A lot of people seem to think they're missing some magic component in their signal chain that's holding them back. There isn't. You just aren't practicing enough. Stop obsessing over caps and start obsessing over being the best player you can be. I need this advice too.
You won't sound good if you don't play well this is true, but if you've ever modded a guitar and achieved hitting that sweet spot of tone you'd understand that tone isn't entirely in your fingers. There's a point to chasing it, but there's also tons of variables. The biggest being how you sound in your room isn't how you sound being recorded with a mic, or to someone 100 yards away listening to you in a mix. That said I feel how I sound to myself is important to feeling inspired to play. To each their own though. Everyone should have a different perspective and experience. Also I agree with this guy's perspective in the video for the most part. I've heard it argued though that there's a tolerance for variance in value in caps and cheaper ones apparently tend to have wider value variance meaning they can vary a little more higher and lower from the actual value in performance than some of their more expensive competition. I don't know enough to say if that's true though, and that didn't seem to be addressed in this video. I'm curious to know if there's much truth to that claim.
That's true to an extent, but people often don't know how to dial in an amp either. Usually dial in too much gain and bass, then can't figure out why their tone sucks
45 years ago, when I was a young boy, I had; a cheap Teisco, a three month 7th grade electronics course, and a Radio Shack a block from home. I spent many months, experimenting with as many different value capacitors, and fixed resistors, as I could find. I made my own Veritone, replete with resistors, before I knew it was actually a thing. I only did it, so I could compare cap values easier. Then, I tried phase shifting, coil tapping, (later splitting, when I added some cheap Framus humbuckers). I used push/pull pots, DPST, DPDT switches. Anything I could find, at Radio Shack. When I brought what I had done to my electronics teacher. He laughed at me, and told me I was wasting my time. My poor Teisco looked like Frankenstein’s monster, all the extra pickups, switches & knobs. It looked just awful, but it could make so many different sounds, through my 15watt converted stereo/turntable, into amplifier. It was crazy. Edit: typo
I'm about to turn 66 in a few days. I spent my life having a certain mind-set, if I built a guitar or bought one I'd do the same things to it just because I thought that's the way things are done. I'd not even put a tone control on ones I built and cut them out of the ones I'd buy, I never took the time to learn how to use tone controls. About 6-7 years ago I was at Guitar Center trying Les Paul's. None sounded "good" to me, mostly too bright. I had just played one, didn't "like" it, hung it back on the wall. I stepped away, a younger guy picked that same guitar up, played a few notes, then that creamy tone I was looking for came out of that guitar, it didn't sound that way when I played it. I asked the guy what he was doing to get "that" sound. He rolled the tone control back a bit. That's all he did. I had to rethink most everything I'd done due to misinformation or just stubbornness. My tone quest has been fun and informative. That's how I discovered Dylan Talks Tone.
Just re-read this, I'd left some holes in my comments explaining "what I did to everything". I'd read in guitar player in the 80's about the timeless discussion how smaller value pots kill treble, the higher the pot value, more highs get thru. The writer suggested everyone put 1 meg pots in their guitars to get full frequency spectrum. In another monthly how to by the same writer, he suggested adjusting the pickups so high they almost touch the strings to get full output. Not sure if the "cut the tone control out of the circuit to get more mojo" was by the same idiot, but I did all three suggestions to every guitar I put my hands on. I didn't understand why my strat sounded so badly, I hated it, so I changed pickups but did the same thing, it sounded badly too, so I traded it away. Imagine my shock when I learned the pickups were too high. I'd taken part of 3 or more magazine articles and abstractly applied what I THOUGHT I'd read with mostly bad results. Before internet (here goes a "had to walk to school uphill, both ways" story) I obtained my information 3 ways, magazine, library, and word of mouth. Thinking back, most of the people that gave me guitar advice were either high, or just stupid, but I digress. I feel foolish for blaming what were otherwise excellent instruments for me making the tone and sound stink. My go-to phrase for one of these guitars was "it sounds like a TURD". Oh, well.
To clarify my standpoint, I've played just about every genre from Gospel to bluegrass to blues since 1972, I've not found that magic guitar or pickup that does everything I've needed. Besides my hands and string choices, the pickup and resulting tone is the next item in the equation. I use a variety of amps as the genre and size of the venue dictates, so usually the guitar choice is dictated by the same requirements. What I mentioned regarding that Les Paul being too bright, it wasn't giving me the sound I was after for that purchase. I also explained that I'd done the same things to every guitar I owned instead of learning how to use that tone control. It amazed me that it actually made that much difference in shaping the tone. I've been on the "tone quest" since then so I'm about 18 years past THAT revelation. I'm not so closed minded these days, I read and experiment as much as possible, an auto accident ended my live gigging. Your explanation was thorough and I certainly appreciate the input. At this point of my by guess or by gosh engineering I'm experimenting with bass cut and passive mid-range cuts, I'm intrigued with the cocked wah sounds possible and how 3 tone cut controls interact. I'm enjoying my journey and really enjoy Dylan's posts. Thanks again.
I share this pro tip with very few people. Mainly because they really do not know what they do not know and just play what is stock. So here it goes: use 500k pots on all your guitars. Wire the volume and tone knob like a 50’s Les Paul junior. (Vintage wiring vs Modern) use the value .010- .015 for the tone cap. If you want to roll back the volume or tone when using single coils to get more of those stratty tones then you will be inclined to use your ears more and also more feel of the strings and magnets resisting your pick attack. Tone really is in your hands, some guitars do this better out of the box, most have to be modified to this recipe to really have it all, especially in HSS. Now, you have the 500k which the humbucker loves, you are twice the value for single coils, you can roll off the volume and tone and solve that, plus.... using the value of tone cap I prescribed, you will actually use your tone knob more than ever before as the value (.010-.015mfd) shifts the mid and treble points like a partially cocked Wah wah pedal, instead of that .05 horrible muted muffled muddy sound Fender chose to use when guitar players would mimic bass guitar on a 6 string while recording in the 50’s, and no modern players really use the tone knob because of that fact. Playing your amp is now your new concern. You can dial up higher than you would normally use for volume and tones, and use the volume and tone knob on the guitar for boosting volume and tone without a pedal... ala Hendrix ... you will love this setup more than anything and will play more and use the volume and tone knobs and never want anything else forever thereafter...... do a video with this idea.... boost the amps volume and tone controls and dial it back from the guitar and when you want a volume or frequency change, use those knobs on the guitar instead of walking to the amp, or stepping on pedals.....you will be free to play and have it all at your fingertips.....you will thank me later tonechasers!!!
@@bradleyshuppert3393 Chris Buck did a video called "The CHEAPEST Les Paul Tone HACK? | Friday Fretworks" His LP has about 330K pots from Gibson. He had the guitar upgraded to 500K post with new caps. There was a bit of difference but not as much as you would think.
Global Statement: As an older EE and now custom guitar creator, I find your videos to be the most accurate, articulate, logical, myth-busting, BS-mitigating and consistently helpful content on the subjects of guitar electronics and tone. UPSHOT: Your efforts are greatly appreciated.
His content hooks up with my failed engineers (stupid calculus) understanding of physics. But hey all that math eventually helped understand data for stock speculation 🤣
I completely concur! I hate myths, conspiracy theories, fake news, false informatoon, superstitions, the supernatural, paranormal, metaphysical, mythological, lies, and bs. And there is nothing better than busting myths and lies by debunking them with truth and real knowledge!!
@@drivinsouth651 Than I can gladly tell you that mechanical exitement has a completely objectively measurable effect on the capacitance, and that effect is different for different types of capacitors. If you HEAR that is another thing. But there IS a measurable difference. I find it funny how he lists "heat, voltage, current - all things that we do not have in guitars -" but the obvious thing - physical vibration - is left out of all things. Again: if you actually hear that is another story.
GREAT explanation. I also play Hammond B3 organ. There are 88 pickups [tonewheels] , each with their own cap. When we used to do a 'cap job', some people didn't like the resulting sound. They had become accustomed to the 'drifted' sound; which, on a B3, is rather muddy. After their ears became tuned in, they found the B3 much more tone responsive; to drawbar changes.
Great video! I love your vids! I will say though just an interesting fact I learned during my 9 years as an electrician is that the one thing electricity will never run through is completely pure 100% distilled water (basically the chemical of pure H20)! When electricity runs through normal water it runs through the irons and zincs and minerals in the water! Just thought that was an interesting fact I learned in tradeschool!
Arguing the caps in your guitar make it sound better is like arguing the caps in your calculator make it do math better. At a given capacitance, they sound the same. My tone gets better the more I practice.
Dylan made an excellent point about old caps starting to go bad and beginning to act like resistors. Check the ESR of those old caps. So yeah, when a crappy paper cap stops being a cap, no doubt it sounds different than modern caps.
@@drivinsouth651 For those who can't read a blue print, you'll have to put your capacitors in the oven. Those who can read a blue print know will know that the design of the circuit determines the "tone." The reason that brown fenders sound different than black face which sound different than silver face fenders is the circuits are different.
@@murfbass But which one should I put in my Strat? I put the parts from an Ibanez RG loaded pickguard in my Ibanez GIO and it sounds better than any of my other guitars. The Ibanez loaded pickguard cost $97.00 on eBay. The $500.00 worth of pickups, Emerson blender, 10 way switch, and Qijack I put in my Strat should theoretically sound better. I was thinking of putting Ibanez parts in my Strat. What should I do, lol? Thanks!
I have put PIO capacitors in two of my guitars and I can tell you they changed the tone drastically. Anything that affercts the current form the pickup to the amp WILL have an effect.
I like to think of capacitors as balloons in a circuit, they add voltage back in when the voltage drops like a balloon would in an air system. Pots are like electrical valves and resistors are like a restriction in a piece of pipe slowing down the amount of air passing through. It helps me visualize what is happening. Great video. Thank you.
I don't know, but I've heard the reason that the vintage bumblebee caps might sound "better" is that they are not very good performing caps compared to modern caps; they are "leaky". And it's this phenomenon that can make them sound different.
If you measure two capacitors of different kind with the same value, you get different readings depending on the frequency your capacitance meter are using (often 100Hz to 1Khz). But since guitars just handle audible frequencies below 20khz I don't think it matters at all. There is a difference on choosing types when you are talking about Mhz/Ghz range. I think you should select one that is easy to solder with a long lifespan. Or just use the one with the coolest colour.
Personally, I first choose the value I like, then I install the ones that have the look I like the most in that guitar 😀 Paper in Oil...tropical fish, orange drop...they all have a place in my guitars. There is no real difference in sound, but I hate to see those small ceramic disk caps and always swap them out. Still makes me feel I did something to make my guitar more personal
Dylan, great discussion and topic! Just bought a Kay K161V reissue and started making a list of everything that I “needed” to change... (having the pickups rebuilt using US materials, replacing the pots/caps..etc). After watching this video the only things I’m changing now are the 3-way switch (to a CRL) as the stock switch is failing already, Tuner machines, output jack (to Switchcraft), and bridge saddle to Tru Arc. Thank you for approaching everything you talk about in a subjective manner. Keep up the great work!
I definitely would NOT argue with you about anything! I am 66 yrs. old and I am amazed at your knowledge and out&out common sense. I just want to thank you for sharing your knowledge and even your random thoughts. I have gained a lot from your videos and I love how passionate you are about guitars. Please keep up the GREAT work. Mark B., Virginia Beach
Saw some paper & oil caps for $80 each today at a thrift store lol. I hate orange drops cause of how they look but when they're in the guitar I don't have to look at them. I use the same cheap ceramic caps as I do in the pedals I build on guitars I wire. works out great & at 10 cents a pop from tayda.... better to put my money into other things such as vintage wine.
"But I can hear the difference" is the exact same bs as "but this one goes to eleven". If a customer wants to spend an extra 25 bucks on a fancy cap, so be it. But I'm doing allright with my 5 cents caps. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Very valuable informations! Thanks Dylan! 😃👍🏼 I‘ve put 0.015mF orange drops in 2 humb. guitars with diff. scale length and on a Telly style with noiseless SC‘s. I like to have usable tones from 10-0. I intend to do the same in other two strat/superstrat type, wich are already warm sounding. My LP style „black beauty" got 0.022mF, for the growl. I „know“ the difference between the types of caps is negligible to non existent, but I generally don't "trust" things if they are too small… so I chose orange drops…and they look nice too. But for treble bleeds I use the small ceramic caps and resistors.
I watched this right before wiring up a Fernandez L-50 strat I own. It has Seymour Duncan Texas specials. This is what I changed . One of the screws was on the verge of stripping out, so I installed brass EZ Locs with 1/4-20 thread inside. I drilled out the screw holes to accept the bolts. I replaced the bridge that was a LR Baggs acoustic with a wide spacing. It was too wide for the width of the neck, and the E sting would slide off the top of the neck down past the 5th fret. I bought a Mex bridge plate with block and used some Tusq saddles I had laying around. I had used them before and liked them. Now I was ready to wire up a all new hand made push back wire harness from scratch, done it before many times. I decided to use J Vaughan-Wacker(don't know who this is) diagram with a .022 cap on first tone, and a .047 on the second tonepot. New jack new strings plugged it in and it was so trebley in all positions I couldn't believe it. I used both orange drop caps, and double checked all wiring connection with a pair of magnifiers before assembling it. In the past I have tried orange drops, and never left them in. This guitar has a small routing and space is tight, so I decided to try them, besides this was different than I had tried in the past. OK, they are coming back out first opportunity I get. Before it sounded very much like my US strat, and I very much liked the sound of it. It sounds totally differnt now. If you want to torture someone with ear splitting treble, then this is for you. The caps I took out were a little tiny treble bleed cap, and a small cap half the size of an M&M, but it sounded really good. Well I guess that's my three cents worth.
After about 30 years, the onboard effects stuff on my Cort flying V started to fail. I'd never really used the stuff, didn't care for how it performed or sounded, so I just ripped everything out and rewired it like a Gibson V, with 3 pots and a 3-way switch. I used 500k pots and a .022 uf orange drop. This gave me a top end so trebly it almost sounds like a single coil, and I can still roll the tone knob back to get those more classic Gibson tones. So more attenuation out of the pot, for greater range out of the pickup. Win/win.
Yeah that's a tough talk... not many people are ready to hear it... and It's true, if you want to sound like a vintage guitar, check its cap value, and duplicate it... dont go read the original value of it and try to put a paper in oil cap in your guitar with the original value, it won't sound the same...
Duplicating original values is a mistake many people make when trying to recreate a 60 year old amp with fresh components. The "mojo" in those old amps is there because the values of those 60 year old parts have drifted over the decades. I heard clones that sound incredible but, good or bad, they don't sound exactly like an original.
I don't understand what you are talking about. isn't the reason you love that old vintage amp or vintage guitar due to the recordings you've heard and fallen in love with that use that gear? like the classic rock sound of those vintage Les Paul and Marshall amps got on the classic Led Zeppelin Albums? or that unmistakable tone Jimi Hendrix got on his recordings? All of that gear was brand new when those recordings were being made and the caps when all in spec. if you really want to sound like that vintage gear then re-cap your amps, put fresh tubes in and set the bias correctly and re-cap your guitar with the correct values. there! true vintage sound! anything else is just a lie that has made people spend way too much money on old gear that in reality was out of spec and not working properly!!!! sagging caps will over time damage your gear, it's not sound it is creating it is bad electronics, see your getting DC leakage and that is just bad!
Capacitors are merely frequency filters that bleed high frequencies off to ground, leaving the lower (darker) tones intact in the signal chain. You can however get different tones using the same value of capacitor by changing the cap's position across the tone pot's middle lug to ground, from the tone pot's far left lug to the volume pot's far right lug, or from the tone pot's far left lug to the volume pot's middle lug. Also using a 500k ohm volume pot for humbucker pickups and 250k ohm volume pots for single coil puckups, or vice versa will also vary the tone of your guitar's output signal.
I just rewired my Strat using two orange capacitors: .047 to the neck PU tone pot shared with the middle pickup and .022 to the middle PU tone pot now occupied by the bridge pickup; my #1 Tele was also rewired w/a .047 orange capacitor while Tele #2 is 'Esquired' w/a .022 orange cap on 3 while retaining the .022 green cap it came with.
I trust and value your opinion, thats why I am watching YOUR video. some ppl just want to argue because their lives are vapid and they are under stimulated.
I really appreciate your input on this subject as I long have suspected this was the case. It is rather amazing how much hype and misinformation can proliferate into an urban legend when it comes to capacitors and electric guitars.
I just found your site and mostly I agree. I have been involved in the manufacture of circuits from power supplies to RF and capacitor selection is critical. The one factor you missed is price. Fender, Gibson and all the rest did not use silver mica (an extreme example) because paper would do the job for less money. It was a rule of thumb back then to use paper caps in audio circuits. People today who want working examples of old electronics remove the paper caps and replace them with plastic film types because those old caps have failed, as you pointed out. Those old caps are not in general use today because the reliability was bad. also Oil was not used to cool the capacitor, it could not circulate. It was used to "heal" a small punch through of the paper dielectric. I know, I'm picky.
@@johnsieff2921Yes, self-healing wouldn't apply at the millivolt level. I did experiment with various caps on my bass guitar, but I determined that the tonal change would turn me into good player :-)
Excellent, as usual. People miss the fact that the capacitor types they used in vintage guitars were used because they were what was commonly available, not because they had some known musical advantage. Amp capacitors were way overkill for guitars. There are alternatives today. Now, pardon me, I have to go get some of those $75 vintage capacitors to make my tone better!
Additionally, quality of products back then was much better than the workmanship of modern products, this can especially be seen in modern vehicles, where technology is mated with cheap poor construction quality. I believe that is the reason vintage guitars can sound so good. Japanese guitars gained respect because of the pride they took in trying to make the best guitar they could make.
I’m wiring up a new Strat build right now. I have orange drop and PIO caps on hand. Gonna put one set in and play for awhile, then when I change the strings I’ll swap them out for the others and see what they sound like.
I love this channel, you're talking about stuff that I've been saying for years to my naive friends who are constantly dropping big money to chase their perfect tone based entirely on BS hype from people who don't know what they're talking about!
I have about 25 Russian PIO caps covering I think three of the common guitar values, sitting in a box for the last 4 years, still haven't bothered to fit one into a harness, but they look so cool and full of vintage mojo. As we say in Australia," it's all about the vibe". One of the big time pick up makers, I'm sure it was Seymour D, confessed he could not tell the difference in a blind test and he's been listening to his pups for near 50 years.
It's funny how when we talk, we almost always try putting it, "into words." haha. As a 60-year-old beginning guitar player, I'm learning a lot here. Thanks my brother.
Thankyou for reinforcing what l have been saying for years. I been playin for 50 yrs & a technician for 30....there is no such thing as vintage tone due to a capacitor style ! Unless there has been leakage or deterioration over the years. It does what it does according to the value on the wrapper. OHM's LAW DON'T DO VINTAGE....PERIOD !!! 😢😅 FUNFACT...apparently even a company that starts with G & goes to N was caught painting capacitors to pass for the old black & yellow Bumblebees from a bygone era. They got swatted" down....Save your $$s kids !
I think doing little tweaks to our instruments is just part of the natural philosophy that infuses us all. If we gradually make it a little better here and there the finished product will be a lot better when we're done. The negligible difference in tone due to our choice of capacitor is just one of those minor tweaks.
In many cases yes, but in this case, no. No it’s not. Go back and listen more carefully to Dylan’s talking points, or read my comment above about decades of blind testing with different cap types and values.
Thanks ! you're so right! You could explain how to wire caps the best way, this can explain a change in perception. For the rest, it's also all about passion and personal pride to get THE real thing. This can then be a good way to push someone to it's best...it means inspiration. Reason vs passion...
Thank you for this!! This helped me a lot! I understood most of this already but there was always the "mystery" behind it. Doing HVAC I've studied some electrical stuff and I was going to try to read about all this but getting the knowledge this way and from the Guitar standpoint made it so much better and easier to understand and I didn't have to learn a bunch of stuff that I won't use right now to get these answers. Thank you!! I do use 1959 Paper In Oil Bumblebee caps that have drifted into spec. So I have the look haha but not the "magic" of a cap that drifted out of spec.
I love that you said that it sounds better in some people's _eyes_ whether it was intentional or not. Some people really DO listen with their eyes first and foremost.
I don't have a view - I just want to understand what the deal is because my pick up maker asked me whether I want orange drop or paper in oil and i have no idea Now having watched the video - i get it - it makes no difference and i will probably go with the orange drop Thanks Dylan
You asked to write a comment before watching the entire video, so what I think about tone capacitors: their value affects the frequency response as a part of a filter with pickup inductance, resistance and internal capacity. The dielectric material means less, but because of the differencies in dielectric loss tangent it affects the phase shifts and you can slightly hear that in attacks. So nothing wrong with experimenting here
Capacitance is capacitance and what does matter is the value of the capacitance and the effective series resistance of the capacitor. If two capacitors have equivalent capacitance and ESR it doesn't matter which is used in these very low voltage circuits. High voltage needs really good insulation as well.
ok, first off, awesome video and explanation. So that said, we all agree that the value is the value, the end! while choosing materials to get a specific value, when trying to get to the vintage "failure" value, what is happening to that old oil in paper stuff as it gets old and dries out and "fails"? what value should one be looking for in a new longer lasting better material Cap? what were the intended values in the early guitar years, and what have the degraded to present day?
i bought 10 different types of caps, orange, russian paper / oil etc,,, various values too... i found some i like and haven't been able to get to the others yet. i like the Sprague orange alot. .047 for epi LP Custom
I recently rewired an old lawsuit Les Paul. I grabbed some unbranded disc caps from an assortment bag I bought for $3. You know what? The tone knobs work fine and the guitar sounds nice. On the other hand I regret not paying a little more for the pots I used. 😉
People make such a big deal about caps in their guitars. It's insane. I use Orange Drop .0147 for my tone cap. I feel I get more out of my tone pot than using a .022 or a .05 My volume pot has a 680pf Silver Mica and a 220k resistor. I've been doing this for over 20 years. Because it works for ME. The pots I like to measure them and use three (Strat) that measure as close to the same as possible for the sake of OCD. Usually CTS or Emmerson. But why? I don't know. Just a habit really. Orange Drop caps are available everywhere I guess. I've used ceramic disc caps in the past with the same results. Whatever is available works. I worry more about actually playing than stressing out over what's under the hood.
Thanks Dylan, old thread but very useful and totally makes sense. People!... It's an electronic circuit! Vintage choices as you said, they used what components where available in that period of time. Actually newer technologies will probably last longer since they don't use oil which will dry out over time but do exactly the same thing. Thanks fo explaining and exposing the myths but there will always be those who disagree, hell with them! Lol. I learned a ton of info from watching your channel! Keep up the great work.
A while back I went full nerd and started buying and testing all sorts of and tone caps. I tried the orange drop, tropical fish, Russian caps actually shipped from Russia, old PiO, and so on. I ran my American made Strat with Texas S. pups through a 65 Pro Reverb and listened really hard for that one special cap with the smokiest, dopiest and most beer stained tone I could find. The SOB just wasn't there. I tried very hard to like one over the other but couldn't and I would have tried a cap dipped in unicorn blood if I could have found one, but then wondered what would happen if I went n the opposite direction and purchased a pack of 50 green Chiclets from China for $2. Guess which one I left in my American made guitar. Yep. There was no discernible difference in any of them and I was so fed up with the results I stopped testing and left a 4 cent cap in the guitar. I wanted to believe the reaction between the signal and construction of the cap would make a difference but there's an easier way to find the right tone. With so many different capacitor values available just experiment with different cuts until you find a value that will produce what you want.
I'm a lousy player. I hardly think messing with caps is gonna make me sound like Sayce. OTOH ... ya got me thinkin' ... if I replace that thing with a spark plug ... just maybe I can manage it ...
thanks for the video! i dig it and your content generally! but, alas, i must disagree with some of the thinking here, because of a couple things. just superficially, yes of course different cap types can sound different; you're using totally different materials of dissimilar densities as the spacer between the charged cap plates, and they don't all act identically, just like mahogany behaves and sounds different than maple, and aluminum bridges play a little different than brass bridges, most of the time. alnico speakers play differently than ceramic. and a substantial amount of the time i've spent so far exploring this question, i've spent actually trying out many, many caps of different construction types and values and ratings. i've done blind tests and non-blind tests. i know i'll probably catch some flak for this, but please hear me out before judging. this is just my reporting back on my own (probably biased and anecdotal but nonetheless extensive and attended with care) first hand experiences, which i gathered by conducting direct comparisons and experiments and carefully noting what i heard as a result and then concluded. and ffs people, do your own listening tests and see what you experience. there's no shortage of received uninformed opinion thrown around these days. remember that the cynical, impossible-to-please skeptic is simply someone who doesn't believe in their own observations. i encourage everyone to do their own work and speak from their own experience where possible. my take on the whole issue is basically this: it'll take 3 minutes or less to figure out which cap value (uF/nF) is best for tone. i personally tend to most often prefer caps in the 10n to 22nF range. your results may vary. any bigger tone shaping i usually regard as the amp/effects/cabinet's job. for voltage rating, i can comfortably say you're best bet is to choose the highest voltage rating you can afford; i have noticed consistently that higher voltage rated caps just sound noticably better, even in blind tests. now, the controversial attribute -- the differences in cap construction type -- these are where we find the most subtle and difficult to pick out differences when listening by far, and i think this is because the audible artifacts of construction type are not a matter of the -3dB cutoff frequency dictated by plate area in the cap. it's instead that the audible artifacts are the result of different dielectric materials being sandwiched between metal layers and subjected to changing electric fields that do exert a measurable (albeit minute) physical force on said dielectric. tech talk aside, what i'm saying basically is that i've so far concluded that cap construction/dielectric type is something that i *feel* when playing the instrument, much more than something i hear from the speakers, and that dielectric type mainly affects how the guitar plays in my hands. what this means to me is, construction type in cap selection is chosen because of its effect on how a given player interfaces with their instrument. maybe nobody hears any audible difference in tone; still the one playing the instrument will in my experience almost always be able to FEEL something different in how the instrument plays for them. so, choose a cap's value (uF/nF) for how it affects tone and how it sounds to a group of listeners. but, choose the cap's construction/dielectric type for your own preference and how it makes the instrument play in your hands. i hope that makes sense.
I hate that Ive just found your videos. I love how comprehensive and helpful these videos are especially the explanations being in guitar application as well. I’ve spoken to engineers(asking specifically about this) that haven’t been able to put it as clearly or as quickly as you have. Thank you
Great vid, told in a no nonsense way. Sticking old caps in your guitar wont give it instant vintage mojo. Remember that vintage guitars are a some of their aged parts: Caps, pots, pickups, materials... no one piece makes the “tone”. Some may have more effect that others, especially as they age and their values and tolerances chance, but a simple vintage part transplant into a new guitar is unlikely to yield the results you are hoping for.
Older video, but thanks for putting it out there. I have a 2005 Schecter C-1 Classic that comes standard with Duncan Jazz/JB pickup combo that I expected to just sing. For whatever reason they decided to use a .047uf cap on the tone control which made the pickups very muddy IMO. I played the guitar for 16 years like that, a bit disappointed with the pickups. Decided to completely change the electronics in the control cavity. Pulled out the Chinese 5 way switch and install a 3 way switch craft blade switch, swapped the pots for CTS push-pull 500k audio taper pots, did a partial coil split to mitigate the volume loss using 1K and 2K resistors to ground from the split, and put in an orange drop .022uf cap. Sure it was a lot of changes, but in reality the stock switch and pots were getting scratchy and it needed a refresh. After the mods the guitar now sounds amazing. Much more articulate, much better tonal variations from the tone control, all the richness and harmonic undertones I expected from the pickups is now there. Curious what really made the difference, I started playing with caps. The old pots measured out at 500k so I was pretty confident that wasn’t what made it sound so dark. The old ceramic cap was .047 as advertised. In researching many of your videos I learned that .047 is more to take the high end of single coils and .022 was a winner for hum buckers. I decided for kicks I would put that .047 back in just to see what happened and surprisingly it sounded excellent, but much darker when the tone was rolled completely down, dumping everything to the cap. Kind of expected. But with the tone at “10” it retained all the brightness and articulation I was getting from the .022uf orange drop. Anyway, there was certainly some part of that old circuit that was robbing the signal and making the poor thing sound like crap. I could go on experimenting, but I just rest comfortably knowing it now sounds great. I suspect maybe the old No name pots had something to do with it? Sorry for the long post. LoL. Any insight you can offer as to why it used to sound dark and muddy, and it now sounds brilliant would be appreciated. It’s seriously like I used to have a blanket over the amp cabinet, and after the electronics swap it’s now free and beautifully articulate. Strange to me. Glad for the cheap fix, but my curiosity is still there!
In 2011 I put a MusiCap Coupling Capacitor, Film & Foil Polypropylene, 0.022uF - 600VDC into my strat build. It reminded me of a firecracker shape, which I like.
A luthier told me, just make sure it's mylar with a low capacitance tolerance. I got an entire set of 100, 10 each of 10 capacitance levels on Amazon for six bucks and they work wonderfully. Unless I start my own shop, I won't have to buy any, maybe ever again.
Only thing that really matters is one of the two values, I forget the name of the value but I know it isn't voltage. After that, I think you might want to shoot for a type of construction that affords the most longevity.
This was the first really insightful video I have been able to find on capacitors and their role in basses and 6 string treble basses. I have searched for weeks, thank you for the content, wish I had found this sooner.
Now I feel like I got took on my honey bee cap's in my 2021 50's Goldtop! I looked everywhere for this kind of info and now I find it when I am almost done! I am finishing another build with five Russian cap's on a Varitone in a lp with three pickups.
What you just said made more sense to me than any of the discussions I've read over the past 20 years. I don't know anything about capacitors. I never heard a difference during different tests. The only difference I've heard is on a Lolar video where they change between a 0.015,0.022, and 0.047. All that did was change the travel and depth of the tone knob. So, a person might choose a different value. But, it's good to know that the different types have more to do with the use environment which, on a guitar is a sealed cavity with some vibration and a benign temperature environment. Thanks so much for another great video!
I love, absolutely LOVE no b.s. approaches to things. I am the same way with brass instruments as a repairman. Just think of how many guitar players, whom you've crushed, who can't play, but have a basement full of incredible guitars that they are tweaking and modding with special caps and redistors. "The tone is in your fingers." Jaco Pastorius. Any questions?
I’m here to learn, I have to say that listening to a guitar being A/B with paper in oil and Milar I could hear a difference in sound, more smooth with paper in oil caps.
Good explanation of what has a lot of builders and guitarists panties in a twist! If I like a guitar enough to buy it I leave it alone unless something malfunctions. When I build a guitar for myself, I like to experiment, but I'm not about to shell out the money that would buy a good Wilkinson or GFS pickup for a capacitor. I have built double-humbucker guitars and wired some of them up with 250K pots and .047 capacitors and they sound just fine to me. Personally, I hate soldering. I think it's a real pain in the ass, and I'd rather put pure nickel strings on a guitar that sounds too bright, than go ripping everything apart, putting in expensive stuff, and finding out I liked it better before. Alpha pots and ceramic disc capacitors sound just fine to me.
Things I seen today were orange drops with I guess a resister soldered to each wire of the orange drops called it tone bleeding and the orange drops were attached to the input output only on either or the pits but did not connect the controls in any way and say fore the volume a different capasitor setup was used. I tried to digest that 14 hr lesson best I could . I think one orange drop on tone good enough without in series tiny resister stealing anything. I don't no I'll just keep listening to ya Dylan. I know one thing people will soder an alarm clock up to a pot if they thought they could sell you the clock.
Somewhere in my junk box, I have a box with a rotary switch and a bunch of capacitors in it. It has alligator clips, so it can be quickly connected for blind testing. When customers ask about cap types and values during a pot swap, I hook it up, and let them decide for themselves. Everyone can consistently hear large differences in capacitance, some notice smaller changes, but no-one has ever correctly identified PIO vs Mylar vs polyester- or even ceramic.
from my understanding paper & oil has a warmer tone and ceramic a brighter tone. I was thinking of having an on/on/on toggle switch with an 1.0, 0.47, 0.22 caps so I could switch to whatever cap while playing Making a wider rang of tones to use then just settling for one cap. I also understand if you wire 2 caps in series or parallel you can double the value or cut it in half.
Well I can hear the differance when it comes to ceramic or paper & oil maybe some people can't it's a matter of preference. The higher the value of the cap the deeper the tone you said that in one of your own videos and it's true you can hear the differance. Basic wiring like when you wire speakers series or parallel is evident not Myth, So how can you just dismiss it as myth when it is not. i think you are fooling yourself or you just don't realy know about electronics. If I wire two 0.022 caps in series it becomes 0.011, If I wire two 0.022 caps in parallel it becomes 0.044 and that is not myth.
I have no idea about Caps. But from experimenting i have boticed a hear a difference between different typrs. quite amazing really. Thanks Dylan awesome video :)
Thanks Dylan for making my life easier with your knowledge, i was so obsessed about replacing my guitars capacitors to orange drop to bumble bee capacitor! Thank you!
Taking a look at the video gibson/epiphone made talking about the new inspired by gibson range and mentioning the mallory caps brought me here. I knew it was probably a part that doesn't play any part of the tonality of the instrument but having a quick browse through some forums quickly realized people just fall for this type of misleading propaganda and advertisement. Thanks for clearing and confirming that so plain and simple!
I have a question (ignore the handle, shared computer) but for those of us who subscribe to the DIY thic and dismantle old tv's and stuff to harvest parts do you have any good advice or thoughts on what items we should look for and why? It seems capacitors would be one of hte easier bits to pull from old electronics
nah man caps dont worth it.. focus on big expensive stuff like transformers, tubes, power transistors, heatsinks, anything mechanical like potentiometers and switches, big inductors, cables, that sort of jazz, also anything you find useful obviously why not..
The electrical value of a capacitor is the only thing that should matter. The object is to use components the work and last as long as possible. Using the best you can afford doesn't mean spending as much as you can, it's choosing components that will work together to give you the sound you desire. Capacitance gives you your range of tone but so does everything else employed.
I own a startup guitar company, Sustain Guitars, and just built a guitar for a famous, guitar geek on the electronic side, or he'd like to believe. Insisted on some ancient paper wrap in oil, honestly the brand he required escapes me. My background is I've spent my day job career working for Altium, Cadence and OrCAD.
I don't feel any particular way about caps. I'm just learning. Right now I am on the down hill slope of a 2 humbucker rewire job. I learned about polarity. Testing humbuckers for resistance. Pot values versus humbucker tonality. Now I'm "nerding" out about the bridge pickup. I had to drop in a 250K tone pot. I have a one Meg volume pot. The caps are .022's. There are two DPDT switches (on, on, on) for dual sound parallel, series and coil splitting. Blah, blah, blah. Now the question really is what will my bridge humbucker sound like. Will I swap out the cap or the pot? Or will I like the darkness of it as I go from one coil to two depending...? Should I wire the switch for the North coil or South on this bridge pickup? All very interesting and fun to me. So thanks for all your cool vids Dylan.
I’m subscribing. After 4 of your videos, I genuinely enjoy the needing out over science of music. You’re a fascinating guy, can’t wait to see more from you
I've played around with several different capacitor types - various vintage caps (mustard caps, tropical fish, bumblebees, etc), Orange Drops, ceramic, polypropylene film, polyester film...etc. I usually avoid ceramic since they tend to be microphonic more often than the film type caps, but otherwise, like value caps will almost always sound nearly identical (actual value - not rated value). My go-to are Panasonic polypropylene caps - they're inexpensive, they sound good, and they're compact (especially the 25V and 50V rated caps I use, which are still overkill for the application). Pot values also come into play. Generally, you'll have a darker tone with 250K and brighter with 500K or 1M. Smaller value caps will sound brighter and larger value will bring more low end into the mix. I like 500K pots with a .047uF cap for single coil pickup guitars and 1M pots w/.022uF for humbuckers.
I'm not really too bothered. I saw a test where some old russian ones had slight upper mids and warmth. But to be honest it was nothing you probably couldn't tweak with the EU on your amp, guitar or pedals. And in this case the difference was probably 5-7%. Getting a different value cap would probably make a bigger difference. I remember swapping out the 33 that came with my dual humbucker Ibanez for a 47. I noticed a slight difference but hardly night and day and might as well not have bothered. Changing the pickups for some third party ones made a MUCH bigger difference. Louder, warmer, more articulate and defined picking dynamics. As a then newbie to messing with guitar I kind of decided then that the caps aren't really a big deal and either I was tone deaf, or just not that picky of tiny changes that can be tweaked. I'm sure using the wrong caps between single coils and humbuckers would make a difference, and changing values is a cheap way to slightly tweak a overly bright or dark guitar but caps are probably the last thing I worry about. Setups and nuts, pickup height are another thing entirely. I procrastinate on that all the time lol.
Well, if you want an angry disagreement. Ah, you are right about capacitors. It doesn't matter what the cap is made of. .01 is .01 no matter what it's made of. Oil and paper caps will fail sooner than caps made of better materials. No argument here, you are right. The people that will argue are the ones that really don't know any better. And thus if they don't know, they should not argue. Next video please. God bless you brother.
That famous guitarist would sound better if he used a paper and oil capacitor “Said nobody ever”😎 Geez just been binge watching your videos just had to go back and like the last three videos great content 👍
A lot of people seem to think they're missing some magic component in their signal chain that's holding them back. There isn't. You just aren't practicing enough. Stop obsessing over caps and start obsessing over being the best player you can be. I need this advice too.
-mic dropped-
You won't sound good if you don't play well this is true, but if you've ever modded a guitar and achieved hitting that sweet spot of tone you'd understand that tone isn't entirely in your fingers. There's a point to chasing it, but there's also tons of variables. The biggest being how you sound in your room isn't how you sound being recorded with a mic, or to someone 100 yards away listening to you in a mix. That said I feel how I sound to myself is important to feeling inspired to play. To each their own though. Everyone should have a different perspective and experience. Also I agree with this guy's perspective in the video for the most part. I've heard it argued though that there's a tolerance for variance in value in caps and cheaper ones apparently tend to have wider value variance meaning they can vary a little more higher and lower from the actual value in performance than some of their more expensive competition. I don't know enough to say if that's true though, and that didn't seem to be addressed in this video. I'm curious to know if there's much truth to that claim.
True, but nerding out on capacitors can be superficial therapeutic fun. Even if doesn’t matter which cap you use. It’s like audio jewelry.
That's true to an extent, but people often don't know how to dial in an amp either. Usually dial in too much gain and bass, then can't figure out why their tone sucks
The thing missing is the 2000-3000$ amps the big difference
45 years ago, when I was a young boy, I had; a cheap Teisco, a three month 7th grade electronics course, and a Radio Shack a block from home.
I spent many months, experimenting with as many different value capacitors, and fixed resistors, as I could find. I made my own Veritone, replete with resistors, before I knew it was actually a thing. I only did it, so I could compare cap values easier.
Then, I tried phase shifting, coil tapping, (later splitting, when I added some cheap Framus humbuckers). I used push/pull pots, DPST, DPDT switches. Anything I could find, at Radio Shack.
When I brought what I had done to my electronics teacher. He laughed at me, and told me I was wasting my time.
My poor Teisco looked like Frankenstein’s monster, all the extra pickups, switches & knobs. It looked just awful, but it could make so many different sounds, through my 15watt converted stereo/turntable, into amplifier. It was crazy.
Edit: typo
I'm about to turn 66 in a few days. I spent my life having a certain mind-set, if I built a guitar or bought one I'd do the same things to it just because I thought that's the way things are done. I'd not even put a tone control on ones I built and cut them out of the ones I'd buy, I never took the time to learn how to use tone controls. About 6-7 years ago I was at Guitar Center trying Les Paul's. None sounded "good" to me, mostly too bright. I had just played one, didn't "like" it, hung it back on the wall. I stepped away, a younger guy picked that same guitar up, played a few notes, then that creamy tone I was looking for came out of that guitar, it didn't sound that way when I played it. I asked the guy what he was doing to get "that" sound. He rolled the tone control back a bit. That's all he did. I had to rethink most everything I'd done due to misinformation or just stubbornness. My tone quest has been fun and informative. That's how I discovered Dylan Talks Tone.
Just re-read this, I'd left some holes in my comments explaining "what I did to everything". I'd read in guitar player in the 80's about the timeless discussion how smaller value pots kill treble, the higher the pot value, more highs get thru. The writer suggested everyone put 1 meg pots in their guitars to get full frequency spectrum. In another monthly how to by the same writer, he suggested adjusting the pickups so high they almost touch the strings to get full output. Not sure if the "cut the tone control out of the circuit to get more mojo" was by the same idiot, but I did all three suggestions to every guitar I put my hands on. I didn't understand why my strat sounded so badly, I hated it, so I changed pickups but did the same thing, it sounded badly too, so I traded it away. Imagine my shock when I learned the pickups were too high. I'd taken part of 3 or more magazine articles and abstractly applied what I THOUGHT I'd read with mostly bad results. Before internet (here goes a "had to walk to school uphill, both ways" story) I obtained my information 3 ways, magazine, library, and word of mouth. Thinking back, most of the people that gave me guitar advice were either high, or just stupid, but I digress. I feel foolish for blaming what were otherwise excellent instruments for me making the tone and sound stink. My go-to phrase for one of these guitars was "it sounds like a TURD". Oh, well.
@@Lamster66 thanks for the insight.
To clarify my standpoint, I've played just about every genre from Gospel to bluegrass to blues since 1972, I've not found that magic guitar or pickup that does everything I've needed. Besides my hands and string choices, the pickup and resulting tone is the next item in the equation. I use a variety of amps as the genre and size of the venue dictates, so usually the guitar choice is dictated by the same requirements. What I mentioned regarding that Les Paul being too bright, it wasn't giving me the sound I was after for that purchase. I also explained that I'd done the same things to every guitar I owned instead of learning how to use that tone control. It amazed me that it actually made that much difference in shaping the tone. I've been on the "tone quest" since then so I'm about 18 years past THAT revelation. I'm not so closed minded these days, I read and experiment as much as possible, an auto accident ended my live gigging. Your explanation was thorough and I certainly appreciate the input. At this point of my by guess or by gosh engineering I'm experimenting with bass cut and passive mid-range cuts, I'm intrigued with the cocked wah sounds possible and how 3 tone cut controls interact. I'm enjoying my journey and really enjoy Dylan's posts. Thanks again.
I share this pro tip with very few people. Mainly because they really do not know what they do not know and just play what is stock. So here it goes: use 500k pots on all your guitars. Wire the volume and tone knob like a 50’s Les Paul junior. (Vintage wiring vs Modern) use the value .010- .015 for the tone cap. If you want to roll back the volume or tone when using single coils to get more of those stratty tones then you will be inclined to use your ears more and also more feel of the strings and magnets resisting your pick attack. Tone really is in your hands, some guitars do this better out of the box, most have to be modified to this recipe to really have it all, especially in HSS. Now, you have the 500k which the humbucker loves, you are twice the value for single coils, you can roll off the volume and tone and solve that, plus.... using the value of tone cap I prescribed, you will actually use your tone knob more than ever before as the value (.010-.015mfd) shifts the mid and treble points like a partially cocked Wah wah pedal, instead of that .05 horrible muted muffled muddy sound Fender chose to use when guitar players would mimic bass guitar on a 6 string while recording in the 50’s, and no modern players really use the tone knob because of that fact. Playing your amp is now your new concern. You can dial up higher than you would normally use for volume and tones, and use the volume and tone knob on the guitar for boosting volume and tone without a pedal... ala Hendrix ... you will love this setup more than anything and will play more and use the volume and tone knobs and never want anything else forever thereafter...... do a video with this idea.... boost the amps volume and tone controls and dial it back from the guitar and when you want a volume or frequency change, use those knobs on the guitar instead of walking to the amp, or stepping on pedals.....you will be free to play and have it all at your fingertips.....you will thank me later tonechasers!!!
@@bradleyshuppert3393 Chris Buck did a video called "The CHEAPEST Les Paul Tone HACK? | Friday Fretworks" His LP has about 330K pots from Gibson. He had the guitar upgraded to 500K post with new caps. There was a bit of difference but not as much as you would think.
Global Statement: As an older EE and now custom guitar creator, I find your videos to be the most accurate, articulate, logical, myth-busting, BS-mitigating and consistently helpful content on the subjects of guitar electronics and tone.
UPSHOT: Your efforts are greatly appreciated.
His content hooks up with my failed engineers (stupid calculus) understanding of physics. But hey all that math eventually helped understand data for stock speculation 🤣
I completely concur! I hate myths, conspiracy theories, fake news, false informatoon, superstitions, the supernatural, paranormal, metaphysical, mythological, lies, and bs. And there is nothing better than busting myths and lies by debunking them with truth and real knowledge!!
@@drivinsouth651 Than I can gladly tell you that mechanical exitement has a completely objectively measurable effect on the capacitance, and that effect is different for different types of capacitors. If you HEAR that is another thing. But there IS a measurable difference. I find it funny how he lists "heat, voltage, current - all things that we do not have in guitars -" but the obvious thing - physical vibration - is left out of all things. Again: if you actually hear that is another story.
I've no idea or opinion on the subject, so I'm here to learn.
Back to the video...
Paper and oil makes me think of fish and chips. That's all I know.
Ewww.
try the salt & vinegar, they react really nicely with the heat range of fish & chips ,,
Hahahaha...... now I'll never see paper and oil caps the same way.
@@adrianpierce3047 Mmm vinegarrrrr aaarrgghhh!
@Steve R A cap, is always, just a cap!
GREAT explanation. I also play Hammond B3 organ. There are 88 pickups [tonewheels] , each with their own cap. When we used to do a 'cap job', some people didn't like the resulting sound. They had become accustomed to the 'drifted' sound; which, on a B3, is rather muddy. After their ears became tuned in, they found the B3 much more tone responsive; to drawbar changes.
Great video! I love your vids! I will say though just an interesting fact I learned during my 9 years as an electrician is that the one thing electricity will never run through is completely pure 100% distilled water (basically the chemical of pure H20)! When electricity runs through normal water it runs through the irons and zincs and minerals in the water! Just thought that was an interesting fact I learned in tradeschool!
I love the Jimi illustration of heat effect on the capacitor - brilliant! 🤣
Arguing the caps in your guitar make it sound better is like arguing the caps in your calculator make it do math better. At a given capacitance, they sound the same.
My tone gets better the more I practice.
Dylan made an excellent point about old caps starting to go bad and beginning to act like resistors. Check the ESR of those old caps. So yeah, when a crappy paper cap stops being a cap, no doubt it sounds different than modern caps.
We can't make them old, but I wonder if there was a way to make them sound old by freezing them, baking them in an oven, or some other method?
@@drivinsouth651 For those who can't read a blue print, you'll have to put your capacitors in the oven. Those who can read a blue print know will know that the design of the circuit determines the "tone." The reason that brown fenders sound different than black face which sound different than silver face fenders is the circuits are different.
@@murfbass But which one should I put in my Strat? I put the parts from an Ibanez RG loaded pickguard in my Ibanez GIO and it sounds better than any of my other guitars. The Ibanez loaded pickguard cost $97.00 on eBay. The $500.00 worth of pickups, Emerson blender, 10 way switch, and Qijack I put in my Strat should theoretically sound better. I was thinking of putting Ibanez parts in my Strat. What should I do, lol? Thanks!
Just need to put your guitar in the pizza oven for about three hours. Now your capacitors would be awesome and you guitar will look vintage.
I have put PIO capacitors in two of my guitars and I can tell you they changed the tone drastically. Anything that affercts the current form the pickup to the amp WILL have an effect.
Same!
I have PIO in one of my guitars too. I don’t know if it improves but it looks great
I like to think of capacitors as balloons in a circuit, they add voltage back in when the voltage drops like a balloon would in an air system. Pots are like electrical valves and resistors are like a restriction in a piece of pipe slowing down the amount of air passing through. It helps me visualize what is happening. Great video. Thank you.
Pots are resistors just variable
I don't know, but I've heard the reason that the vintage bumblebee caps might sound "better" is that they are not very good performing caps compared to modern caps; they are "leaky". And it's this phenomenon that can make them sound different.
I use Orange drops for two simple reasons... they have a tight tolerance, and the last forever.
I have one Orange drop in one of my guitars. Love it! Awesome capacitors
If you measure two capacitors of different kind with the same value,
you get different readings depending on the frequency your capacitance meter are using (often 100Hz to 1Khz).
But since guitars just handle audible frequencies below 20khz I don't think it matters at all.
There is a difference on choosing types when you are talking about Mhz/Ghz range.
I think you should select one that is easy to solder with a long lifespan. Or just use the one with the coolest colour.
Personally, I first choose the value I like, then I install the ones that have the look I like the most in that guitar 😀
Paper in Oil...tropical fish, orange drop...they all have a place in my guitars. There is no real difference in sound, but I hate to see those small ceramic disk caps and always swap them out. Still makes me feel I did something to make my guitar more personal
@@frankscassi4960 The ceramic don't blead.
@@frankscassi4960 For me, nerding out on capacitors is fun. I enjoy being a capacitor nerd even if it makes not much of difference
Not only do none of my guitars have capacitors, I had no idea what they were before this, so thanks for the info
So no tone control?
@@tomohara414 must be acoustic 😂
@@holmesteadready There are many electric guitars without a tone pot(s).
Dylan, great discussion and topic! Just bought a Kay K161V reissue and started making a list of everything that I “needed” to change... (having the pickups rebuilt using US materials, replacing the pots/caps..etc).
After watching this video the only things I’m changing now are the 3-way switch (to a CRL) as the stock switch is failing already, Tuner machines, output jack (to Switchcraft), and bridge saddle to Tru Arc.
Thank you for approaching everything you talk about in a subjective manner. Keep up the great work!
I definitely would NOT argue with you about anything! I am 66 yrs. old and I am amazed at your knowledge and out&out common sense. I just want to thank you for sharing your knowledge and even your random thoughts. I have gained a lot from your videos and I love how passionate you are about guitars. Please keep up the GREAT work. Mark B., Virginia Beach
Saw some paper & oil caps for $80 each today at a thrift store lol. I hate orange drops cause of how they look but when they're in the guitar I don't have to look at them. I use the same cheap ceramic caps as I do in the pedals I build on guitars I wire. works out great & at 10 cents a pop from tayda.... better to put my money into other things such as vintage wine.
My 63 Strat had a nice ceramic disc cap that sounded great when you rolled off the highs !
"But I can hear the difference" is the exact same bs as "but this one goes to eleven". If a customer wants to spend an extra 25 bucks on a fancy cap, so be it. But I'm doing allright with my 5 cents caps. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Very valuable informations!
Thanks Dylan! 😃👍🏼
I‘ve put 0.015mF orange drops in 2 humb. guitars with diff. scale length and on a Telly style with noiseless SC‘s. I like to have usable tones from 10-0.
I intend to do the same in other two strat/superstrat type, wich are already warm sounding.
My LP style „black beauty" got 0.022mF, for the growl.
I „know“ the difference between the types of caps is negligible to non existent, but I generally don't "trust" things if they are too small… so I chose orange drops…and they look nice too.
But for treble bleeds I use the small ceramic caps and resistors.
I watched this right before wiring up a Fernandez L-50 strat I own. It has Seymour Duncan Texas specials. This is what I changed . One of the screws was on the verge of stripping out, so I installed brass EZ Locs with 1/4-20 thread inside. I drilled out the screw holes to accept the bolts. I replaced the bridge that was a LR Baggs acoustic with a wide spacing. It was too wide for the width of the neck, and the E sting would slide off the top of the neck down past the 5th fret. I bought a Mex bridge plate with block and used some Tusq saddles I had laying around. I had used them before and liked them. Now I was ready to wire up a all new hand made push back wire harness from scratch, done it before many times. I decided to use J Vaughan-Wacker(don't know who this is) diagram with a .022 cap on first tone, and a .047 on the second tonepot. New jack new strings plugged it in and it was so trebley in all positions I couldn't believe it. I used both orange drop caps, and double checked all wiring connection with a pair of magnifiers before assembling it. In the past I have tried orange drops, and never left them in. This guitar has a small routing and space is tight, so I decided to try them, besides this was different than I had tried in the past. OK, they are coming back out first opportunity I get. Before it sounded very much like my US strat, and I very much liked the sound of it. It sounds totally differnt now. If you want to torture someone with ear splitting treble, then this is for you. The caps I took out were a little tiny treble bleed cap, and a small cap half the size of an M&M, but it sounded really good. Well I guess that's my three cents worth.
After about 30 years, the onboard effects stuff on my Cort flying V started to fail. I'd never really used the stuff, didn't care for how it performed or sounded, so I just ripped everything out and rewired it like a Gibson V, with 3 pots and a 3-way switch. I used 500k pots and a .022 uf orange drop. This gave me a top end so trebly it almost sounds like a single coil, and I can still roll the tone knob back to get those more classic Gibson tones. So more attenuation out of the pot, for greater range out of the pickup. Win/win.
Yeah that's a tough talk... not many people are ready to hear it... and It's true, if you want to sound like a vintage guitar, check its cap value, and duplicate it... dont go read the original value of it and try to put a paper in oil cap in your guitar with the original value, it won't sound the same...
Duplicating original values is a mistake many people make when trying to recreate a 60 year old amp with fresh components. The "mojo" in those old amps is there because the values of those 60 year old parts have drifted over the decades. I heard clones that sound incredible but, good or bad, they don't sound exactly like an original.
I don't understand what you are talking about. isn't the reason you love that old vintage amp or vintage guitar due to the recordings you've heard and fallen in love with that use that gear? like the classic rock sound of those vintage Les Paul and Marshall amps got on the classic Led Zeppelin Albums? or that unmistakable tone Jimi Hendrix got on his recordings?
All of that gear was brand new when those recordings were being made and the caps when all in spec.
if you really want to sound like that vintage gear then re-cap your amps, put fresh tubes in and set the bias correctly and re-cap your guitar with the correct values. there! true vintage sound! anything else is just a lie that has made people spend way too much money on old gear that in reality was out of spec and not working properly!!!!
sagging caps will over time damage your gear, it's not sound it is creating it is bad electronics, see your getting DC leakage and that is just bad!
@@mergatroid1212 THANK YOU GOOD SIR! SENSE AT LAST!
Capacitors are merely frequency filters that bleed high frequencies off to ground, leaving the lower (darker) tones intact in the signal chain. You can however get different tones using the same value of capacitor by changing the cap's position across the tone pot's middle lug to ground, from the tone pot's far left lug to the volume pot's far right lug, or from the tone pot's far left lug to the volume pot's middle lug. Also using a 500k ohm volume pot for humbucker pickups and 250k ohm volume pots for single coil puckups, or vice versa will also vary the tone of your guitar's output signal.
I just rewired my Strat using two orange capacitors: .047 to the neck PU tone pot shared with the middle pickup and .022 to the middle PU tone pot now occupied by the bridge pickup; my #1 Tele was also rewired w/a .047 orange capacitor while Tele #2 is 'Esquired' w/a .022 orange cap on 3 while retaining the .022 green cap it came with.
And? How did you like the results?
@@MC-wh3xmThey're all better than before!
I trust and value your opinion, thats why I am watching YOUR video. some ppl just want to argue because their lives are vapid and they are under stimulated.
I really appreciate your input on this subject as I long have suspected this was the case. It is rather amazing how much hype and misinformation can proliferate into an urban legend when it comes to capacitors and electric guitars.
I just found your site and mostly I agree. I have been involved in the manufacture of circuits from power supplies to RF and capacitor selection is critical. The one factor you missed is price. Fender, Gibson and all the rest did not use silver mica (an extreme example) because paper would do the job for less money. It was a rule of thumb back then to use paper caps in audio circuits. People today who want working examples of old electronics remove the paper caps and replace them with plastic film types because those old caps have failed, as you pointed out. Those old caps are not in general use today because the reliability was bad.
also
Oil was not used to cool the capacitor, it could not circulate. It was used to "heal" a small punch through of the paper dielectric. I know, I'm picky.
Passive guitar circuits operate at millivolt levels and choice of capacitors isn't nearly as critical as in the circuits you're experienced with.
@@johnsieff2921Yes, self-healing wouldn't apply at the millivolt level. I did experiment with various caps on my bass guitar, but I determined that the tonal change would turn me into good player :-)
Excellent, as usual. People miss the fact that the capacitor types they used in vintage guitars were used because they were what was commonly available, not because they had some known musical advantage. Amp capacitors were way overkill for guitars. There are alternatives today. Now, pardon me, I have to go get some of those $75 vintage capacitors to make my tone better!
Additionally, quality of products back then was much better than the workmanship of modern products, this can especially be seen in modern vehicles, where technology is mated with cheap poor construction quality. I believe that is the reason vintage guitars can sound so good. Japanese guitars gained respect because of the pride they took in trying to make the best guitar they could make.
I’m wiring up a new Strat build right now. I have orange drop and PIO caps on hand. Gonna put one set in and play for awhile, then when I change the strings I’ll swap them out for the others and see what they sound like.
That you for clearing up the myth using logic. I’m getting ready to rewire an Asian LP copy and you just saved me $40 bucks or so.
I love this channel, you're talking about stuff that I've been saying for years to my naive friends who are constantly dropping big money to chase their perfect tone based entirely on BS hype from people who don't know what they're talking about!
I have about 25 Russian PIO caps covering I think three of the common guitar values, sitting in a box for the last 4 years, still haven't bothered to fit one into a harness, but they look so cool and full of vintage mojo. As we say in Australia," it's all about the vibe". One of the big time pick up makers, I'm sure it was Seymour D, confessed he could not tell the difference in a blind test and he's been listening to his pups for near 50 years.
It's funny how when we talk, we almost always try putting it, "into words." haha. As a 60-year-old beginning guitar player, I'm learning a lot here. Thanks my brother.
Thankyou for reinforcing what l have been saying for years. I been playin for 50 yrs & a technician for 30....there is no such thing as vintage tone due to a capacitor style ! Unless there has been leakage or deterioration over the years. It does what it does according to the value on the wrapper. OHM's LAW DON'T DO VINTAGE....PERIOD !!! 😢😅
FUNFACT...apparently even a company that starts with G & goes to N was caught painting capacitors to pass for the old black & yellow Bumblebees from a bygone era. They got swatted" down....Save your $$s kids !
I think doing little tweaks to our instruments is just part of the natural philosophy that infuses us all.
If we gradually make it a little better here and there the finished product will be a lot better when we're done.
The negligible difference in tone due to our choice of capacitor is just one of those minor tweaks.
In many cases yes, but in this case, no. No it’s not. Go back and listen more carefully to Dylan’s talking points, or read my comment above about decades of blind testing with different cap types and values.
Just replaced orange drop for Erickson red and yellow 047 on my tele. To me it sounds more detailed and less harsh . Expensive but I find worth it
I like the green chicklet looking caps.Cheap and never fail in a guitar!
I've been been building/ repairing my own amps for 8 years. And I agree with you about capacitors. Thank you for the video.
Thanks ! you're so right! You could explain how to wire caps the best way, this can explain a change in perception. For the rest, it's also all about passion and personal pride to get THE real thing. This can then be a good way to push someone to it's best...it means inspiration. Reason vs passion...
Thank you for this!! This helped me a lot! I understood most of this already but there was always the "mystery" behind it. Doing HVAC I've studied some electrical stuff and I was going to try to read about all this but getting the knowledge this way and from the Guitar standpoint made it so much better and easier to understand and I didn't have to learn a bunch of stuff that I won't use right now to get these answers. Thank you!! I do use 1959 Paper In Oil Bumblebee caps that have drifted into spec. So I have the look haha but not the "magic" of a cap that drifted out of spec.
I love that you said that it sounds better in some people's _eyes_ whether it was intentional or not. Some people really DO listen with their eyes first and foremost.
I don't have a view - I just want to understand what the deal is because my pick up maker asked me whether I want orange drop or paper in oil and i have no idea
Now having watched the video - i get it - it makes no difference and i will probably go with the orange drop
Thanks Dylan
I use NOS Aluminum Can PIO Vitamin Qs. Why? 1. Because a bought a ton of them cheap a few years ago. 2. I test them individually. 3. They look cool!
You asked to write a comment before watching the entire video, so what I think about tone capacitors: their value affects the frequency response as a part of a filter with pickup inductance, resistance and internal capacity. The dielectric material means less, but because of the differencies in dielectric loss tangent it affects the phase shifts and you can slightly hear that in attacks. So nothing wrong with experimenting here
dielectric makes a real audible difference, like ESR into a circuit, passive values R/C aren't the only factor how a cap work.
Capacitance is capacitance and what does matter is the value of the capacitance and the effective series resistance of the capacitor. If two capacitors have equivalent capacitance and ESR it doesn't matter which is used in these very low voltage circuits. High voltage needs really good insulation as well.
ok, first off, awesome video and explanation. So that said, we all agree that the value is the value, the end! while choosing materials to get a specific value, when trying to get to the vintage "failure" value, what is happening to that old oil in paper stuff as it gets old and dries out and "fails"? what value should one be looking for in a new longer lasting better material Cap? what were the intended values in the early guitar years, and what have the degraded to present day?
i bought 10 different types of caps, orange, russian paper / oil etc,,, various values too... i found some i like and haven't been able to get to the others yet. i like the Sprague orange alot. .047 for epi LP Custom
Make your statement known,
That's why we're watching!
Thank you!
I recently rewired an old lawsuit Les Paul. I grabbed some unbranded disc caps from an assortment bag I bought for $3. You know what? The tone knobs work fine and the guitar sounds nice. On the other hand I regret not paying a little more for the pots I used. 😉
People make such a big deal about caps in their guitars. It's insane.
I use Orange Drop .0147 for my tone cap. I feel I get more out of my tone pot than using a .022 or a .05
My volume pot has a 680pf Silver Mica and a 220k resistor.
I've been doing this for over 20 years. Because it works for ME. The pots I like to measure them and use three (Strat) that measure as close to the same as possible for the sake of OCD. Usually CTS or Emmerson.
But why? I don't know. Just a habit really. Orange Drop caps are available everywhere I guess. I've used ceramic disc caps in the past with the same results. Whatever is available works. I worry more about actually playing than stressing out over what's under the hood.
680pf parallel to 220k?
Thanks Dylan, old thread but very useful and totally makes sense. People!... It's an electronic circuit! Vintage choices as you said, they used what components where available in that period of time. Actually newer technologies will probably last longer since they don't use oil which will dry out over time but do exactly the same thing. Thanks fo explaining and exposing the myths but there will always be those who disagree, hell with them! Lol. I learned a ton of info from watching your channel! Keep up the great work.
A while back I went full nerd and started buying and testing all sorts of and tone caps. I tried the orange drop, tropical fish, Russian caps actually shipped from Russia, old PiO, and so on. I ran my American made Strat with Texas S. pups through a 65 Pro Reverb and listened really hard for that one special cap with the smokiest, dopiest and most beer stained tone I could find. The SOB just wasn't there.
I tried very hard to like one over the other but couldn't and I would have tried a cap dipped in unicorn blood if I could have found one, but then wondered what would happen if I went n the opposite direction and purchased a pack of 50 green Chiclets from China for $2. Guess which one I left in my American made guitar. Yep. There was no discernible difference in any of them and I was so fed up with the results I stopped testing and left a 4 cent cap in the guitar.
I wanted to believe the reaction between the signal and construction of the cap would make a difference but there's an easier way to find the right tone. With so many different capacitor values available just experiment with different cuts until you find a value that will produce what you want.
Unicorn blood. Lol
@Augustin Olivares Umm... yes
I'm a lousy player. I hardly think messing with caps is gonna make me sound like Sayce. OTOH ... ya got me thinkin' ... if I replace that thing with a spark plug ... just maybe I can manage it ...
thanks for the video! i dig it and your content generally! but, alas, i must disagree with some of the thinking here, because of a couple things. just superficially, yes of course different cap types can sound different; you're using totally different materials of dissimilar densities as the spacer between the charged cap plates, and they don't all act identically, just like mahogany behaves and sounds different than maple, and aluminum bridges play a little different than brass bridges, most of the time. alnico speakers play differently than ceramic. and a substantial amount of the time i've spent so far exploring this question, i've spent actually trying out many, many caps of different construction types and values and ratings. i've done blind tests and non-blind tests. i know i'll probably catch some flak for this, but please hear me out before judging. this is just my reporting back on my own (probably biased and anecdotal but nonetheless extensive and attended with care) first hand experiences, which i gathered by conducting direct comparisons and experiments and carefully noting what i heard as a result and then concluded. and ffs people, do your own listening tests and see what you experience. there's no shortage of received uninformed opinion thrown around these days. remember that the cynical, impossible-to-please skeptic is simply someone who doesn't believe in their own observations. i encourage everyone to do their own work and speak from their own experience where possible.
my take on the whole issue is basically this: it'll take 3 minutes or less to figure out which cap value (uF/nF) is best for tone. i personally tend to most often prefer caps in the 10n to 22nF range. your results may vary. any bigger tone shaping i usually regard as the amp/effects/cabinet's job. for voltage rating, i can comfortably say you're best bet is to choose the highest voltage rating you can afford; i have noticed consistently that higher voltage rated caps just sound noticably better, even in blind tests. now, the controversial attribute -- the differences in cap construction type -- these are where we find the most subtle and difficult to pick out differences when listening by far, and i think this is because the audible artifacts of construction type are not a matter of the -3dB cutoff frequency dictated by plate area in the cap. it's instead that the audible artifacts are the result of different dielectric materials being sandwiched between metal layers and subjected to changing electric fields that do exert a measurable (albeit minute) physical force on said dielectric. tech talk aside, what i'm saying basically is that i've so far concluded that cap construction/dielectric type is something that i *feel* when playing the instrument, much more than something i hear from the speakers, and that dielectric type mainly affects how the guitar plays in my hands. what this means to me is, construction type in cap selection is chosen because of its effect on how a given player interfaces with their instrument. maybe nobody hears any audible difference in tone; still the one playing the instrument will in my experience almost always be able to FEEL something different in how the instrument plays for them. so, choose a cap's value (uF/nF) for how it affects tone and how it sounds to a group of listeners. but, choose the cap's construction/dielectric type for your own preference and how it makes the instrument play in your hands. i hope that makes sense.
I hate that Ive just found your videos. I love how comprehensive and helpful these videos are especially the explanations being in guitar application as well. I’ve spoken to engineers(asking specifically about this) that haven’t been able to put it as clearly or as quickly as you have. Thank you
Thank you for clearly and plainly explaining something that gets knocked out of reality. Good job.
Great vid, told in a no nonsense way. Sticking old caps in your guitar wont give it instant vintage mojo. Remember that vintage guitars are a some of their aged parts: Caps, pots, pickups, materials... no one piece makes the “tone”. Some may have more effect that others, especially as they age and their values and tolerances chance, but a simple vintage part transplant into a new guitar is unlikely to yield the results you are hoping for.
Older video, but thanks for putting it out there. I have a 2005 Schecter C-1 Classic that comes standard with Duncan Jazz/JB pickup combo that I expected to just sing. For whatever reason they decided to use a .047uf cap on the tone control which made the pickups very muddy IMO. I played the guitar for 16 years like that, a bit disappointed with the pickups. Decided to completely change the electronics in the control cavity. Pulled out the Chinese 5 way switch and install a 3 way switch craft blade switch, swapped the pots for CTS push-pull 500k audio taper pots, did a partial coil split to mitigate the volume loss using 1K and 2K resistors to ground from the split, and put in an orange drop .022uf cap. Sure it was a lot of changes, but in reality the stock switch and pots were getting scratchy and it needed a refresh. After the mods the guitar now sounds amazing. Much more articulate, much better tonal variations from the tone control, all the richness and harmonic undertones I expected from the pickups is now there. Curious what really made the difference, I started playing with caps. The old pots measured out at 500k so I was pretty confident that wasn’t what made it sound so dark. The old ceramic cap was .047 as advertised. In researching many of your videos I learned that .047 is more to take the high end of single coils and .022 was a winner for hum buckers. I decided for kicks I would put that .047 back in just to see what happened and surprisingly it sounded excellent, but much darker when the tone was rolled completely down, dumping everything to the cap. Kind of expected. But with the tone at “10” it retained all the brightness and articulation I was getting from the .022uf orange drop.
Anyway, there was certainly some part of that old circuit that was robbing the signal and making the poor thing sound like crap. I could go on experimenting, but I just rest comfortably knowing it now sounds great. I suspect maybe the old No name pots had something to do with it?
Sorry for the long post. LoL. Any insight you can offer as to why it used to sound dark and muddy, and it now sounds brilliant would be appreciated. It’s seriously like I used to have a blanket over the amp cabinet, and after the electronics swap it’s now free and beautifully articulate. Strange to me. Glad for the cheap fix, but my curiosity is still there!
I've installed orange. Way more pick attack, brighter tone and smoother feel. New discovery!.
In 2011 I put a MusiCap Coupling Capacitor, Film & Foil Polypropylene, 0.022uF - 600VDC into my strat build. It reminded me of a firecracker shape, which I like.
A luthier told me, just make sure it's mylar with a low capacitance tolerance. I got an entire set of 100, 10 each of 10 capacitance levels on Amazon for six bucks and they work wonderfully. Unless I start my own shop, I won't have to buy any, maybe ever again.
Well said, that vintage sound is not what it sounded like new. It’s simply just got old, resistors and capacitors drift and the tone changes.
Only thing that really matters is one of the two values, I forget the name of the value but I know it isn't voltage. After that, I think you might want to shoot for a type of construction that affords the most longevity.
Soviet Pio caps are great in vintage tube gear!
I totally agree with you, I use Orange Sprague all the time and never sound bad
Now that you’ve schooled me on what caps don’t do, I want to know what they do? Do I even need them? Thanks
This was the first really insightful video I have been able to find on capacitors and their role in basses and 6 string treble basses. I have searched for weeks, thank you for the content, wish I had found this sooner.
Another good video Dylan. Ill make this short, I only use Orange Drop capacitors 0.010 or 0.015. Roll them back to 0 and there is no mud.
Interesting video, my man. Mainly the part of tone due to capacitor aging. Kudos !
Now I feel like I got took on my honey bee cap's in my 2021 50's Goldtop! I looked everywhere for this kind of info and now I find it when I am almost done! I am finishing another build with five Russian cap's on a Varitone in a lp with three pickups.
What you just said made more sense to me than any of the discussions I've read over the past 20 years. I don't know anything about capacitors. I never heard a difference during different tests. The only difference I've heard is on a Lolar video where they change between a 0.015,0.022, and 0.047. All that did was change the travel and depth of the tone knob. So, a person might choose a different value. But, it's good to know that the different types have more to do with the use environment which, on a guitar is a sealed cavity with some vibration and a benign temperature environment. Thanks so much for another great video!
I learn something new every time I watch your videos. Im seriously considering a new path in EE. Thank you and keep pressing on.
I love, absolutely LOVE no b.s. approaches to things. I am the same way with brass instruments as a repairman.
Just think of how many guitar players, whom you've crushed, who can't play, but have a basement full of incredible guitars that they are tweaking and modding with special caps and redistors.
"The tone is in your fingers." Jaco Pastorius. Any questions?
I’m here to learn, I have to say that listening to a guitar being A/B with paper in oil and Milar I could hear a difference in sound, more smooth with paper in oil caps.
Me too put new old stock Russian PIO caps in my Les Paul and total change in tone way smoother than Myler so something is going on!
This is a well explained and understandable video on this subject.
Good explanation of what has a lot of builders and guitarists panties in a twist! If I like a guitar enough to buy it I leave it alone unless something malfunctions. When I build a guitar for myself, I like to experiment, but I'm not about to shell out the money that would buy a good Wilkinson or GFS pickup for a capacitor. I have built double-humbucker guitars and wired some of them up with 250K pots and .047 capacitors and they sound just fine to me. Personally, I hate soldering. I think it's a real pain in the ass, and I'd rather put pure nickel strings on a guitar that sounds too bright, than go ripping everything apart, putting in expensive stuff, and finding out I liked it better before.
Alpha pots and ceramic disc capacitors sound just fine to me.
Right, capacitor type doesn't matter, only the capacitance value, and you're also right in that it's a system, an RLC circuit.
Things I seen today were orange drops with I guess a resister soldered to each wire of the orange drops called it tone bleeding and the orange drops were attached to the input output only on either or the pits but did not connect the controls in any way and say fore the volume a different capasitor setup was used. I tried to digest that 14 hr lesson best I could . I think one orange drop on tone good enough without in series tiny resister stealing anything. I don't no I'll just keep listening to ya Dylan. I know one thing people will soder an alarm clock up to a pot if they thought they could sell you the clock.
Somewhere in my junk box, I have a box with a rotary switch and a bunch of capacitors in it. It has alligator clips, so it can be quickly connected for blind testing. When customers ask about cap types and values during a pot swap, I hook it up, and let them decide for themselves. Everyone can consistently hear large differences in capacitance, some notice smaller changes, but no-one has ever correctly identified PIO vs Mylar vs polyester- or even ceramic.
I hear you.But. Different dielectrics of the same value sound different. They just do. Polypropylene, polyurethane, PIO ..
All have different EQ's.
from my understanding paper & oil has a warmer tone and ceramic a brighter tone. I was thinking of having an on/on/on toggle switch with an 1.0, 0.47, 0.22 caps so I could switch to whatever cap while playing Making a wider rang of tones to use then just settling for one cap. I also understand if you wire 2 caps in series or parallel you can double the value or cut it in half.
Nah... that's all myth.
Well I can hear the differance when it comes to ceramic or paper & oil maybe some people can't it's a matter of preference. The higher the value of the cap the deeper the tone you said that in one of your own videos and it's true you can hear the differance. Basic wiring like when you wire speakers series or parallel is evident not Myth, So how can you just dismiss it as myth when it is not. i think you are fooling yourself or you just don't realy know about electronics. If I wire two 0.022 caps in series it becomes 0.011, If I wire two 0.022 caps in parallel it becomes 0.044 and that is not myth.
Thank you for this complete explanation of this matter. You have an amazing way of communicating your point, you earned a subscriber.
I have no idea about Caps. But from experimenting i have boticed a hear a difference between different typrs. quite amazing really. Thanks Dylan awesome video :)
Thanks Dylan for making my life easier with your knowledge, i was so obsessed about replacing my guitars capacitors to orange drop to bumble bee capacitor! Thank you!
Taking a look at the video gibson/epiphone made talking about the new inspired by gibson range and mentioning the mallory caps brought me here. I knew it was probably a part that doesn't play any part of the tonality of the instrument but having a quick browse through some forums quickly realized people just fall for this type of misleading propaganda and advertisement. Thanks for clearing and confirming that so plain and simple!
I have a question (ignore the handle, shared computer) but for those of us who subscribe to the DIY thic and dismantle old tv's and stuff to harvest parts do you have any good advice or thoughts on what items we should look for and why? It seems capacitors would be one of hte easier bits to pull from old electronics
nah man caps dont worth it.. focus on big expensive stuff like transformers, tubes, power transistors, heatsinks, anything mechanical like potentiometers and switches, big inductors, cables, that sort of jazz, also anything you find useful obviously why not..
The electrical value of a capacitor is the only thing that should matter. The object is to use components the work and last as long as possible. Using the best you can afford doesn't mean spending as much as you can, it's choosing components that will work together to give you the sound you desire. Capacitance gives you your range of tone but so does everything else employed.
I own a startup guitar company, Sustain Guitars, and just built a guitar for a famous, guitar geek on the electronic side, or he'd like to believe. Insisted on some ancient paper wrap in oil, honestly the brand he required escapes me.
My background is I've spent my day job career working for Altium, Cadence and OrCAD.
I don't feel any particular way about caps. I'm just learning. Right now I am on the down hill slope of a 2 humbucker rewire job. I learned about polarity. Testing humbuckers for resistance. Pot values versus humbucker tonality. Now I'm "nerding" out about the bridge pickup. I had to drop in a 250K tone pot. I have a one Meg volume pot. The caps are .022's. There are two DPDT switches (on, on, on) for dual sound parallel, series and coil splitting. Blah, blah, blah.
Now the question really is what will my bridge humbucker sound like. Will I swap out the cap or the pot? Or will I like the darkness of it as I go from one coil to two depending...? Should I wire the switch for the North coil or South on this bridge pickup? All very interesting and fun to me. So thanks for all your cool vids Dylan.
I’m subscribing. After 4 of your videos, I genuinely enjoy the needing out over science of music. You’re a fascinating guy, can’t wait to see more from you
I've played around with several different capacitor types - various vintage caps (mustard caps, tropical fish, bumblebees, etc), Orange Drops, ceramic, polypropylene film, polyester film...etc. I usually avoid ceramic since they tend to be microphonic more often than the film type caps, but otherwise, like value caps will almost always sound nearly identical (actual value - not rated value). My go-to are Panasonic polypropylene caps - they're inexpensive, they sound good, and they're compact (especially the 25V and 50V rated caps I use, which are still overkill for the application). Pot values also come into play. Generally, you'll have a darker tone with 250K and brighter with 500K or 1M. Smaller value caps will sound brighter and larger value will bring more low end into the mix. I like 500K pots with a .047uF cap for single coil pickup guitars and 1M pots w/.022uF for humbuckers.
I'm not really too bothered. I saw a test where some old russian ones had slight upper mids and warmth. But to be honest it was nothing you probably couldn't tweak with the EU on your amp, guitar or pedals. And in this case the difference was probably 5-7%. Getting a different value cap would probably make a bigger difference. I remember swapping out the 33 that came with my dual humbucker Ibanez for a 47. I noticed a slight difference but hardly night and day and might as well not have bothered.
Changing the pickups for some third party ones made a MUCH bigger difference. Louder, warmer, more articulate and defined picking dynamics. As a then newbie to messing with guitar I kind of decided then that the caps aren't really a big deal and either I was tone deaf, or just not that picky of tiny changes that can be tweaked. I'm sure using the wrong caps between single coils and humbuckers would make a difference, and changing values is a cheap way to slightly tweak a overly bright or dark guitar but caps are probably the last thing I worry about.
Setups and nuts, pickup height are another thing entirely. I procrastinate on that all the time lol.
Excellent job explaining this myths on Caps.
Well, if you want an angry disagreement. Ah, you are right about capacitors. It doesn't matter what the cap is made of. .01 is .01 no matter what it's made of. Oil and paper caps will fail sooner than caps made of better materials. No argument here, you are right. The people that will argue are the ones that really don't know any better. And thus if they don't know, they should not argue. Next video please. God bless you brother.
That famous guitarist would sound better if he used a paper and oil capacitor “Said nobody ever”😎
Geez just been binge watching your videos just had to go back and like the last three videos great content 👍