little bit of extra money to get pots that are the correct value IMO.

Al

I can attest to that - two 250K CTS pots I bought a while back measured at 200K.  I wonder if they do that so that over the life of the pot the resistance increases due to wear?  On a couple of CTS 500K pots I had that measured about 450K, I opened them up and carefully scraped the edges of the conductive strips to bring them to 500K.

[GGBB]

There's a "three sound" tone control schematic using two caps and a single pot in Craig Anderton's book called "Do-It-Yourself For Guitarists". Mark's tone control sounds pretty much like what is shown in that book.

I don't have that book, and google won't help me.   

[Mark Hammer]

There are two functions of a tone cap.  One is to permit selective treble bleed.  A second is to alter the resonant frequency of the pickup signal (I say "signal" because the pickup is the pickup and the cap doesn't change that).

When the tone cap is a high enough value, one tends to hear primarily the treble bleed effects, and when the tone gets turned way down, any changes in resonant frequencies are so low down that we tend to hear them as merely a muffled bass.  When one uses smaller cap values, between 3300pf and 10nf or so, you start to hear the changes in signal resonance more.  That's one of the reasons why I like a bidirectional tone control.  I stick a 10-15nf cap at one end, and a 3900-6800pf cap at the other.  With the larger value cap you get the standard muffled sound at max rolloff.  With the smaller cap, you get a more vocal and rounded sound at max rolloff, that can often bring out the best in an overdrive.

Mark - can you explain how that's wired up?  Sounds interesting.  I have been moving toward lower values caps myself as of late - no need for the min-tone muffled sound and I like the resonant peak sound better at min - as you said it brings out the best in overdrives and distortion boxes.

Pretty simple, actually.  Run a wire from the tone pot wiper to the input lug on the volume pot.  Run a cap from each of the outside lugs on the tone pot to ground.
The tone pot should be either a 1meg linear taper, or a W taper if you can find it or fake it.  Use of a 1meg is so that when it is at the midpoint, there is 500k on either side.   Ideally, one would have a centre detente, so you can go by feel, but since those are hard to find, and you can't necessarily rely on them to have exactly the same resistance on each side of the centre detente.

Think of this as the "poor man's Tone Styler".  Note that one can also use a cap and inductor in series on one side, instead of ONLY a cap, so that rotating one way gives you treble cut, and rotating the other gets you mid-cut.

[GGBB]

Pretty simple, actually.  Run a wire from the tone pot wiper to the input lug on the volume pot.  Run a cap from each of the outside lugs on the tone pot to ground.
The tone pot should be either a 1meg linear taper, or a W taper if you can find it or fake it.  Use of a 1meg is so that when it is at the midpoint, there is 500k on either side.   Ideally, one would have a centre detente, so you can go by feel, but since those are hard to find, and you can't necessarily rely on them to have exactly the same resistance on each side of the centre detente.

Think of this as the "poor man's Tone Styler".  Note that one can also use a cap and inductor in series on one side, instead of ONLY a cap, so that rotating one way gives you treble cut, and rotating the other gets you mid-cut.

Clever - thanks.  I believe you could use a 500K blend pot (readily available) with two opposite outside lugs connected instead of the 1M pot.  That will give you the center detent and (I hope) an accurate mid point.

[Mark Hammer]

You CAN, but keep in mind that your effective resistance to ground is actually in the neighbourhood of 1/4 the pot nominal resistance.  Keep in mind that a 1M pot divided in half is a pair of 500k variable resistors in parallel.  It isn't exactly the same as soldering a pair of 500k resistors together and running that to a .022uf cap to ground, but it's not that far off either.

One of the nicest aspects of this bidirectional arrangement is that the same amount of tonal change is compacted into half the rotation.  The difference between full mute and near-max treble may be 1/4 the entire rotation of the pot, which makes "pinky wah" feasible on many instruments.  Unleash your innner Danny Gatton!

[Paul Marossy]

There's a "three sound" tone control schematic using two caps and a single pot in Craig Anderton's book called "Do-It-Yourself For Guitarists". Mark's tone control sounds pretty much like what is shown in that book.

I don't have that book, and google won't help me.   

I'll see if I can make a copy of it for you when I get home from voluntary slavery tonight.

[soupbone]

There's a "three sound" tone control schematic using two caps and a single pot in Craig Anderton's book called "Do-It-Yourself For Guitarists". Mark's tone control sounds pretty much like what is shown in that book.

I don't have that book, and google won't help me.   

I'll see if I can make a copy of it for you when I get home from voluntary slavery tonight.

Hehe That's funny Paul!

[soupbone]

Wow!!This is great information guys!Awesome!Thanks!