ASS pot & cap values info please

[Brian G]

Can anybody tell me what the values of the pots and cap(s?) are in the Axis SS with MM90's? I'm travelling and don't have access to mine just now to check.

Does this guitar use a treble bleed cap?

(In case Lance Romance sees this, you know what I'm thinking . . . RS. ) Or maybe just CTS / Hovland . . .

Thanks
Brian

 

[Lance Romance]

Hi Brian!
Lance checking in. 500Ks, .022 tone cap. I can't remember whether there's a treble bleed or not, but I've got caps at the shop. RS is the way!-Eric

 

[beej]

I haven't seen a treble bleed on any of the MM guitars.

 

[Astrofreq]

Uh . . .English pleeze for the rest of us.

 

[beej]

Most guitars lose a little bit of high end as you roll off the volume. If this is a problem for you, you can wire a resistor and capacitor up to your volume pot to allow some of the high frequencies to always "bleed" through to the output. That'll give you high end at lower volume settings.

 

[greeny]

I doubt there would be a treble bleed. There wasn't one on my (non P90) ASS. SO I added one myself

 

[Tim O'Sullivan]

I have never heard of a Ball having a treble bleed cap installed.

 

[Brian G]

Thanks all, for the info.

So it sounds like the same RS kit as for a dual-humbucker, single volume & tone equipped guitar. Therefore RS will recommend an PRS Premium kit, which has the parts for single tone & volume pots.

Eric, what I'm thinking is, it might be interesting to see what either higher value pots or a lower value cap (e.g. .1 or .15) might sound like. Not to change the basic character of the guitar, which is great, but just to open things up a little bit.

After more playing time on the ASS, I think the MM90's are pretty good; kudos to Music Man for a great product lineup, and I love my new Luke.

For anybody wondering about the subtle and mysterious vagaries of "to treble bleed or not to treble bleed", when I put this question to a couple of notable high-end pickup winders, and RS Guitarworks themselves, they all felt that treble bleed caps were a compromise; although they provided a "signal bridge" to hold up high frequencies as the pots were turned down, they also sometimes compromised the absolute sound quality of the pickups, as they rolled off the lowest frequencies (I'm over-simplifying a bit here). This is just the nature of passive circuits.

After having an RS Premium Kit installed in another guitar, and also getting rid of the treble bleed cap, I'm sold on this approach.

Just passing on what I was told; every player should form his or her own opinion based on what your ears and setup tell you.

Thanks again,
Brian

 

[beej]

I'm not familiar with RS Guitarworks ... what is a "RS Premium Kit"?

In general, if you go with higher pots you're going to be shifting the the peak frequencies of your p'ups upward so they'll sound brighter. Are you talking about replacing the tone cap? Will just lessen the filtering effect of your tone pot as you engage it.

 

[Lance Romance]

Hey Brian, the best way to experiment with caps is make two lengths of wire each with two alligator clips. Remove the old cap, and use the new test leads with different cap values and see what you like. Was necessity the invention of all mothers?...-Eric

 

[Axilla]

Hey guys, I was just about to ask the same question about my MM90s in the Axis Sport when I read this. Thanks for the infos and I'll think it over whether to torture my babe with the soldering iron or not.

Thanks for clearing up

 

[Brian G]

Eric - yep - I had forgotten about that.

Beej - RS Guitarworks is a US company that sells "upgrade" pots and caps, pickups, other parts, etc. Just search and you'll come up with their website. They sell their electronics upgrade kits in different configurations, depending on what type of guitar you're working on. I replaced the (crap) pots and cap in a guitar (not a MM) last year, and the felt that the sound was improved but without changing the basic tonal character of the guitar.

They offer regular kits and "Superkits", which include their highest quality parts, so they offer some choices at different prices (we're only talking circa $50 here, CDN).

Sometimes the pots measure well below the 500K they're supposed to be, and just installing new pots that measure much closer will make a difference. RS claim to have worked very closely with CTS to make even better pots than CTS regular stock, and they're audio taper. They also claim that their Hovland caps are superior sounding.

You probably know all this stuff on pots & caps - sorry to be long winded.

I haven't checked myself, but have heard that Music Man's pots etc. are pretty good to begin with, so this would be an experiment, and not real expensive to do. The other guitar I mentioned above was a fine guitar, but very cheap electronics stock.

So you're in the GTA? I'm in Markham.

Brian

 

[tommyindelaware]

time to breakout the blinfolds again.....
rs pots are still cts pots.....w/ a +/- 10% tolerance.

 

[Tone Dog]

In a guitar, the tone pot capacitor dumps to ground which is a dead short. If your entire signal passed through this capacitor, you would have no output. Shunting select treble frequencies (determined by the cap value) to ground is how the cap eliminates the treble frequencies it is rolling off. That means that any "coloring" that might be occurring is happening to the part of the signal that is being removed. As a result, what you hear coming out of your amp is everything BUT the part that went through the cap - what is leftover.

Caps do have variances so that can affect the signal slightly so one .047 may not react exactly the same way as another .047 if they have variance differences. But this is only happening when the Tone pot is rolled down and is pretty minor. In most instances, it's not enough for most of us to even hear and if you did, it would be negligible.

If you were to take 10 different capacitors of different designs, materials, vintages or reputation, as long as they all spec the same value on a digital multimeter, they will all "sound" identical in your guitar because they will all treat the signal in the exact same manner. In other words, a $1.00 .047 Orange Drop Cap will sound exactly the same as a $40.00 .047 TFTP in a guitar.

Some companies out there would like to have you believe one type sounds "better" than another and will gladly charge you 15 or 20 times as much as a simple Orange Drop cap when you buy one of their "upgrade" kits. Keep in mind that these are the same folks who stand to profit by perpetuating this and other myths. I don't even want to get started on RS Guitarworks "Super Pots", but Tommy is correct that they are CTS pots but with a slightly different taper - that is the only difference except for some cosmetic changes to the casing so that it would have a different look. I suspect they find it easier to create some mystery if the pot looks differnt, but it's what is inside that counts and that is simply a different taper - a taper some might like and others might not.

At any rate, the simple electronic fact is that the tone cap in a guitar is not coloring the audible signal because what passes through it is eliminated. All anyone need do to confirm this is look at a schematic or open a guitar up and see where the two legs of that cap are soldered (remembering that the pot casings are grounded).

 

[Brian G]

Tone Dog - thanks for the clarification.

 

[beej]

Hey Brian-

Yep, I'm in the city! But grew up in Thornhill so I know Markham well (Or used to, before all the development.)

I didn't want to jump right in with it, but what Tone Dog and Tommy say is right on the money (those guys know their stuff!). Cap construction doesn't make any difference and most pots are CTS anyway.

Even if you get a pot with tighter tolerances - or one that's dead on - you're not likely to notice much of an audible difference in your guitar. A few k here and there is pretty much unnoticeable. (Plus any variance is usually averaged out by both pots which act in parallel.)

For me it comes down to reliability (how long they last), taper (but everyone has virtually the same product and taper differences are hard to notice), and feel. The later being the most important so the pot isn't too tight or too loose. The rest, as they say, is snake oil. I'm quite fond of the stock pots in the MMs; I've only had one which went noisy off the bat. A quick clean with contact cleaner fixed that.

That said, if you want to experiment with different pots or caps go for it! A few cents worth of components can make a huge difference and it's always a fun experiment.

 

[58super]

The only thing I can add is that EBMM are the only guitars I've had that I've never considered changing components on.
CTS pots and film caps are the quality standard.
Another suggestion is to keep the contacts clean on the output jack. A q-tip and contact cleaner can work wonders for tone.

 

[tommyindelaware]

lord knows i'm all for trying stuff & experimenting to tweek geetars....and promote people do do it and learn to tweek their own sound. i just get a little upity when i see people selling $30.00 caps that really don't sound any better than a $1 one. a little too creative marketing ?
but like poppa says....there is an ass for every seat.......