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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 7:45 pm
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sssssssst...BOOM! i warned everybody to stand back. i knew where this was going. different caps do sound different , with different pups. as i stated with my little bordom experiment. just with one of my guitars and amp the .1uf ceramic R.S. cap gets the job done. with my other stuff it's another story. i've come across some old radio equipment(circa 1960's)and when i get some time i'm going to butcher the stuff and see what caps i can get and likely try them too. i could find something i like even more. after all, this is my hobby.


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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 7:51 pm
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shinkicker wrote:
after all, this is my hobby.


You go for it, SK.

After all, curiosity and experimentation were the vanguard of Leo Fender's personal sojourn. And look what he accomplished.

Rawk on!

8) 8) 8)

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 7:56 pm
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My 2013 Gibson Les Paul came with this pathetic ensemble.


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I changed it to this GigaFrank BTW same value .022
Sounds like a lush melon taste now, got that SLASHy lisp to it. 8)



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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 7:59 pm
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It does doesn't it Arjay?
I've been very guilty of just about every tone chasing nuance imaginable.

I just recently put together a franken-Hamer strat 100% designed to accomplish my reggae/heavy metal style. But I kept a basic approach to it. A nice beefy single coil neck for flavorful clean bass tone solos, A nice midrange type middle for Reggae skanks, and a dimarzio fast track2 in the bridge for an over the top singing midrange for distortion.

The most interesting thing about this setup is what transpired in the 2 and 4 positions. 4 turned into a rwrp bass tone that has that great muffled jazz tone. But most interesting is the 2.. The middle is phase reversed to the Dimarzio, and sounds like an extremely hot Strat single bridge, but retains the power and balance of output to the rest if the positions. Perfect for that retro Bob Marley skank sound.

1- heavy metal solos
2- Bob Marley skank
3- modern skank
4- Jazz solos and wah use
5- Bluesy clean solos

All bases covered. Why on God's green earth do I need a tone knob? I don't. 5-way switch, 1-volume, and I'm good to go.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 8:12 pm
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Jah Soldier wrote:
It does doesn't it Arjay?
I've been very guilty of just about every tone chasing nuance imaginable.

I just recently put together a franken-Hamer strat 100% designed to accomplish my reggae/heavy metal style. But I kept a basic approach to it. A nice beefy single coil neck for flavorful clean bass tone solos, A nice midrange type middle for Reggae skanks, and a dimarzio fast track2 in the bridge for an over the top singing midrange for distortion.

The most interesting thing about this setup is what transpired in the 2 and 4 positions. 4 turned into a rwrp bass tone that has that great muffled jazz tone. But most interesting is the 2.. The middle is phase reversed to the Dimarzio, and sounds like an extremely hot Strat single bridge, but retains the power and balance of output to the rest if the positions. Perfect for that retro Bob Marley skank sound.

1- heavy metal solos
2- Bob Marley skank
3- modern skank
4- Jazz solos and wah use
5- Bluesy clean solos

All bases covered. Why on God's green earth do I need a tone knob? I don't. 5-way switch, 1-volume, and I'm good to go.



You never turn you tone to zero and solo?
For instance in my Les Pauls they are 50s wired with orange drops so I can slam the tone knob get the Slash sound.
There is also a rainbow of Hendrix tones available my American Standard now has Singles and My American Deluxe an Atomic both can get a muddy water neck tone.
Everyone from Joe Perry to Hendrix uses it.
I even hear Zakk and Iommi do it.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 8:32 pm
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What tone knob? I dismantled them.

But to answer your question honestly, I never had a use for that tone. I know what you're talking about. But I play Reggae and do cutting solos to it. If you're playing in a band with 6-people all playing instruments, that tone gets buried.

I understand all too well where my place is in the sound spectrum of a big band. Which is mainly midrange. Too much bass and I get lost in the mix. To understand correctly, I'm competing with a keyboard, another guitar, a ukulele, a bass, a drum kit and in some cases a horn section.

I could play half a show with my guitar turned off and just air guitar it, and I'll bet nobody would notice. But I need my setup mainly for those key moments of ambience or rock solos, in which case, I just need to cut through. No need to get too fancy or complicated with those aspects.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:07 pm
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GilgaFrank wrote:
There is no difference in sound between a $50 paper in oil capacitor and a 1c ceramic disk capacitor of the same value.

Anyone who claims to be able to hear the difference is deluded.

That is all.

Debate it if you like. Try to justify wasting your money. Until people started selling "boutique" caps a few years back no one in the world cared what kind of cap was in their guitar. And guess what, people still made nice sounds on guitars.

The fact remains that a microfarad is a microfarad whether it's an expensive waste of money, a cheap disk or two square feet of platinum separated by the finest silk dipped in goat's blood. And if your precious "tone" relies on the choice of capacitor in your instrument then you are doing something seriously wrong. And someone else is laughing all the way to the bank.


WARNING! This post is not entirely accurate. Don't put your faith in formulas, put faith in your own ears. The OP's intent may have been noble as he seems to want to save everyone money. However I am 100% convinced there is a difference in varying levels of harmonic distortion in different types of tone caps. Absolutely and positively. The largest difference is between the vintage ceramic discs Fender used and either paper in oil or Mylar film (Mylar Orange Drops.) The difference is understandably harder to discern with a guitar plugged into a pedal board and tube amp with the drive cranked up. A little more or less distortion won't matter there and is actually desirable in some circumstances. However in the tone circuit of a passive Fender bass into a clean preamp/amp feeding a high fidelity cab with crossover and horn I can easily hear quite a bit of difference between a ceramic disc and a Vitamin-Q especially up the neck. Both are usable tones. I would know if someone swapped my caps out behind my back. So I guess I'm deluded and quite happy about the delusion.


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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:37 pm
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Established scientific formulas famously failed in 1954 when an Operation Castle H-Bomb test of the device known as "Castle Bravo" yielded over twice what the USA's top nuclear minds and their formulas said it would. Don't you think these top physicists double checked their math on it? The fact is the formulas were off by a factor of over 2 which more than doubled the hazard zone. These were the best physicists the USA had, not some guitar forum hack like me.

People on islands that were thought to be a safe distance away had to be evacuated. The evacuation came too late as many residents developed radiation exposure related cancers and there were ongoing birth defects among the evacuated islanders for a generation. The entire crew of a Japanese fishing boat thought to be a safe distance away all became radioactive and developed radiation sickness with one crewman dying. The fish was sold before the crew went to the hospital, so even more people were exposed once the irradiated fish reached market creating a huge fish scare in Japan. In 1959 a film was made about that fishing boat and the crew titled "Lucky Dragon No. 5." It was a very scary piece.

Formulas work great in a theory class. However as the above event illustrates in the real world formulas are not always accurate.


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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:51 pm
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You can see differences between different type guitar tone caps in these shots I found online at http://www.skguitar.com/SKGS/sk/CapTest/CapTest.htm

CERAMIC DISC:

Image

PAPER IN OIL:

Image

CERAMIC DISC (BLUE) & PAPER IN OIL (GREEN) OVERLAYED FOR COMPARISON:

Image

It is easy to see these two type caps do not yield identical results, however they should be identical if your formula is 100% correct.


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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:14 pm
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brotherdave wrote:
CERAMIC DISC (BLUE) & PAPER IN OIL (GREEN) OVERLAYED FOR COMPARISON:

Image

It is easy to see these two type caps do not yield identical results, however they should be identical if your formula is 100% correct.


Um, that is identical within measuring tolerances. Suspiciously identical, to the point that I think the test is flawed - the same cap tested twice should show more difference than that.


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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:42 pm
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brotherdave wrote:
So I guess I'm deluded and quite happy about the delusion.


Put me on that list as well, BD.

I do agree with one facet of the OP's original hypothesis in that it's easy to fall victim to the "law of diminishing returns" when spending money on parts or even a complete piece of equipment. Many buyers are susceptible to the advertising hype which posits that more $$$ = better tone and that's simply not necessarily so. If I thought so I wouldn't be flogging my home-built Strats on stage -- I'd break out the Platinum Visa card and order something from Corona's Custom Shop.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:42 pm
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Actually arth1, you can see a few db difference at various frequencies, as well as the stronger and weaker frequencies that each type handles, much more apparent with the overlay view. The signal waveform will basically be the same, showing the different frequency responses between the two types of caps. The most noticeable difference is in the low-end, between 30 Hz and 80 Hz. A zoom of any particular section would make the differences more apparent.

This is also another fine example showing that the electrical theory doesn't take everything into account, and often differs from real world applications. We've discussed circuit gains before, and while the theory (calculations) might show a gain of, say 60, the actual circuit only has a gain of only 25. Theory is usually based on ideal components, which don't exist, or at least the government doesn't give us access to the secret alien technology that uses ideal components. :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 11:05 pm
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brotherdave wrote:
...Don't put your faith in formulas, put faith in your own ears...


I have plenty of faith in formulas, but you can't just pick one of the many necessary to show the whole picture, and use it alone to draw a conclusion. :wink: The OPs formula simply shows the cutoff frequency expected from an ideal RC network, nothing more, but it is quite accurate. It doesn't take into consideration that various materials used in the non-ideal components, or component tolerances.

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 11:37 pm
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brotherdave wrote:
These were the best physicists the USA had, not some guitar forum hack like me.


Hack, brotherdave not in this galaxy lol.
Donny, nice herd!
Ted, good to see your post Bros. Rock and reggae, I would like to jam with you one day :D that would be awesome. 8)
shinkicker, boom shacka-lacka-lacka boom!!
I almost forgot, GF oh OP in destruction there can sometimes be constructive happenstance. You are lucky as are we to have chosen a Forum populated by characters rich in knowledge and expertise. Solid thinkers with positive intelect.
You get negative sometimes, one wonders, why?

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Post subject: Re: Capacitors, can you handle the truth?
Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 4:40 am
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GilgaFrank wrote:
Now more than ever the guitar world is full of dreamers who desperately want to believe that one magic mod or one piece of gear can transform them into the great player they want to be.

True, a capacitor won't make a person a better guitarist, but changing key components can make a specific guitar better...or at least closer to what the user is searching for...and while one single cap might not make a huge difference, a set of caps, coupled with specific or unique pickups and a particular type of potentiometer can and does add up to a different sounding guitar.

...and remember, some of the greatest tinkerers and inventors had their own equipment set up in ways we might find peculiar.

Did anyone ever hear of a guy named Lester Polsfuss? His personal guitars were rarely like his average namesake production model, especially at the end of his life...and, even into his 90's, he never stopped searching/chasing "that" tone...I betcha he soldered a few caps in his time, just to be trying something new.

Quote:
In my part of the world we call a spade a spade, not a geomorphic sectioning implement.
And we don't pay 1500 times the price for it just because the manufacturer says it digs better holes.

...while I assume you are being facetious, I'll take the bait on this one; I've dug a few holes in my time, and not all spades are created equal. The right type of tool (in this case, a shovel) for the job (I.e., a hole) can be the difference between a job completed quickly and neatly or a long, arduous mess.

I'll allow everyone else to make the correlation to guitar components.

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