Difference of capacitors, mmk and ceramic.

[Cedrik]

Hi!
I have been wondering what is the difference if you use an mmk or ceramic capacitor?
Is there any difference?
Br,
Cedrik

[lukeferg]

Hi cedrik,

Welcome to the forum. If you do a search you will find that's one of those questions that divides people.
Generally ceramic are only used in pedal building for small values, think 48pf. Anything higher than a few hundred pf and you'll generally see a different type of cap. Could be polyester, Mylar, even paper in oil. You'll then see electrolytic caps in values 1uF or greater.

Some people find ceramic caps noisier than other types. This could be beneficial depending on the circuit you use. All ceramic caps in a dirt box could get you a really aggressive distortion that sounds great. But generally, noise isn't your friend.
I've heard ceramic caps have a greater likelihood of being microphonic but I've never encountered that problem myself.

So, yes there's a difference, but it's debatable whether the difference is a bad one and it's also a pretty small difference.

[amptramp]

This is a link to the sound of capacitors showing input vs. output.  Ceramics can distort due to piezoelectric phenomena - part of the input arrives at the output but the rest goes into bending the ceramic, just like a crystal earphone.

http://diyaudioprojects.com/mirror/members.aol.com/sbench102/caps.html

Also, ceramics could conceivably be microphonic, something you may not notice at bedroom levels but may become a problem at a gig.

[Cedrik]

Thanks a lot guys for the information!
-Cedrik