Another interesting tone cap article
Steven at S. K. Guitar Specialties has an interesting article comparing tone caps of different material types (PIO, Ceramic and polyester), with overlaid frequency plots. Check it here.
April 2010
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- Guitar Circuit Wiring
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Blind Tone Tests
Here are the recordings lifted from my most recent Tone Cap Comparison Video, split into individual files. The files are named using generic numbers, rather than labeling them by cap type – so you can listen to these without being influenced by preconceived ideas of what a particular material type should sound like.
Download them all as a single 2Mb zip if you’d like to use a double-blind tool (like WinABX or foobar with ABX).
Or try this. Before checking the legend (linked below), listen to the examples and choose the one you like best. After you’ve decided what you like, only then check the legend which says what cap type is used for each recording.
Tone Caps Follow-up
I’ve received a lot of questions and comments about my tone cap videos part 1 and part 2.
In this video (split into two parts due to YouTube length limits), I answer some of those questions, and record some more examples. I talk about 50’s versus modern wiring, my recording setup and how the audio is processed, and how to do double-blind testing. I measure the cap values, and record another set of examples, now including ceramic caps and distorted examples.