Tone Capaciters and Volume Pots

[dboy66]

Anyone willing to give a brief primer on this subject? How do these things eefect your tone? Are changes here noticeable to the average player, or is this purely cork-sniffing stuff? What do you think of the stock Hamer components? Has anyone made changes that they are particularly fond of? Lastly, are changes here necessary to enhance the tone of particular pickup types or brands? Thanks in advance!

Dboy

[BubbaVO]

This a pretty good article on the subject:

http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/pr...tar/capacitors/

I agree with the author that you can make things sound brighter or darker depending on the value of the tone capacitor. I have an Ibanez ST50 with 36th Anniversary PAFs Dimarzio pups. It came alive when I put in a .01 uF capacitor in there. I think Gibsons come with a .02 uF value for their capacitors.

There are different types of capacitors - oil and paper, mylar, etc. But I don't know if that really makes a dfference. At least, I couldn't really tell a difference between the types. But maybe you can. Fooling with tone capacitors is not so expensive that it isn't worth fooling around with them.

Good luck.

[unfun75]

This a pretty good article on the subject:

http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/pr...tar/capacitors/

I agree with the author that you can make things sound brighter or darker depending on the value of the tone capacitor. I have an Ibanez ST50 with 36th Anniversary PAFs Dimarzio pups. It came alive when I put in a .01 uF capacitor in there. I think Gibsons come with a .02 uF value for their capacitors.

There are different types of capacitors - oil and paper, mylar, etc. But I don't know if that really makes a dfference. At least, I couldn't really tell a difference between the types. But maybe you can. Fooling with tone capacitors is not so expensive that it isn't worth fooling around with them.

Good luck.

Did you use .01 mF or uF?

[BubbaVO]

This a pretty good article on the subject:

http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/pr...tar/capacitors/

I agree with the author that you can make things sound brighter or darker depending on the value of the tone capacitor. I have an Ibanez ST50 with 36th Anniversary PAFs Dimarzio pups. It came alive when I put in a .01 uF capacitor in there. I think Gibsons come with a .02 uF value for their capacitors.

There are different types of capacitors - oil and paper, mylar, etc. But I don't know if that really makes a dfference. At least, I couldn't really tell a difference between the types. But maybe you can. Fooling with tone capacitors is not so expensive that it isn't worth fooling around with them.

Good luck.

Did you use .01 mF or uF?

mF (except when Cary is talking about Jonathan ) and uF both refer to micro Farads. The author of the article referenced above also recommends pF - pico Farads - which are exponentially lower than mF.

[unfun75]

This a pretty good article on the subject:

http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/pr...tar/capacitors/

I agree with the author that you can make things sound brighter or darker depending on the value of the tone capacitor. I have an Ibanez ST50 with 36th Anniversary PAFs Dimarzio pups. It came alive when I put in a .01 uF capacitor in there. I think Gibsons come with a .02 uF value for their capacitors.

There are different types of capacitors - oil and paper, mylar, etc. But I don't know if that really makes a dfference. At least, I couldn't really tell a difference between the types. But maybe you can. Fooling with tone capacitors is not so expensive that it isn't worth fooling around with them.

Good luck.

Did you use .01 mF or uF?

mF (except when Cary is talking about Jonathan ) and uF both refer to micro Farads. The author of the article referenced above also recommends pF - pico Farads - which are exponentially lower than mF.

Gotcha. Thanks.

[BubbaVO]

Forgot about the pots...below is an article by Dirk Wacker on the subject. I pretty much agree with his assessments on the following topics: 1) you need to measure the resistance of the pots to make sure you're getting what you paid for - I've returned pots back to sellers because they measured way more/less resistance than marked; and 2) Hamer pots have a perfect taper that makes them useful.

"The mystic world of pots

Potentiometers (short: pots) are the most common electrical parts on

guitars, no matter if it´s an active or passive system. In very simple

words a pot is an adjustable resistor, nothing more and nothing less. With

a pot you can control its resistance from zero to its mentioned value, eg.

250kOhm. Pots are normally used as a volume and tone control on a

guitar. You can devide them into two different taper types, they are called

"linear" and "audio" (aka "log." or "logarhythmic"). In earlier days the

audio pots were marked with an "A" and the linear pots with a "B" but

today you can also find this system used vice versa, so the best way to

indentify them is to use a DMM and measure them with the taper exactly

in the middle position - if both sides show the same value (exactly 50% of

the pot´s value) it´s a linear pot, otherwise it´s an audio pot. Besides the

taper you can also devide them into two different groups of shafts - one

group has a solid shaft (like shown in the pic above) and the other group

has a splinted (aka "knurled") shaft. You can put knobs for solid shaft pots

on splinted shaft knobs (eg. Telecaster "Dome" knobs") but not vice

versa. Besides this standard pots there are a lot of special pots you can

also find on guitars: pots with longer shafts (for Les Paul guitars), pots

with smaller bodies, push/pull or push/push pots with a built-in switch, no

load pots, reverse pots, dual taper pots, concentric pots, stereo pots .....

The most common values are 250k for passive single coil systems and

500k for passive humbucker systems. For active systems you need

completely different values, similar to what is used in stompboxes. There

are also guitars with 1Meg. pots (eg. late 60´s Fender Telecasters) but

nobody seems to use this value today. The value influences the tone

because the pots add a little load to the complete circuit. The higher the

value of the pot is, the less treble roll-off they have. That´s the reason

why 250k pots are common for singlecoil pickups - they have a lot of

treble bite and it´s not necessary to give them more, otherwise the tone

can become pikey and harsh. Humbuckers don´t have that much treble so

500k pots are used to not roll off more treble than necessary. The 1Meg.

pots I mentioned in combination with a Telecaster´s lead pickup produces

a very trebely and harsh sounding tone and I recommend to change them

with the standard 250k pots to smoothen out things a bit. The influence of

the pot´s value on the tone is not that big but audible and a good field to

experiment. The modern values of 220k and 470k are more or less

indentical to the old values and pots in general have a tolerance of up to

20%, so ..... ;-)

If you use an audio or a linear pot for the volume control is simply a

matter of taste and you have to try it on your own. The problem with pots

as a passive volume control in general is that in most cases it´s not very

helpful because it´s more of an on/off switch than an useable control. You

have a lot of hot spots during the taper and it´s difficult to dial in the

desired level because the working taper way is very, very small. Normally

an audio pot is made to solve this problem and back in the good old days

it was - modern audio pots normally have a ratio of 80:20 which is not

very useful, older pots from the 50´s and 60´s (eg. the famous

CENTRALAB audio pots) had a ratio of 70:30 or even better 60:40 which is

ideal for guitar use. You can buy custom audio pots from HAMER with a

very good ratio of approx. 65:35 which is very good and an excellent

volume control. You can also try to get some old pots but they are vintage

parts and very expensive. Or you can use a normal, modern audio pot and

do a little trick to smoothen out the taper and to prevent the typical treble

loss when rolling back the volume, very common in singlecoil systems.

There is a complete project for this here on the webpage with all the

technical details, but in short words you simply solder a 0.001uF cap with

a 150k resistor in parallel between the first and the second terminal of the

pot. This works great and you can experiment with the values to change

the effect - changing the value of the resistor will change the way of the

taper and changing the cap´s value will change the amount of treble that

is saved when rolling back the level.

For the tone control you must use an audio pot to have a useable taper,

please keep this in mind !

It´s possible to mix different values in one guitar, you simply have to try

it out and decide what you like best.

A big problem is the horrible tolerance of the modern pots, even high-

quality pots from CTS or Mouser have 20% or more. I have seen 500k

pots with values of 380k up to over 700k !!!! It´s a big improvement for

your tone to use matched pots with almost no tolerances. There a

different ways to get those, you can buy military graded pots with almost

no tolerances but it´s very difficult to get those and even if you managed

to buy some, it´s hard to find the right values for guitars. There are also

some technical tricks to change the value, but this is a lot of work and

requires special knowledge and good skills in electronics. Or you simply

buy a matched set from our webshop or any other supplier. We simply

buy large quantities of top-notch pots and measure them. So with time

you get a lot of matched sets. The sound will enhance drastically with

such a matched set, it´s sometimes like taken away a carpet from the

amp.

So please take care of your pots :-) "

[RoyB]

Anyone who does not think that caps and pots and there type, construction and quality does not matter and says they can not hear a difference is reading to many text books full of theory or is 1005 tone deaf. It floors me that people will buy a $3000 guitar add a $300 set of pickups, but be happy to run it through $3 worth of junk electronics. Every one says it's all about how it does not matter when the volume and tones are on 10 and even though that's wrong I think it's far more important how the guitar works and sounds everywhere else. A chain is only as good as it's weakest link and in most cases that is the pots, caps and wiring used in guitars today. Hamer's pots have a very good taper, but past that there is nothing special about them in their construction or tolerance. That said I would not change them unless I was trying to tweak the tone or they were not working correctly. There caps now and back in the day are OK and way better than the junk Gibson uses, but they are far from Great.

I think this video shows what good electronics should do and sound like, but I'l a bit biased LOL.

[bubs_42]

Hey an RS upgrade made my Daytona sound a tone better. Clearer and more defined and the CTS upgrade that was in the Darkburst I sold made that my favorite 79 that I had. It makes a difference.

[BubbaVO]

Just to make things more complicated, I was looking over the wiring schematics of a G&L Legacy Special. The volume pot was at 250, the "treble pot" was at 500 and the bass pot was at 1 M; different capacitors values for each tone pot. Has anyone tried this kind of wiring? Does it sound different than a Daytona or Strat wiring?

[dboy66]

Thanks to all for the expert advice!

[gorch]

Nice article from Dirk Wacker from SingleCoil.com

The mystic world of pots.