Guitar capacitor tester: let your ears decide 

It really helps to hear a difference when you play the same lick.Just saying.

Thanks for showing us each cap on the rotary switch

Most players keep their tone pots at full-on when playing. If you do this, here's a great, inexpensive & simple suggestion; Install a .001uF cap in place of the typical .022 or .047uF. This low value cap is usually used in a treble bleed circuit for guitars. This little cap gives you a very subtle tone shift from 0-10, thus, giving your guitar two totally usable voices at full-on or full-off. Again, it's VERY subtle, but SO usable. You can also try slightly higher value caps. EXPERIMENT!

would help if you would play the same thing to determine difference.

The difference was so subtle, I would imagine you could tweak your amp settings to achieve that small difference; or use a EQ pedal and make slight adjustments.

.047uf sounded better to me as well for the warmth. I could see using the .022uf in a situation a person want more treble which is usually the situation in heavy metal music. Me I am more of a solo player so I liked the sound of the .047uf for the warmth since the guitar was pretty bright. That usually means any type of treble added at the EQ will make it easy to bring it back to a bright sound. Trying to go from bright to more warmth at the EQ is harder when the guitar is so bright. To me a Les Paul should always have an underlying warmth to it so the .047 is the clear choice and could probably stand to go up a few picofarads more than the .047.

Erick, you are a man's man. With a saw and a drill you've created an amazingly cool and effective way to test various capacitors simultaneously. Bravo, my man. And in a stone-grey factory work shirt! Classic!

i like the idea of putting a rotary switch in the guitar with multiple caps, so one can change their mind easily and as frequently as they like.

I just retrofitted my 1998 Les Paul Custom Black with all Gibson parts Classic neck pick up Classic plus bridge..new pots...new toggle switch...new tuners.. stop bar...and Bumble Bee caps...and yes they do make so much difference...the guitar sounds so clear and articulate...no more muddy bridge sound...

I would have liked to have heard what the difference between the paper/oil and ceramic cap sounded like.

Erick, it's good to hear you play a little. More proof that the people at Stewmac know their stuff! Thankz.

I like the brighter sound of the .022

I have done exactly that with my Tele. A rotary switch fits perfectly between the volume and tone knobs.

.033 uf is a nice choice for those who can't decide. Also, should have setup this test with a Fralin / Kinman treble bleed mod in the circuit as many guitar geeks who "fret" over these kinds of things will no doubt be interested. Thanks for the video!

I like the multi-tester idea. I haven't played with caps enough. This is a good way to go through my own guitars and just see what's possible with different caps. I have a couple that I wonder about. But I have a Tele that is on the "don't mess with it" list. It always sounds perfect whatever I plug it into. I'd hate to cast bad voodoo its way and break the magic... lol

I agree the .o47 sounded better to my ears. Nice test.

I just had an amazing experience with tone capacitors. The usual values, we know the differences in sound. Most of the time as soon as you set the potentiometer to zero the sound is muffled, unusable. With 0.015uf it is the least worst. I experimented with much lower values, between 0.0047uf and 0.0082uf. It sounds like a wahwah pedal stuck in the middle position, when the tone pot is at zero. With some mid/treble frequencies which are preserved. By choosing the right value I reached an extremely interesting and unique sound, and above all very usable. Not a dull, uninteresting sound. I tested these values ​​with a single p90 junior LP (50's wiring). The sound is amazing. I think that for stratocaster style pickups or humbuckers, other values ​​could be better, but not certain.

There is much more to the cap equation then people often consider. Some people say that when the tone knob is maxed you wont hear the cap at all. I don't use no-load pots, but while playing the guitar I have tried disconnecting the cap with the pot maxed while a chord is ringing out and I honestly can't hear the difference. With that said, I have heard youtube vids demonstrating that the cap does affect the tone even when knob is maxed, so I am stumped there. What I have noticed with caps is that some make a funky wah-wah like sound when turned down and some just do as intended and roll off the treble. That is what I prefer. If I want a wah I'll use a wah. For rock/metal/pop I prefer orange caps to pio. They just seem brighter and more lively to me. For warmth and jazz and clean pio seems like better choice. What some people call "bell-like" others call "brittle", and what some people call "warm" others call "mud". I was very surprised to learn I preferred orange caps in most situations.

Have you considered using a footswitch to flip between options? That would allow you to toggle instantly while playing continuously. You could also hack a volume pedal and use that to toggle multiple options. With double pole switches (both latching footswitch and rotary) you could have separate LED circuits to indicate the active option.

Brilliant video. The only one on RU-vid that explains this correctly and well detailed.

Stewmac should sell the rotary test set pre-made

Remember the test leads add capacitance, so shorter leads give a better representation of the final sound when the cap is soldiered in-circuit.

its great to take away all reviews and opinions and truly leave it up to your own perception. Im making a test panel now, thank you for sharing sir

I re wired my Les Paul copy yesterday to 50’s specs 500k pots .022 caps but after listening to this I changed the caps to .047 sounds much better to me.

To compare open E chord: 0.022μF at 1:15 0.047μF at 1:30

that .47 sounds pretty good :D

This was an awesome test. Man I wish they made a vid like this for a bigger variation of capacitors.

Seems like the .022 is brighter than the .047. The tester you set up with the rotary switch is a cool idea. I have a Strat and Tele...both copies not Fender. Some say use .022uf and others .047uf. This would be a great way to test and see which one I like for each guitar. Thanks for the video!

If you're like me, you've never touched the tone knob except to check that it's all the way up.

The rotary switch idea is all the a baritone selector such as a BB King style guitar is. I played for weeks with different types of caricatures and values of capacitors. I even installed a micro switch in some guitars to go from 22 to 47 to give my guitar different sounds.

There's a simple but effective boost circuit in the old epiphone et-270 that's basically a switch with a capacitor wired in that pushes the overall volume nicely, I'd recommend guitar companies add this as a standard feature

It would be kinda cool to rig that little set up Into a guitar so you could switch the caps whenever you wanted to.

Install that rotary switch right into the guitar for a cool custom tone feature !

that rotary switch cap selector is gold!

maybe you should play the same chord and riff everytime to really hear the difference and not just noodle around randomly.

Great test. In my experience and opinion, this would have been just THAT much better had you played the same exact licks back to back. I know I can hear a difference much easier that way.

I doubt I'm the only one, but I'm only adding tone pots to my guitars just for the looks :) They are always at the brightest setting.

The physical construction and materials used make a noticeable difference to the tone you get. A lot of it has to do with quality of the component and the consistency of the materials used. Even with close tolerances the differences in construction and material produce different sounds. Try a cheap ceramic, and then swap it for a decent orange drop. The sweep in the tone control is much more lush and vibrant, even if both have the same treble bleed range.

You can use a breadboard to do this test and you'll only have to do two solder joints, also caps can sound different batch to batch same value, same maker.

Your setups for different capacitors are really cool. It gives you a chance to try a new cap for your axe without all the mess from soldering each one into place.

I needed to replace one of these .047 caps to a relais for the switch-on function in my Yamaha pianocraft stereo. Now it works.

Very cool. Love the higher value capacitor too. Mucher fuller sound.

Hello from Bloomington! I was searching for info on capacitors and there is Erick. Thanks man! I'm building a sweet Strat, and dialing in the subtleties.

Id find the two most different sounding caps and then install that toggle with the capacitor choice into the guitar!

I know that PIO caps in my 70's speakers produce a warmer tone than a ceramic or ally one. The drawback is they only last 5 years or so. This video is absolutely epic btw. Amazing idea.

Dude..that is so clever.... 047 for me too in that guitar !

The rotary with many more cap values idea has been around for many moons. Its called a decade box & they also made them for resistors. Probably can be had on ebay

Have someone else switch the contraption for you while you're not looking so that you can actually decide which one sounds better instead of allowing your biases to choose the one that you already thought sounded best before you even heard it.

Really great ideas here. I initially saw Lindy Fralin do a capacitor test device on one of his videos. The important thing here is not that this video should give you the definitive answer as to whether you should go with one of those cap values for a Les Paul instead of the other, but as a demonstration of how to sort that out, yourself, with your ears, in your sonic environment. Unless the differences are so glaringly obvious, never completely trust what you hear on YT, because of all that sound has to go through to get to your ears. (Camera, software, mic, YT compression, your computer speakers, etc...)

It's quite easy to use an on-on-on switch for that - use a 015, a .022 and in the middle position it's additive for a .037. Unless you're getting useful tone out of the 1,2,3 position on the tone, you're cap's too big. .015, even .007 have uses.

Some placebo effect is going on here. There's no difference for capacitors if the tone is on 10, because that way the capacitor is bypassed by the pot. I'm in producer headphones right now and I know some about sound. No difference at all. Should've tested with tone rolled off.

You can actually build that and have it in your studio and use them all whenever you want :D Gr8 idea man! Thanks!

0.047 uf certainly gives more presence

That's a pretty cool thing he did but what if you installed it that way in a guitar someway so you can have both of them in the guitar and change up whenever you want during a show or just at home. It would be like adding that one switch that let's you turn on a pickup when you want to

.022uf and .047uf (.020 and .050 are not standard values) capacitors are common in any junk electronic item you have laying around. Sometimes they are marked with these values in microfarads (uf), but more often they are marked with the capacitor code for that value. A .022uf will be marked "223" and the .047 will be marked "473". They cost about a dime apiece and work exactly the same as the big dollar "guitar tone" capacitors. They are very cheap, you can get a bag of them new i.e. eBay. If going used from some junk electronics board, you might want to invest in one of those $10 eBay electronic component checkers that will read both the value and check for age-related signal loss. You might even want to have them labeled as special guitar electronic parts and sell them for a 1000x markup.

Stellartone ToneStyler multi-capacitor potentiometers give you a select-able choice. The best thing made for tone on passive instruments...

They sound exactly the same but, as old guitar dudes, we need something to believe in!

I just use low values at max treble cut and switch between them with a rotary switch. 0.001, 0.005, 0.010, 0.015, 0.022. Works perfect for me.

I have in fact fitted a rotary like that to a guitar, giving several preset cap tones with some really low values for subtle effects. works well. I think its gretsch that do/did a three way toggle on some models for preset tones(?) also early esquires had a preset tone in one of its positions

Wish he would have used some "bigger difference" value capacitors, it would have been nice to exaggerate the sound difference so we can really understand how it makes it different, these sounded so similar, it almost doesnt even matter, the .47 possibly sounded a bit better, but really they were about the same.

i came across a wiring diagram for les paul that uses a master tone so the other tone pot can be removed and a rotery switch put in its place and you can switch between six different capacitors as you want or need.

I think a cap in between those two values would be perfect.

Great effort to solve this conundrum.

Another thing you may not know, is that the cap will sound different w/opposite orientation, i can tell easily in a tube amp setting..cheers,

With a quick listen on laptop speakers, I'd say... If I was a lead player I'd go with the .022uf, as it sounds as if it would cut through the mix better, but I'd go with the .047uf if I was using it for more rhythmic playing, but that's just me. Each to their own.

Keep in mind that shifting the baton on a toggle switch to the right is actually connecting to the capacitor on the left. When in doubt, you can initially test the switch with only one cap on it to be sure how it works.

Hi, let's imagine you got your Les Paul and with 500k pots it's too bright, bring the value of pots down by soldering a resistor in parallel, that is to both legs 1&3 of the pot. You could start with 50k resistor and increase value 50k at a time until you find sweet spot. You could fine tune your top end of your tone knob for max treble you desire, then fine tune low end with capacitor. If you have a good ear it's worth the effort. And of course if you need more treble from a tone pot, solder a resistor in series, remove input wire leg 1 then place resistor to wire and leg 1. 500k will give you a bright guitar but again adding 250k might be the sweet spot.

true...any 3/4 parameter eq would settle the difference...and i sincerely think the same about "tonewoods"

The difference is almost subtle honestly. Over time paper in oil caps, isn't reliable because it has kinda like self destruct mechanism, whereas leakage voltage would occur.

Deciding between different types will only work if you value match all the "same labeled value" caps to +/- 1% of each other, as they can be +/- 20% off from the stated value. Otherwise your just listening to value changes, not type changes, especially if you have one cap -20% of value compared to one that is +20% of value.

In your test circuit, the long leads themselves are adding a level of capacitance to the circuit. You need to insert them closer to the fixed final positions, IE solder or clip them to the pot ground or pot lead, to get accurate signal levels. Also, Orange Drops have a "same" unique sound because of manufacturing similarities between different values. Other Sprague, mallory etc. caps of the same or different values will sound different. Finally.......the value of shunted signal, IE where your tone pot is set has a huge difference between values, as the added resistance value being a "constant" works differently in the RC circuit you are creating. Merely flipping a switch between the two, and not setting the tone pot "to taste" isn't telling the whole story.

Most people forget that by turning the tone knob down to zero, you're also filtering out the higher harmonics of the lows, leaving you with a dull bassy sound; only an active system gives you complete control over your tone.

I can't hear a difference :(

Great Vid. Has anyone ever put two different caps in their guitar and then mounted a switch to toggle between them for two different tones like he does in the video, except all inside the guitar obviously

Hint.. Ceramic caps in the audio signal path is not a good idea. Ceramic caps change capacitance a lot with temperature and are microphonic which doesn't help at all in a device that is vibrating in sync with the signal frequency like a guitar.

I have an Ibanez with passive pickups, and when I changed the tone pot, I still didn't have a cap, so I just installed it without one and it sounds like a set of active EMGs! Now I probably won't put the cap in when it does come.

.047 it is!

make a box with an in and out and put it in line of the cord to the amp. leave tone knob all the way bypass and you dont have to open the guitar till you find the one you want.

wait, is noone gonna comment on how that Les Paul doesn't have a bridge? first time i see that! i assume it was intented this way from the get-go: moving the tailpiece to bridge-position, and using a wraparound tailpiece to get the right angle and intonation point. neat!

Thank you for sharing your experience as always very professional it would be very interesting if your testing all supported by audiometer and see the carve patterns, you might feel the and hear difference while other listeners can't tell. Personally in my humble opinion it is an area worth exploring and trying to learn more about it, no body know what will the future brings and what we believe in today , tomorrow might be totally the opposite. Thank you again for your very informative videos and sharing your experience on StewMac sites. Looking forward to watching and reading more from your materials. Best Regards from ENGLAND 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 UK 👍👏

The problem with this is, you've now added in a lot more wire and no solder. Both make a major difference in tone.

The 0.047uF definitely created better mids and upper bass response.

To a very large extent the value of the tone capacitor will only affect the low frequency limit where the tone control is rolled off. With the tone control at maximum (and the volume control at max) the roll off frequency is determined by the self capacitance of the pickup and the total capacitance of the instrument lead. Also don't take the value printed on the capacitor for granted. Always measure your component values.

The paper oil is the one . Reason. They are like a toilet roll , so one plate is on the outside. The outside should go to low impedance or ground of circuit and inner to high impedance side, an input for example. This will reduce the risk of picking up noise.

I wish the output amplified was cleaner, then with heavy distortion. Also harder to hear buried in reverb. Good experiment, though. I really guess you'd have to try it yourself as he says.

Why choose? Just stick that circuit in the guitar with the rotary switch - although I suppose you probably wouldn't want to drill a new hole in a vintage instrument...

Okay. So you used a solid body guitar for your capacitor test. You need to do the same test with a semi-hollow guitar, as well as a hollow body guitar for those of use who own such guitars. I'd like to hear if there are any subtle or obvious differences for the same test. Also, you should have put a mic in front of that amp to help the listeners not in the room hear a little better.

Glad you made all those things to show the difference between the caps but...and don't take this wrong, you seemed to have forgotten to show the customers who are watching your video... I know that it happens to the be s the of us so no worries. Great try though and I am certain things are going to work out. Great day all

Nice video, as usual with StewMac. I always watch SM vids when im trying something new. I went with .15 and .22 Luxe Bee repros and 50s style wiring in my LP with 57 Classics. Its probably mostly bias, but they sound great and im completely happy. Keep up the great videos.

I'm gonna add a multi capacitor switch now in my HH strat. Have best of both worlds

The best for audio are polypropylene capacitors. Never use ceramic disc caps, they are distorting and they are even a little bit microphonic like piezo pickups! Use WIMA polypropylene 50V caps (for some 30 cents) and forget all the "snake oil" capacitor stories. There are just some 2-3 potential positions for caps in the guitars. The Tone capacitor is not in the serial signal circuit, it is just sending the higher frequency part of the signal to the ground (not to the output), so here the cap's quality is a little bit less important. More important is so named "treble bleed" circuit's cap quality (not depending on circuit's variations) - if the Volume pot is not in the max position the higher frequency part of the signal is partly going serial through this circuit/cap. Concerning the Tone capacitor value - it is a very subjective question. In most cases, factory std values 22nF, 33nF, 47nF are too high, providing dull tone, reducing even mids. For the respective pickup's higher output impedance, lower value capacitors must be used. Pickup's DC resistance can be used to find approximate capacitor values. Just for orienting: 4kohm dc pickup ~ 18nF; 8kohm dc pickup ~ 12nF; 16kohm dc pickup ~ 8200pF. Try +/- 25% values.

Still waiting for the ceramic vs PIO comparison 👀👀

Capacitors dont have a sound. They just remove frequencies. They dont have a "tone" of their own. Doesnt matter what theyre made of. Only their value.

Ive often thought of that rotary switch setup, but only permanently installed in a guitar. I think Jazzmasters kind of do that with some of their selctor switches

I am thinking About adding both in a push/pull configuration...

rotary switch at the end is lovely ..or even the 2 way would be cool ..even better would be to just add built into the guitar !! ..but hate to cut a hole into a Gibson and mod it :(.. ... maybe use a pul switch ...but I love vintage taper pots like Centralab.. makes a Hugh Diff...even CTS don't compare .. .. Bring back Centralab Pots !! ..thick carbon track with lead

You should actually sell the rotary switch setup displayed at the end of the video... It would be great to walk into a guitar store and have the staff that knowledgeable, and offer you your choice as a small customization option with your purchase.

Great idea with the test board. I'll try that when I fix my overly bright Strat

AB switch for testing caps is an Awesome idea, Thanks!

Great idea Stewart.