Guitar Tone Capacitors, part 3: Followup Q&A

[@SixStringHarmonies]

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.....

[@wseeback]

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!

[@ericdenton6664]

I'm a pro guitarist. I built my 1st Strat with custom pickups in 1982. I think your video's are great. Keep it up.

[@giulanr]

When looking for such an amazing comparison, I did not come up with anything of value until I stumbled on these videos. Absolutely amazing comparison. BTW, those yellow caps are IC and are poly caps. I have placed 2 of them recently in circuit on my tube amp and after this comparison, I will probably pull them as the sound is too sterile for my liking. This was a fantastic comparison and it speaks volumes. Much thanks for your time in making these videos. The information is invaluable!

[@das250250]

I think you said it all .. by the time you go through a room , ears , playing variance, compression , vegas , you tube , it is impossible to reproduce this test elsewhere .. but the purpose is getting the guitar player to find her own sound ..

[@firetoung]

you put so much effort for the video stuff,,.... nice......thanks alot.....keep uploading

[@leftaroundabout]

@johnplanetz Exactly, that's a nice illustrative way of describing it.

[@cferrarini]

My SG SX had a muddy tone with no distinguishable difference between selecting neck and bridge pickups. Changed the original caps for 0.047 neck and 0.0047 bridge both ceramic caps, it became much more clear and brighter tone on bridge and more full and harmonic on neck... had good results with polyester too.

[@RandyLott]

You should be an engineer. I'm an electrical engineer and you display a wonderful approach to your tests and methods.

[@mmetott]

Very thorough and helpful (the whole series)

[@mrg923]

Great videos. Very helpful when starting the cap journey. :)

[@zemsguitar]

...mmm... have you considered to use a LOOPER?... that could free your both hands to make sweeps while sounding... just saying. Cheers!

[@WillyRaschke]

Poly Epiphone and tropical fish were my favorites

[@baskethilt]

@johnplanetz Ok, thanks... then you could say its a matter of using the least messy soldering method, using your drawings.

[@ekjade]

Very Interesting Videos, great work !

[@SweetSpotGuitar]

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.

[@MrMember12]

you helped really much with your videos...

[@JaySuschrist]

Your videos are great, my man. "Keep it simple, stupid", that's always the best philosophy.

[@baskethilt]

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?

[@samobolo6396]

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.

[@00hazel001]

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?

[@thebighat99]

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 :)

[@jakestewartmusic]

@johnplanetz 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

[@leftaroundabout]

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.

[@MrAndcruz]

hey john, great 3rd vid.... is that a fender studio 85 amp??? cheers

[@James57AOL]

I understand that your set ups and play outs are consistent with all the participants. I missed the fact that the amp was tone set to neutral on the pots on the amp. of these considerations did I miss the acceptance that the only changes to true values were those made as each pot went through the roll off. I am thinking the vox amps are set up with tone values from l to l0 and not 5 0 5 treble and bass and mid. I missed the sight of this except that they were not all standing tall or left hand zero etc. What s the consideration you have towards leaning tone in one direction to the amp so that its more pronounced if your eqs are set above or below zero on the amp to start.

[@jakestewartmusic]

I dont know anything about caps haha. But I need a little help. I have a Gibson Explorer which is two volumes and master tone. Would that be 50's wiring? And for a more vintage tone, what would you think of Sprague Vitamin Qs? Does anybody know what material that is so I can get an idea of what it sounds like with the first video? Thanks ahead of time!

[@VincenzoCaccavale]

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?

[@mikesucho]

Why are some caps wired between the tone and volume? What is the difference?

[@poorjudjement]

Good stuff :)

[@mantreeguitarmods]

CAP DIFFERENCES If a person does not want to be influenced by the name of the cap on the screen then they could always close their eyes while listening:-) If listening thru an I-pad then just put a magazine over it while listening. In addition, you could use a chronometer to note at what point in time you most liked the sound then, when ready, just compare with the video. If you want your brain to better analyze what your are hearing, I suggest that a person does their listening WITHIN three hours of waking up. The reason being that one's ears do not hear certain frequencies as they tire from use during the day. In addition, in order to better hear the differences between caps, listen to the recording in a DARKENED room as it allows your ears to better "analyze" and "concentrate" on the sound. I've never seen a professional recording studio that does otherwise! Some people are color blind (they literally cannot see certain colors --- it is called daltonism). Perhaps people who can not hear the difference between caps (with the Tone TURNED down to between 7 and 8; the amplifier on CLEAN; guitar with SINGLE coils) are "sound blind". From experience, I have found that it easier to hear the differences between capacitors with single coils. This clip uses P-90s which are single coils. Rick Mantree (luthier, singer, songwriter)

[@SixStringHarmonies]

Subscribed!!

[@jakestewartmusic]

@johnplanetz Alright thanks man, I think I'm gonna order myself some Vitamin Qs if I can find some.

[@das250250]

The variation was 19 -30 units .. making the variation over 50%..this is not insignificant. I don't believe you are hearing differences in material until you can do a double blind experiment and you have equivalent capacitance . If there was a variation that wasn't accounted for in resistance and capacitance or inductance we would have to recreate new physics to account for a new mystery variable.

[@johnplanetz]

+graham caveman - The measurements for the .022uF caps were 19.73, 20.50, 21.04, 19.41, 21.28, 21.26, 21.43. There's an 8% spread between them. The typical tolerance on these is 10%, occasionally 5%. So the spread is reasonable. I'm sure the differences are significant, but it's subtle. As I pointed out at 2:34 and multiple times throughout the tests, the Tropical Fish is a .033uF cap and was included just as a material-type example, not for capacitance equivalence.

[@miguelfernandes333]

the type of cap in a tone circuit makes absolutely no difference. What makes a difference is the tolerances that all caps have from one another, even if they are labelled the same. The audio does not go through the cap, so, you are never listening to the cap.

[@organicvids]

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

[@dougjane64]

Unfortunately your experiment is not good, because you play the guitar slightly differently every time. And I could not hear any difference based on the cap value. Of course, when you wind the pot down, the tone changes.