Tone Cap Clarification

[toro]

I recently bought a first act Delia as a back up guitar. I had the pots replaced because the originals didn't have a gradual roll-off, they were either on or off. So we put in some new 500K's. Anyway I had the luthier replace the tone cap while he was at it. He put in a .022 oil filled Brazilian cap. My guitar seems to have lost the glassy twang that it once had and seems darker in tone. The pickups are extremely similar to a Gretsch Nashville or Guild starfire. Will replacing the .022 with a .047 clean up the tone at all?

Edited April 29, 2007 by toro

[Samba Pa Ti]

i think it would

this diagram is usefull and shows what would happen (thanks to wickerwolf for posting it, in another thread)

this shows that a .020 cap would block more High freqs (what you are experiencing) so a .0047 should let more highs though.

im a novice when it comes to tone though, most of my guitars dont have tone knobs (i removed them) the only one i have a tone control in is my telecaster and i use that for distortion (with the tone all the way (or up) it starts to distort really nicely with a .0047 cap in) i dont really know why it does this, i assume its magic.

Edited May 1, 2007 by Samba Pa Ti

[modman]

i think it would

this diagram is usefull and shows what would happen (thanks to wickerwolf for posting it, in another thread)

this shows that a .020 cap would block more High freqs (what you are experiencing) so a .047 should let more highs though.

im a novice when it comes to tone though, most of my guitars dont have tone knobs (i removed them) the only one i have a tone control in is my telecaster and i use that for distortion (with the tone all the way (or up) it starts to distort really nicely with a .047 cap in) i dont really know why it does this, i assume its magic.

The tone control was introduced to avoid old guitar from sounding to shrill. No matter what the diagram says, there's also the potentiometer in your tone control.

When you're tone controls at 10, the resistance on the pot should be 0 ohm, so all the sound goes straight through the pot, and doesn't pass through the cap. Tone at 10 is like there is no tone control in the circuit. In still other words, tone controls throw away highs.

So change to a larger cap won't help at all. There's something else going on....

[SwedishLuthier]

Do you know the value of the old pots? It sound to me that you might have had even higher value pots in the guitar originally. The fact that the poled pots were more on/off also suggests this. All pots will constantly “bleed” treble to ground through the cap, but a higher value pot will do that to less extent. You might try higher value pots and see if anything happens. For an experiment it is also possible to lift (de-solder) one of the legs on the cap and listen to the change in tone. If the treble is back you have a strong indication that you are on the right track to find the solution.

[MEtalhead_Ragz]

Hi,

If I have only a volume pot and the signal is very dark how can i make it clean sounding? Where can I put in a cap?

Thanks,

Lenny

[Samba Pa Ti]

caps just dump highs it wont go any higher with a cap just lower, plus without a tone pot its going to be at 100% so it would go very dark and gritty (i dont mind that with some pickups its great with distortion pedals)

Edited May 3, 2007 by Samba Pa Ti

[mammoth guitars]

When you're tone controls at 10, the resistance on the pot should be 0 ohm, so all the sound goes straight through the pot, and doesn't pass through the cap. Tone at 10 is like there is no tone control in the circuit. In still other words, tone controls throw away highs.

When the tone pot is at 10 the maximum resistance of the pot is between the output signal and the cap to ground. The output signal does not go through the pot as a tone control is not wired in that way. When the resistance is lowered towards zero more signal is sent to the cap which shunts the high frequencies to ground.