Tone Caps Follow-up
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at
8:16 am
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.
Tagged with: Electronics • Epiphone Riviera P93 • Video
Thanks again john. Your four parts on this topic are the most definitive investigation of capacitor and tone, ever known to mankind. You should get a webby award or something.
I am skeptical, and didn’t expect to hear differences, but I could detect some between caps once I did some intense A/Bing.
I did a blind “tournament” bracket listening test (1v2, 3v4, etc and then compared the winners) with both clean melody and rhythm clips. I found I preferred 1, 4, and 6 for both tests in the first round, and 1 and 6 both times in the second round (not really liking 7 or 8 much out of the bunch). 1 and 6 are the Orange Drop (which is what I already use in most of my guitars, so maybe familiarity comes into play) and 6 is the NTE ceramic (I’m a cheap date, I guess).
BUT I then compared the “measured” capacitances, and in every first round comparison I tended to prefer the one with the lowest measured capacitance! So this doesn’t tell me that I can necessarily detect differences in the cap material, but that I tend to prefer the lower value caps.
Great job! There is more “magic mojo” being spewed around the net over tone caps than anything else!
Hey Alan,
Great to hear your results. If it’s not already obvious, I too am inherently skeptical about this stuff- and that’s one of the reasons I undertook this whole project.
Interesting about your preferences matching the lower capacitance measurements. I still really think they can’t be accounting for the total difference in sound character – since in some of the cases I really hear differences in lower parts of the frequency spectrum (lower than the cutoff freq).
To really take it to the next level, I should have carefully tuned each cap test to have the same cutoff frequency. I had considered doing this at first, but it was too much trouble.
So much to do, so little time
Thanks again for the feedback,
John
Great video on tone and caps. Even better is your P93 and VOX, I happen to have one of each also or close. I bought a P93 just like yours at Christmas and a VOX ADVT50. I changed the metal grill and replaced with a diamond cloth. Here’s a link to the AMP (http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-sjc1/hs516.snc3/27103_1407191228565_1495973327_1069641_1844064_n.jpg)and also a post I did on doing it (http://music-electronics-forum.com/t7261-post140856/#post140856)
Jim
Hey Jim,
Sweet mod on the amp- looks great!
-John
Thanks
May be you can help me with another thing, a wiring thing. I am going to take some pics and send a link in 30 minutes or so and when you get a chance take a look.
Jim
John
If you have an idea where the yellow wire goes and if the output jack wires are right?
Here the story or setup, this is a Saga ST 10 Kit (Strat Copy) I bought to play with and try finishing and whatever. I put it together and then took apart to do a finish on body. I cut the wires from the output jack and the ground wire. The yellow ground is the wire I forget where it was, the black and white I think are right but could be wrong. I put it all back like I thought it was but no sound. Any ideas?
Here is a picture of the controls and wiring.
Yellow wire is ground coming from claw hook for tremolo springs in back of body (forget where it was soldiered when I got this kit)
http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs324.ash1/28364_1449036114661_1495973327_1158937_927337_s.jpg
Here is the output jack.
Black wire comes from output jack and is really 2 wires a white with a ground wire shield around it, if you look where it goes into body there are 2 wires, a black and a white (looks blue from finish paint) The black is center of output jack and white is outside of output jack, see next picture.
http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs324.ash1/28364_1449035674650_1495973327_1158932_4424293_s.jpg
Here is where the output jack wires are now.
The controls as they sit in first picture, right next to pickup is volume and the black wire from output jack is soldiered to volume pot shell, white wire is soldiered to the center terminal. The next 2 controls are tone pots.
http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs324.ash1/28364_1449035914656_1495973327_1158935_7875592_s.jpg
http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs294.snc3/28364_1449035874655_1495973327_1158934_4815786_s.jpg
http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs324.ash1/28364_1449035914656_1495973327_1158935_7875592_s.jpg
If you get a chance, Thanks
Jim
Hey I fixed it, thanks and I have you booked marked, there is some good stuff on here. I need to go back over your P 93 pickup change out. I might have some ?? I like the P 93 as is but I may want to do a swap at some point.
Hey Jim,
Glad I could help– haha!
Enjoy the guitar!
-John
John
No problem, I got it done and learned about the wiring. I don’t know if you are familar with this guy, Deaf Eddie, does Beatle’s Tribute band and all kinds of other stuff. He hasan aswome guitar collection.
http://www.deaf-eddie.net/
He gave me some clues as what to look for to fix it. Hey again I will be looking at your P93 posts.
Jim
Do you happen to know what Sprague Bumblebee are? I’m not talking about the originals, I mean the kind you can get off of like AllParts.com for $60 or so. I’m not sure if there’s a difference of not between the two
@johnplanetz Alright thanks man, I think I’m gonna order myself some Vitamin Qs if I can find some.
Interesting. Well done on the test.
IMO: No variations that couldn’t be made much more markedly at another point in the signal chain (amp tonestack etc.) or picking technique. The differences are effectively inaudible in practical terms. I suppose it should be considered, that many of the legendary guitar performances were done through mylar and ceramic disk.
I guess we all need to think we have an edge. Even if we’d need to tell everyone to be quiet and concentrate whilst we pointed it out.
3:33
“in the case where we had the tone pot all the way up, the cutoff frequency was pretty high…”
Well that’s not quite correct. The tone pot doesn’t actually do much about the cutoff frq of the tone circuit at all (which is mainly determined by the PU inductance and the cap), it rather determines how much this cutoff will influence the output signal. So it’s natural that changes in the capacitance will mainly influence the midrange rather than treble, even at high tone pot settings.
@leftaroundabout – true, thanks for pointing that out. it would have more clear to say “very little of the signal is bleeding through the cap to ground”.
@johnplanetz Exactly, that’s a nice illustrative way of describing it.
Very Interesting Videos, great work !
The woodiest sounding was the Russian Paper In Oil cap. But the Yellow cylinder had the most open tone across the whole frequency range.
I think these may be the best videos of this type on the tube. Most (not all!) demo’s and shootouts are so lame and poorly done, they end up causing even more confusion. Too many demo’s are just product ads and biased. We really need more like this. I hope you’re having fun with this and getting enough encouragement to continue.
PS I’d love to see a good pickup series, but I imagine that would be expensive to do unless you could get manufacturers to loan product.
@sprintertwo – thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it! You’re right that it would be difficult to arrange a comprehensive pickup comparison. However, I am planning a pickup *magnet* comparison
These P-90 pickups from Vintage Vibe Guitars allow you to easily swap magnets, and I have a complete set of AlNiCo II, III and V as well as ceramic magnets. It’s on my list to do in the next few months, so stay tuned…
Hey John,
I would be glad to send you a couple of my custom wound P-90′s for testing if you’d like. I usually use the Alnico 2 for bridge pups and Alnico 5 for the neck pups. Most of the bridge pups I’ve done have been overwound for a hotter pup and the neck pups at about 10,000 – 10,100 winds. Then I wax pot them in my “secret” formula (not really secret though, 20% bee’s wax and 80% parafin). Get me an address to send them and I’d “donate them to the cause”. Thanks for the great videos and keep it up!
Sweet! My VVG P-90′s are wound 8,500 on the neck and middle, and 9,500 on the bridge. (Middle is RWRP). And I’ve always wished they were a bit hotter, so your pickups will be interesting to hear!
I’ll send you an email.
-John
wow great video topic!
Thanks for yr vids. I see yr caps in both 50s and modern are wired from the tonepots middle ear to its top/ground. But in my LPs I see the cap wired where yr yellow line is… i.e. what I thinks is 50s (assuming guitar lies upside down with neck to left) goes from volpot middle ear to tonepots furthest down ear, from the viewers perspective. And another LP which I think has 60s/modern, from volpots furthest down to tonepots middle. To my ignorance, this looks like 4 diff ways, could u explaine?
@baskethilt – generally in a series circuit with a cap and a resistor, it makes no difference whether the cap or the resistor comes first. So i think what you’re seeing are just variations on series circuit order. e.g. your first example, placing the cap at the yellow wire simply places the cap before the resistor (pot), instead of resistor before cap.
@johnplanetz Ok, thanks… then you could say its a matter of using the least messy soldering method, using your drawings.
Awesome. You do us audio nerds proud
@hurly000 –
Who filmed that camera
@epiclife247 – i used a canon hf200 on a tripod, and started/stopped the video using the wireless remote control.
INTERESTING, great job mate
HAVE YOU TRIED USING POLARIZED CAPS?
@sydfloydpink – no. polarized caps are generally used for much larger capacitance values than are typically used in guitar tone circuits. Small value caps such as these are typically non-polarized.
could you please explain the pros and cons for 50′s and modern wiring?
i’m doing some mods to a telecaster and am not sure how i want to wire it.
i’m using rail pickups, so both are humbucking.
i was going to get a 250k push pull alpha audio pot, with a 500k alpha linear pot, and was thinking of a orange drop cap in the .033uf range.
would you recommend this, and how would 50′s wiring change the tone?
@00hazel001 – 50s wiring results in more interaction between tone and volume knobs. If you leave your tone on 10 all the time, the 50s wiring will result in a brighter sound as you roll back on volume. But with tone lowered, the volume knob may actually sound duller than modern wiring when rolling off volume. Do your initial wiring with alligator clips so it’ll be easy for you to try both ways, then pick the one you like. Good luck.
Excellent. You’re really taking the scientific approach and responding to peoples suggestions, without being pretentious. You really take this stuff seriously, which makes me take you seriously. Keep on keeping on!
Damn! The ceramic sounded a little harsh I thought. Thats what I used. The russian paper in oil had a nice compression in all frequencies to it. Thanks for the vid! BTW, which one did YOU end up choosing?
@wseeback – i used the orange drop .01. but i also like the PIO.
You don’t have to go through all that extra work to make blind tests. There’s an ancient, well-proven way of blind testing sound: you close your eyes and listen :p
All of these videos have been VERY helpful to me. This is the most comprehensive audio study on capacitors & tone that I’ve found. Thank you for being so thorough, both in your demonstration and in your explainations. You’ve helped this layman understand much!
Did you show, in any of your previous videos, how you made that cardboard control panel? Did you just desolder all the components, remove them from the guitar and then alligator clip those test leads to your pickup hot wires and the cardboard control’s pots’ terminals? How did you ground your external controls? I have a Heritage H-535 and, thank God, I’m happy with it; messing with the electronics in a semi-hollow with no control panel would be a nightmare. Great videos. Thanks!
@wedel219 – Yes, working with semi-hollows is a challenge! For the carddboard setup, I essentially did as you described (and ensured that the external controls were grounded by running alligator leads between the pickup ground and bridge over to the jack on the cardboard. I show the cardboard prep in the first video of my rewiring series: “Wiring Up Guitar Electronics 1: Component Layout, Selecting Wire, Stripping and Tinning”. Hope this helps!
This was an absolutely amazing and informative series!! Unlike anything anyone else has done on the web to my knowledge…
Thank you so much for putting in the vast time and effort this experiment certainly entailed. Rest assured, there are many thousands of us who very much appreciate a high quality test from a knowledgeable “tone scientist” such as yourself….Bravo!!! Looking forward to future experiments…..
Subscribed!!
i have just tried using polarized caps for tone cap and it works just as good if not better try it and see !!
Haha, after seeing sydfloydpink’s comments on polarized caps, I looked them up to see if they could possibly be used to solve the treble bleed problem. Then I read this:
“Explodes quite violently when… a polarized version is subjected to reverse voltage.”
Well… there goes that idea.
The below was for Tantalum caps, which as far as I’ve read would be the only ones you can get with a low enough capacitance for use in guitars anyway.
You should be an engineer. I’m an electrical engineer and you display a wonderful approach to your tests and methods.
u r one smart dude!!! thanks again for all this info. incredibly usefull and easy to understand… even for a straight “D” student like myself…hahaha.
Did you actually measure the caps you tried? Many cap types can vary by 50 percent or more from their stated value, and that alone will account for any perceived differences in tone.
@EthanWiner – yes, see part 3 of this video followup Q&A
@johnplanetz Excellent. However, I don’t think this shows what you think. It’s impossible to play exactly the same twice, and that too will change the sound more than what material the capacitors are made from. A better way to test for sound differences between caps is to use a consistent test signal such as a sine wave, then show an FFT. Ceramic caps do have higher distortion than Mylar and styrene, but the amount of distortion is still much less than that of a typical guitar amp.
@EthanWiner – True. Often my videos are intended to demonstrate that some changes make big differences, while other changes are so subtle as to be not worth the effort. This as an ongoing theme of my work- as you’ll see in my other videos and my blog. I think it’s clear that your pedals, amp, playing style and how much you’ve had to drink have a far larger impact on your sound than your tone cap
Nevertheless, there are subtle differences, and those can be interesting to experiment with.
@johnplanetz Yes, especially how much you have to drink! :->) And I applaud your emphasis on blind testing. Proper test methods is a big part of my upcoming book The Audio Expert from Focal Press.
@EthanWiner – cool! I’ll look forward to seeing your book!
I watched all 4 vids, it’s hard to be super-scientific at home, so I’d say you did a good job overall really and at at the very least explaining the hows and whys, as you said it’s all up to the ear.
But since we weren’t in that room to hear it at the best quality possible. What conclusions did you come to? What caps are in your guitar? value and type?
did you change anything or were you unmoved by your trials?
Thanks for taking the time, I’m working on my G&L and this was right on topic.
Glad you’re getting your G&L sorted. My G&L ASAT III has a cheap “greenie” poly-film tone cap .022uF, and a ceramic 200pf treble cap on the master volume, and it sounds fantastic.
For my Epiphone, you can see/hear my results and conclusions in my video “Epiphone Electronics Overhaul, Before and After Comparisons”.
thank you so much for all this info.
My ears must be bad I really didn’t here much difference from one or the other. It seem to me your just changing the range of the tone from one point lower or higher. With variable values of the caps thats all it might be in the difference in the sound. I will try listening with my eyes closed. But it was really cool you did a lot of work on this. Nice Job
Thank you very much for this fantastic series! This is one of the best postings I’ve ever seen, and I learned so much from it, very professional with the graphical EQ and short and clear samples. I can’t thank you enough for this! I subscribed to your channel and will spend a lots of time exploring it. You have a good one //Ken1
The russian paper cap is the best with distortion but very weak with clean sound
In the Soviet Union, the right capacitor finds you.
Could you please tell me if you have heard a difference between the Russian K40Y and the Russian K42Y Capacitors? Some people say they are identical, some say there is no comparison. if so, which do you like best? and where do you get the caps? Man this video has me pumped
http://shop.axegrinderz.com/ has the Russian capacitors you are looking for.
Thanks for the link! I hadn’t seen axegrinderz before- looks like a great resource.
-John
I like the Vintage Yellow .022′s.
Ceramic, sounds the best to me.
oddly enough, for that guitar, the mallory (2nd fave) & the trop fish (my fave) sounded best. the argument for the trop being a diff value is negated by the fact that i’m hearing the exact opposite response you’d expect, i.e., the top end is both more prevalent, & has more clarity, rather than it being generally darker than the rest. & the ceramic sounds as krappy as the original, stock epi cap. the russian pio sound a bit muffled & a lot less distinct than my 2 faves….
Hi!
Did you measure those caps.
That is, sometimes there are quite noticeable differences of the REAL values of two 0.022 mfd caps.
Yes, I show all the cap measurements a few minutes into Part 3.
John
(1 of 2) You are a really good communicator and teacher, my friend. I wish you owned a Stratocaster. I would love your perspective on the same process with a fender. I do not have the tools nor education to do it myself. (But I am learning!)
(2 of 2) I will send you a P.M. My question is too confusing and that is a flame war waiting to happen. Thanks again for helping out those of us that are trying to find facts.
what song are you playing for the distorted example?
It’s not exact, but based on Lenny Kravitz- Are You Gonna Go My Way.
vintage yellow cylinder with distortion FTW
I also use Pete Biltoft pickups. They are awesome to say the least. Hard to distinguish between caps. The ceramic sounds as good as the others. Glad to see someone else playing with Vintage Vibe pickups.
Thank you so much for this! Personally, I do hear a difference, but I find it so small that I’m not sure if it’s worth the trouble of upgrading.
Why are some caps wired between the tone and volume? What is the difference?
Swapping the series order of a cap and resistor is electrically equivalent. So, sometimes you see volume pot -> tone pot -> cap -> ground. And other times you see volume pot -> cap -> tone pot -> ground.
The series of videos is well done. I did start hearing differences once it was listening into the the mids. But the differences are not the kind of difference where you would listen to some guy playing onstage and think: “Wow, his mallory cap sounds so groovy tonight”.
BTW, I would have favoured the yellow cylinder probably because of the slightly scooped mids and therefore great clarity with chords.
John,
I’ve noticed elsewhere on the web some schematics have fasel or homemade inductors into the ground end of the varitone circuit.
Any thoughts or experience on the matter?
Also, when you wired your varitone, it seems obvious but the tone caps wired directly on the pots would be omitted because of the multi-capacitor knob just assembled, correct?
Thanks for the videos as well.
My tone-thing wasn’t a typical varitone- it was just a piece of cardboard to hold a bunch of caps in place with me manually switching between them using alligator leads. Yes the original tone circuit was bypassed.
An inductor in series with a signal will act as a low-pass filter blocking fast-moving signals and passing slow moving signals (which is the opposite of capacitors). A varitone circuit with both caps and inductors will allow a selection of various low-pass and high-pass filters.
I’ve decided to go with the electrolytics!
Hahah! good luck with that
For those not in on the joke, electrolytics are polarized, high-capacitance (generally > 1uF) caps, so not appropriate for guitar tone circuits.
vintage yellow sounds very nice and musical
Are those volumes and tones BOTH 500K pots ?
Or just the tones ?
These were both 500k audio taper pots.
Sounds like some tone weenies got a hold of your video and picked it apart.
The Idiots could not understand the “try it yourself”advice you gave in the conclusion.
Yet they try to prove that they are smart? Must be members of Mensa.
I think it worked out Great and I tried it. I ended up finding better caps for my Teles. Thanks!!!
I Applaud You! for trying to make everyone happy.
What about Ceramics? Sheesh!!!! Thanks for you efforts!
It would’ve been perfect if you measured the caps first. Right now I think the drift was the only difference I heard.
I measured the caps in part 3. See here: watch?v=S7Hod21pIUI#t=2m29s
Very thorough and helpful (the whole series)
You are a great big help John! Many thanks! Watched all 4 video’s.
Great stuff, like so many have said. OK, a followup question about values. What about Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR)? Differences there could make a real difference in sound, as you’ve got a different filter circuit (once you add all the parasitics like ESR, any inductances inherent in parts, etc.). ‘Mojo’ does not have a sound–only electrical components do, so if there’s any difference in sound, it should be quantifiable.
Love your scientific and level-headed approach here.
If I understand correctly, ESR on these small capacitance values is so low as to be almost unmeasurable (like thousandths of an ohm). I had just assumed it wasn’t worth measuring, but you’re right that if one of these old vintage caps had some ESR way off the charts, then it could be audibly affecting the filter parameters. But that would probably indicate a defective cap more than anything…
If I understand correctly, ESR on these small capacitance values is so low as to be almost unmeasurable (like thousandths of an ohm). I had just assumed it wasn’t worth measuring, but you’re right that if one of these old vintage caps had some ESR way off the charts, then it could be audibly affecting the filter parameters. But that would probably indicate a defective cap more than anything…
Your videos are great, my man. “Keep it simple, stupid”, that’s always the best philosophy.
Really good video, I have been very useful.
I have a question, I ordered two Russian Cap K40Y-9 of 0.022uF, their values at the multimeter are 19.94uF and 19.40uF, a little lower than the real 22uF, Is this normal?
Those are about 10 or 11% off, which is within typical cap value tolerance. Caps are typically rated between 5% and 20%. Check the datasheet or with your vendor for the tolerance rating for the caps you purchased.
Then all the processing is sent through the nasa shuttle mains and boosted thru the trans gigaverse multi wave triax multiplexer to the fbi mainframe uncompressed compressor haaaa damn I need tech schooling to get all of this
And that’s about the only difference you’re we’re hear as a
human being.
A bat might hear the difference at 500khz
Ceramic vs everything else.