Polypropylene paralleled with ceramic

[ViolenceOnTheRadio]

Has anyone done this?
So far, those big red polypropylene caps give the richest sound in my circuits but the ceramic give a raunchier sound, better pinch harmonics and that flexing sound as you hit solos. The poly's are so clean, smooth and full though. I notice a bit more volume with them as well. I was thinking a best of both world's scenario and for the values I'll need, run a ceramic in parallel with the poly to attain it.

[amptramp]

This site:

http://greygum.net/sbench/sbench102/caps.html

is a gold mine of electronic articles lost several years ago in the AOL meltdown but preserved in the wayback machine.  It shows ceramic caps have their own distortion caused by some of the energy going into flexing the piezoelectric ceramic dielectric.  The distortion from ceramic is not a controlled parameter and can change with such things as packaging, but it is a well-known effect.  Don't forget that ceramic capacitors as well as being electric-to-acoustic transducers are also acoustic-to-electric transducers - in other words, microphones.  If your stompbox is sitting in front of loud speakers, you can get feedback effects that will probably vary from unit to unit, especially if you are not using a printed circuit board.

[ViolenceOnTheRadio]

Very interesting information you shared amptramp and as a testament to the author I've had the pages from that link you shared saved on my computer for years now and referred to them when I was first experimenting with different caps. The fluxing wave of the low voltage ceramic lead me to buy a bunch of ceramic disc caps in values I also had in polypropylene. The sound variation between the two is really bold in some cases and I'm pretty much committed to the two over any other type.

I have to ask though, does anyone have a good source for polypropylene film caps?
I had been buying them a few times a year from www.effectsconnection.com but he no longer seems to carry a lot of the higher values such as 1uF, .01uF etc.  Hopefully it's just a temporary stock issue because his prices on them were great and I can't seem to find them anywhere else with such a friendly price.

[Brymus]

HAS ANYONE DONE THIS?
YES - Ken Fisher
Which is where I got the idea,or more specifically at the amp garage.

[Gus]

What type of ceramic cap?   It matters.  You need to know about the different types and how they work.

[aron]

I've done it, but as always it's hard to tell what difference there is. Usually I make the mistake of modding a number of things at the same time. Bad for figuring out what changes what.

[ViolenceOnTheRadio]

Low voltage ceramic disc. 50 volt rating.
In certain stages, one sounds better than the other or at least performs better for the intentions I should say. In the filters of an overdrive/distortion the ceramic give more raunch and flare to pinch harmonics. The poly on the other hand let more signal through so it sounds richer and clean/smoother. In a tone stack on the other hand, the poly performs much better and sound much better IMO. Cleaner, fuller and louder but again, the ceramic will give the bandwidth filtered through a bit more distinction because of the edge.
I suppose it's a matter of grainy vs smooth with a slight variation in output/saturation.

Since I often double caps or resistors to achieve certain values or because it just sounds better, I realized paring a poly with a ceramic would give you the characteristics of both.