Tone Caps and other mods

[UnclePhuc]

I have a Frankenstein Silhouette that started out as a custom piece; it had the Luke pickup setup in it. After a few years, my tastes changed and I took out the EMGs and put a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan Tele pickup at the neck. I know that these are odd choices and a Strat pickup is probably a better choice for the neck, but I'm sentimental about Tele neck pickups.

A friend who's an engineer got me the new volume and tone pots and a tone capacitor. The guitar sounded good, but over time, I realized that it was lacking life. So a few weeks ago, I got some higher quality tone pots and a paper-in-oil .22 tone cap.

Holy crap! It's like I got a new guitar! It's got a very bright, snappy tone that just kills on the clean and distorted channels of my Egnater Rebel 30. The tone knob has a wide range and is very usable and musical in all positions. It doesn't sound like any other guitar I've played--definitely not like any other Music Man.

My other MM, an SSS Silhouette Special, already sounds awesome as-is, but if anyone out there has tried changing out the tone cap on theirs, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Bungo]

Weird - I was thinking of posting a very similar thread.

I was reading about the paper-in-oil cap mod earlier today. It did get me thinking - if they are that good, why are they not fitted as standard to more guitars such as MM sig models where presumably every component used is as good as it can get?

Or is it just a matter of taste?

 

[Roubster]

Actually I just re-wired my Silo Special on Saturday. I got myself a nice soldering station, because the job I did before this was HORRIBLE. I cant believe it even worked hahaha. Anyway, I put a .22 uF Orange Drop tone cap and a .001 uF cap as a treble bleed mod. I really like the tone of the Orange Drop and the treble bleed mod is cool specicifically for the neck pickup when rolling down the volume. When I roll down the volume on the bridge humbucker it sounds sort of like a Wah in the middle position with more treble, and to compensate for this I can use the tone pot to get some highs off of that. Basically its just very verestile using the volume and tone knobs. I relly like using them, because there are so many different tones to be had...and its also nice having a 5-way switch and the HSS combination. I got the Volume and Tone pots from EBMM...very high quality but very small hehehe. I have never seen the so small, but they fit in perfectly and actually easier to deal with in the cramped space since I have the piezo blend pot there as well. It cam to life again and I can use my volume and tone pots with a lot of range.
I had the treble bleed mod in there before, but running a resistor in parallel with the cap. This affected the sweep of the volume and tone pots drastically. I could only hear the difference in volume and tone changing when I rolled down to about 3 or 2. Now with just the .001 cap it works perfectly fine.
Now I need to add a push pull pot to my 20th Silhouette for series and parallel switching between some new pickups that I want to get. Probably a Creme/Black Air Norton and AT-1. Inspired by the 25th with the parallel/series switch . After that I will be all good for a long time with modding the guitars. The LUKE is staying as is...other than possibly solid block saddles hehehe.

 

[DrKev]

It's always cool when new stuff makes us more excited about our guitars/playing/tone. But where different caps are concerned, I'm on old fashioned physicist (ex-physicist actually, PhD in fact) and all my text books had just two things do deal with - capacitance and resistance. Orange drop, paper/oil, ceramic, whatever, at the voltages and temperatures we deal with for guitars, it shouldn't make any difference.

Of course the tolerances change the precise values and that could be something that the ear will hear but I'd love to see somebody simply pass a white noise signal through a simple circuit, change the caps for another of the same values and look at the response curves. That would settle the question once and for all. That fact that nobody seems to have done it yet adds to my suspicions. Maybe one day I'll get around to it myself.

Anyway, as long as you guys enjoy what you hear, that's all that's really important.

 

[beej]

I tend to agree with DrKev. And on a tone pot the cap is wired to ground, so when you roll down the knob you're just bleeding highs to ground. In that case construction really shouldn't matter.

But then again, some guys that I trust swear it's a big thing and of course if it makes ya happy just do it!

Myself, I've wired in a few push/pull pots that take the tone pot right out of the circuit. (A very mild treble boost.)

 

[Jack FFR1846]

I'd love to see the test DrKev suggests too. For a time, I was involved in high end car audio equipment and there is a TON of equipment out there to solve non-existant problems that people just NEED to buy for reasons that are based in nothing.

 

[luv]

i'd just like to be able to play better......

 

[jamminjim]

I've been using the SUPER MOJO MAKING Russian Military PIOs and I swear , they are as good as any other cap.......

If you was to want to Fen*erize your geetar then find some old TV's or Radio equipment from the 50's and cannibalize the little Ceramic capacitors out of them. Thats what Leo used. Instant Magic Mojo.

 

[Progdude]

Tone Cap mods are great! Such a great easy and super cheap way to change your tone! I Like .22s at the moment. I dont use my tone knob all the time, so I swapped out the stock 250k tone pot for a No Load tone pot. Now I have just a slight bit more output and when I want the .22 loaded tone knob is there when I want to use it.

 

[RocketRalf]

I rarely use the tone knob on my guitar, when I do I feel it takes away most of the mids and i'd like it to just take out the highs and the higher mids. Should I try a smaller cap?

 

[DrKev]

Absolutely! It's really nice to have a tone control that works in a way your ears prefer. Try a few out. Try .022µF, .01µF or something even smaller. Suck 'em and see!

 

[beej]

There are so many things you can do with the tone knob besides just tone.

On my Y2D, it's wired as a variable coil split- slowly grounding one coil.

On my AL, I've got a push/pull that takes the tone pot out of the circuit.

In my homemade strat, I've got a switch for a few different cap values.

Tonight I'm wiring up my HH AL with a Bill Lawrence "Q-Filter". Basically wired as a variable inductor, so it reduces the inductance of the p'ups when in parallel. Takes a hot middy humbucker and makes it sound more like a fuller bandwidth single coil. (A really neat little device. I used to have one on an Axis SS for ages.)

 

[jamminjim]

Hey Beej - Of track for a second, I did finally order up some Keystones and am anxiously waiting for them to arrive so I can fire the puppies up.
The idea of using the tone pot as a variable coil split sounds cool. Got any diagrams of what you developed?

 

[beej]

Tommy turned me onto the variable coil split. (Good for the Y2D, 'cause you don't want to drill for a switch and it's a pain to change pots.) Yes, exactly, it's gradually grounds one of the coils, so you can dial in the amount of split.

In my case, I've wired it up to a Silent Circuit rather than ground, so as I dial it in I'm getting a lot of noise reduction rather than a noisy single coil. But same approach.

Here's a diagram from the SD site (note: different colours for their p'ups):

 

[DrKev]

I have a blend pot on my strat that allows me to add the neck pickup in with the bridge and bridge/mid positions. Nice tele-like tones but I never really use it. I may switch it back to a tone control for just the bridge.

Beej, do tell us how the Q filter works out on the Al.

 

[beej]

Beej, do tell us how the Q filter works out on the Al.

Absolutely! Last time I'd used it, I'd wired it up as more of an EQ filter (with a cap and resistor). Basically keeps the highs and lows while dialing out the midrange. This time I'm going to use it to strictly reduce the inductance. I had it wired up in a little pedal and sounded great, but really it needs to be in parallel with the p'ups and not after the volume pot to be effective.

 

[Roubster]

Just a quick update, I removed the .001 Cap (treble bleed mod)!!! hahaha My ears realized that it was kind of pointless and when I turned down the volume on the bridge humbucker it sounded way too thin and like a wah pedal all the way back. I like it nice and simple and prefer the fatter tones anyway . The Orange Drop .22 cap does sound really nice though hehehe.