Another Breja Tone Works "2-Minutes to Tone" (although this one is 4 mins). In this video, I go over some of the important information you'll need when thinking of replacing your guitar capacitors.
Been playing guitar for 20 years and just now getting around to learning more about pots,caps and wiring. .you're one of the best resources on the subject. Thanks
FWIW, After 40 years I think caps are the absolute biggest waste of time for a real guitarist. Nobody in the industry knew the Gibson reissue bumblebees were cheap fakes until someone cracked one open. 60 dollars for BS.
I really appreciate the time and effort that you've put in to all your videos. Very professional. You've really broken things down very well for all the people watching. Thanks for doing this.
Just found you on RU-vid. I have already watched a few vids. Great Stuff. Was PULLING my hair out wiring up a Les Paul with coil taps and all the bells. You 100% are making my life easier. Thank You. Liked and SUBSCRIBED !
Great job explaining key things regarding cap physical size and how to create your own cap "sizes" by using them in series or parallel. I didn't know that. I've just now really been trying to understand how the wiring for Teles and LPs work and what options are worth considering. I've wired 3 guitars this month and tested various caps with certain guitars and I used several of your videos to do these installations. Thanks for providing the images and non bias suggestions.
100% correct! In the past when you could easily find the specs for Fender guitars, the most commonly installed caps were the small .022 / .033 100 volt values in telecasters. Factory string sizes were usually the .009 - .042 and .010 - .046. Fender Bullet strings in the past. Caps, potentiometers (250 / 500K), and string sizes were coordinated with the specific pickups installed.
Thanks, caps are more important than I thought, on some of my guitars, the tone knob sweep is so noticeable, that it's much like a wah if you sweep quickly, on others, it's not nearly as radical.
Very good Tip video, thanks! I'll have to check out your other videos too. You are really a very clear speaker so I had to backup and listen again.. Lol What a drag it must be to make a perfect video and then slip and say Capatence instead of Capacitance. I admire that you did not feel it necessary to edit that part of the audio. I point this out as a compliment not a criticism. I would have to redo my video over and over and still not sound half as knowledgeable as you. Hence why I've never made a video.. hahaha. Maybe I'll try one of these days. Liked and subbed
Hello Don, great videos. I just ordered a set of 3 single coil Lace Alumitone pickups to try in my strat and tele type guitars.Do you have any videos or advice on these pickups. Cheers.
From Leo: There is truth that tone is subjective. I just put humbuckers and 500K pots in a formerly single coil guitar. I only had one .022 orange drop so I slipped a tiny .022 ceramic on the other one until I could get more orange drops. Surprisingly, they both work fine and easily get the clean sounds I desire. I will not bother to take it back apart to change out that cheap ceramic.
Disk ceramic capacitors are microphonic and have a big swing in value when the temperature varies. They will work, but not as well as the "orange drop" capacitors do.
Great info man. But you forgot about the 0.010 capacitor and the green chicklets. Recently I used in my last build a 0.010 Orange drop, because these pickups just got to dark and muddy with any other value. The 0.010 rolls back the high end but enhances the low mids and does not become muddy all the way back to 0. Have a good one.
Thanks again for the great video ! I have a question. I have an american strat special SSS, texas special PUs. I have a basic understanding of how the pickguard is wired up and the purpose of caps on the tone pots. But my strat has 2 disc caps per TONE pot, the same 2 caps on each tone pot. Cap #1 is BC Z5U 203M 1KV This cap is installed in a standard way, grounded to pot and connected to lug on right, (when lugs are pointing down). Cap #2 is Y5U 104M This cap is soldered to middle lug and left lug, (when lugs are pointing down). .... Can you tell me what the purpose of Cap #2 is ? Thanks Terry
I am hoping to find an explanation on how A capacitor works in regard to it storing electricity, since that’s what capacitors do and how that makes the guitar darker when you turn the knob towards zero. Are capacitors really working in the function of a capacitor or are they working more as a filter?
OK do stock US made Strats have any of these capacitors on the pots already when you buy them, say for example I got a 2006 US made Strat. Would the ones made then have capacitors in them stock or is this something that is put in later in mods?
One question on caps: I am enjoying learning to play Country, Southern Rock, and Classic Rock, for a Stratocaster with your 9-way on/on/on and 5 way, I have an HSH all pickups are 2 wire (Tele neck in middle). What caps do you recommend?
Thanks for these great videos, I really enjoy them! I think caps marked "104" are .1uF like what's found in active pickup guitars. If I wired 2 of these in series what would I end up with? Thanks again!
Half of the two caps added together when in series.. doubles capacitance when in parallel. (This is exactly the opposite behavior when talking about resistors.)
I listened to a comparison video with no frame of reference or prior knowledge, and I found Paper in Oil to sound sweeter that the orange drop style (or any other style in that video for that matter). I'd say it has about the same effect as tonewood, which is to say, in a sterile solo playing environment (meaning, what you're playing hasn't been processed by a producer and put into a mix) it has a 2%-5% effect on your final overall tone. There are a dozen things that affect tone more than tonewood and what KIND of capacitor you have _put together._ So really, just focus on getting the capacitance that cuts the right amount of highs for you, and pair it with whatever strength tone pot you need to get the highs THROUGH the capacitor when you have the tone cranked. Also, an audio taper tone pot will give you more granularity/linearity of control, which is funny because it's the exact opposite of what it SHOULD do, and also the opposite of what it does/what you need for a volume pot.
Haha this sounds awfully familiar. Inspired by my barrage of questions perhaps? Thanks again! Getting close to the install. A few more weeks till the pickups are here. Cant wait!
Breja ToneWorks I have a question, Maybe you can explain, I have noticed that when I hook an ohm's meter to a potentiometer between the middle and either the left or right lug one side gives me a smoother resistance on the meter,One side does not have very much affect until you turn it almost to the ends of the radius,While the other lug seems to give a much smoother resistance as you turn the dial,Is there a reason for this and if so witch lug would you suggest hooking the lead to when soldering the harness together? It seems that no one explains this in any of the videos I have found.
Hey Steven... I go over some of this in my videos: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-39XdnQDxuw4.html and ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uLUpB2JcrIs.html Electrically it doesn't matter if you connect a tone cap to L1 or L2 - the result is the same. When you measure a pot you connect to L1 and L3 - that will give you the total resistance of the pot. L2 is the wiper. Personally I vary my wirings - in some cases I connect the Cap to L1 and in others to the wiper L2. No particular reason - it's just something that I find myself doing. If you connect the Cap to L1 - then your Vol/Switch lead should go to L2. If you connect the Cap to L2, then your Vol/Switch lead can go to either L1 or L3. On a Volume Pot, it depends on if you're going for a Dependent or Independent volume. Depending on which one you chose, you'll either be connecting to L1 or L2. The video should help explain that a little better. Hope this helps... Don
Great video, Don! :) Will try this mod later. Just a question, you do recommend 500k or higher pots, am I correct? Just wanted to be sure before I start. Thanks a lot! :) PS: Subscribed and a thumbs up! :)
BREJA toneworks: some fender strats have only ONE tone cap and others use TWO tone capacitors, when using TWO capacitors it "loads" the pickups more compared to only using one tone capacitor? using two capacitors in parallel creates a phase shift also? The 50's strats used Phone book capacitor that is made out of wax and paper which I don't know the different between the Bumble bee paper in oil
Great video thanks so informative.i just ordered some vitamin q's and they are enormous,lol now I know why! I'll keep them for something else don't think they'll fit wish I knew beforehand
what happens if combine hot and ground wires together? like i had a joint were hot and ground became wired in parrallel or series, and what if i did that on the output jack? Not connecting ground to tip and hot to sleeve but hot and ground to tip? What noise would i get? and what if you had your standard series wired pickups but the both hot and ground were in series and is there a way to control which pickup goes into the other. for example if i had the neck and middle in series could i control whether the neck goes into the middle or the middle into the neck? And what if i had two series wired pickups have the hot of one go into the ground of the other and the hot of the the other go to the hot of the first?
Ground + Hot to same lug = No SoundThe length and output of the circuit between two pickups is not long enough to have any difference where Middle goes into Neck or Neck goes in to Middle.
So if we replace all 3 single coil pickups in a good Strat type (Yamaha) from Ceramic to AlnicoV .... then should the capacitor change as well. An AlnicoV seems slightly darker and more complex as a tone, so a capacitor of .223 vs. .047 might make sense if a bit brighter is wanted ... True?
Only with polarized caps, so none of these caps are polarized. But you can buy some that are and use them instead, just remember electricity flows from - to +
I recently installed Emerson Custom complete harness with Bumblebee Paper in Oil Capacitors (1: 0.022uf Bridge, & 1: 0.015uf Neck) in a Les Paul copy (50s wiring) and was surprised to find that the neck pickup was so dark it was almost unusable. Should I consider changing the capacitor value, or is this a pickup issue? Shouldn't a .015 capacitor be somewhat bright? If not, do you have any suggestions as to how to brighten up the tone some. Thanks
Effectively, what you said is right...but, you've got the actual physics backwards: Capacitors primarily determine how much bass & midrange gets cut off, by changing the cut off frequency of those lower tones. Thus, the ratio of high to low frequencies in the audio signal changes...but the actual amount of treble signal in the usable audio range is less affected for the most part. In other words, when it sounds like there is more treble, it is a case of there being less "bass"...because that cutoff frequency, below which the lower frequencies are reduced of deleted from the output signal, has been raised. Note: Some people claim that different values of caps add more or less treble to the output, which is even more wrong. Treble bleeds accomplish that "bleed" as the volume pot is turned down...whereas "grease bucket" circuits act as filters to reduce the treble & increase the mid-range frequencies in the final signal when the tone pot is turned down. But, these passive circuits don't actually amplify anything.
Some people can't appear to hear any difference..i can, i use hi-fi grade polypropylene capacitors, 5% tolerance, 1% resister, Fender Greasebucket tone set-up, more detail & more 3D sounding compared to a single cap on your (linear) tone pot which is 2D & flat sounding imo....good explanation..you can run caps in parrallel to acheive the right value, the better quality the smaller cap the better quality sound...parallel cap bypassing is used in high grade x-overs in some very expensive loudspeakers....
I recently acquired a telecaster with a humbucker pickup and the neck and previous owner replaced the bridge pickup with a stacked Dimarzio humbucker. question is... should each pickup have its own separate capacitor / and if so, what would be the optimal capacitance ?
Terry, capacitors are for filtering what means it is used to control your guitar's tone. You don't have one per PU by default, you should have one cap per tone pot (or a combination in serie or parallel, depending the value you are after). Taking real examples: 1 cap for a Strat style guitar (single tone control) or 2 caps for a Les Paul style (double tone control).
I have a question. So, more than a year ago, I used a wrong adaptor on my BOSS Blues Driver BD-2 by accident and I heard a loud pop right after I turned on my pedal before it stopped working. How do I figure out which capacitor blew up? I don't know anything about guitar pedal components at all, but I'm trying to learn in order to fix my pedal. Thanks!
I have a guitar with 500k pots, and passive humbuckers. It came shipped with a .022uf cap installed. (brown drop) The humbuckers were very muddy sounding, so I wanted to experiment with the cap value to see if I could brighten the tone just a hair, and perhaps get rid of the mud. I immediately thought of going to a .015 uf (153), or a 103 cap (.01 uf). Upon inspection, the installed cap is merely a 50v cap. So my question is two-fold, one being is what is the smallest voltage cap you would install? The second thing I thought was, let's just see how bright I can make the guitar, and bypassed the cap altogether, and the muddiness disappeared completely when I bypassed the capacitor. I liked the tone with no cap installed, but it pretty much eliminated the functional use of the tone pot except when rolled all the way off, which would just be it's resistance value. At this point, I'm faced with either using the tone control as a second volume, OR do you think a smaller cap, like the 153, or 103, or even smaller would be worth the effort? Maybe ceramic?!? Your opinion?!?
The output voltage of magnetic pickups varies between 100 mV rms to over 1 V rms for some of the higher output types. You would be safe even using 10 V caps.
Even a 50 Volt still larger that the output of your guitar. As this video states, any voltage will work. Physical size is more pertinent constraint, especially in solid body guitars which have routed out control cavities with a fixed size (barring getting out your router ;-p) As for the bypassed cap output , you can have both - a full bypass option, AND, still retain the normal operation of the tone control with the cap value of your choice. The solution is a "no-load pot", which functions like any other tone pot from 0-9, UNTIL you you hit 10 (full on). At that point, the pot disconnects itself from the output, leaving you with the just the bypassed guitar. A simple youtube search for "No Load Tone Pot" will give you links describing (and demonstrating) how they work and, (if you can operate needle nose pliers and a razor blade) you to make one from a stock potentiometer. Fender offers 250K ohm No Load pot "kits" (with mounting hardware & a .047 uf cap included) Guitar pots (bear with me if you already know this) come in generally two different packages, and depending on what type of no load pot you get, may require drilling out your mounting hole, and may also drive the need for a different type of knob. The simplest approach is to match the new no-load pot to the shaft, case, and mounting hole size that you are currently using - 6MM mounting hole split shaft "import" pots (such as the dime sized ones on Squier strats and P basses), or, - 3/8" mounting hole split shaft (like Gibson generally uses) or solid shaft (like FENDER telecasters and P-basses) NOTE - these 3/8" pots typically us a larger case Depending on the type of pots you use on your guitar , your no-load pot choice may drive the need for a new knob: - split shaft pots use slip-on knobs, (like strats or most Gibson guitars) or, - set screw (like FENDER telecasters and P-basses) Stewmac.com has a wealth of articles and videos on all aspects of guitar repair and maintenance. As for the cap value selection, there is a very informative real time comparison of a 500k audio taper pot and a wide variety different capacitor values (using a repeated strummed chord) here on RU-vid at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WkLgvm5YloU.html I hope this helps...
I bought a Chinese guitar which had a bad tone pot when it arrived. It made the tone very muddy because the pot was stuck at a fairly low value no matter how I turned the shaft. I ended up replacing just about everything on the guitar with higher quality parts and now everything works reliably. Also had to fix the twisted neck. I would have been better off buying a used Les Paul Studio or an Epiphone. Moral of the story: never buy a Chinese-made guitar online.
I have an early 70's les paul custom "black beauty" guitar. All electronics are original on it. Is there any point in changing the electronics at all such as the capacitors? They also happen to have some weird white flake all over it.
Hey There - sorry for the delay. Depends on your intentions with the guitar. Changing things may improve some tone and performance issues but will hurt resale value. Caps 'contribute' to a guitar's tone but at a very minor level. Changing them out will not suddenly turn on missing MOJO. You can certainly clean the electronics (DeOxit cleaner) and such to help with scratchy and noise but unless you have some significant problems, I'd leave them alone. If you do want to replace things - I'd recommend pulling the entire Harness out and putting it aside and replace all the electronics knowing full well that you have the unaltered harness to put back in to sell with the guitar that way it retains it's value. Hope this helps... Don
You will not want to use Electrolytic capacitors. These are not the type of caps you want in a guitar circuit. These are for Amp or Power-based circuits. Look up Ceramic, Mylar or PIO capacitors - these are what you're looking for.
Question? Do you need a capacitor? I've wired a guitar for just 1 tone 1 volume 1 pickup and no capacitor and it sounds very clean I have absolutely no idea what I've done wrong. Would a capacitor fix that?
If you don't know what you did wrong and it's working the best thing for you to do is go over there and carefully mess with the EQ on your amp instead of messing something else up on your guitar because you don't know what you're doing.
Don, I have a Fender Vintage Style Tele guitar. Having the tone pot fully open, would there be any tone difference between the stock Ceramic Disk 0.015uf and an Orange Drop 0.022Juf?
+JorgeAndresCoppiano. No. When wide open, the Cap will not have any appreciable impact on the tone nor will you be able to tell the difference between these two caps. Even as you start to use the tone pot, the difference between these two values will be subtle.
Nice video!^^ but i have to say, capacator material doesnt make a tonal diference, it changes how fast they age, a paper in oil capacator ages faster wich can cause them to sound darker but that can cause other problems in the longrun
What would it actually do if you wired them in series or parallel? Can you show that in a video by playing the guitar to show us, the differences of how it would sound in a single coil Strat?
hi don. im very keen on the electronics of guitars ( but a total novice ), id like to pose a question...is there a reference table somewhere that compares pot types and values in different guitars? ie using 500k in strats or 250k in humucker only guitars. also... how about using differing types of cappy with the pots... ie a 500k pot in a strat ( tones and/or volume ) with 22nf cap, 47nf or a 33nf cap, be they pio, mylar, polypropylene, polyester, ceramic etc tec. i appreciate its a lot of comparisons to make to get the tone you want, but itd be interesting to see the results. plus... it saves me hours and hours of rewiring to do it myself.... lol. thanks :)
mrcrappyguitarist Hey there... Unfortunately there isn't such a table - at least that I'm aware of. The Pot values are usually dictated based on the type of pickups installed (SC = 250K / HB = 300-500K, etc...) Cap values are all highly subjective and based on how anyone particular player likes to have their tone set. Not that I'm an expert by any stretch of the imagination and my opinions should never be taken as gospel, but over the past 30 years I've come to this setup being the most useable and pleasing to my ears: Standard Strats: 250k pots with Orange Drop .015uF for Neck/Middle and .015uF PIO for Bridge. Teles: 250K pots with Orange Drop .022uF cap. LP and SGs: 500k pots with .015uF PIO across the board and a Duncan Treble Bleed on each Vol - 50's wiring. ES335s: 500k pots with .022uF across the board and 50's wiring. These are my starting points and I modify only if I'm bored or have a unique need. Hope this helps. Don
hi. thanks very much for replying don. that helps a lot as a base line guide. can i also ask... are there any mods for using lace sensors ( singles or dually's ) they say to use 250k pots and o.022uF caps, just wondered if there were other options, and what effect they have on tone and the pickups general performance. many thanks again for your time don :)
mrcrappyguitarist Sorry about the delay in responding... You have a couple of options and they're all highly subjective. 250k / 300k / 500k or 1MB pots. From left to right you'll go from darker to extreme bright/treble. Caps - .015uF / .022uF / .047uF / .1uF From left to right you go from less treble roll-off to a lot of treble roll-off. To be honest with you I'd tell you to stick with the manufacturer recommendations for pots. Caps are entirely up to you. Try the standard recommendation for a week - then swap out the caps and see what you prefer. I'd only change out pots if the guitar is too dark or too bright when everything is wide open. Don
The higher the capacitance, the lower the cutoff frequency for the treble cut. Higher capacitance will also have a deeper amount of cut compared to a lower capacitance.
The quality on caps is pritty the same for everyone of them, what mostly change is the type (mylar, pio, ceramic...). You could maybe concern about the tolerance of a cap to have a reference of it "accuracy". Yoy can find this beside the value of the cap itself labeled with a letter that could be J, K, L, M.... I would recommend you using K or lower, because they are the smallest values in terms of tolerance. The value most used with humbuckers is .022, higher will result in a muddy sound, but anyway that depends on your preference so you should test and choose the best for you, anyway caps are so very cheap, don go for bumblebees or the expensive ones, since don't worth at all! Hope this helps, cheers!
Theoretical question: If you were to use a 1M tone pot with a 0.1uF cap (on a humbucker), would that give you a bigger (but still useable) range of tones than you would get from a 500K pot with a 0.047uF cap? Also, would such a big cap affect the tone when the knob was fully open?
The 1M is going to be a VERY bright sounding pot. Kinda depends on the voicing of your Humbucker as to how it'll sound. I'm thinking that you'll end up turning the pot down to compensate. The cap won't have an impact when the pot with wide open.
Thank you. The stock humbuckers I have are very muddy and I have limited funds, so cannot replace them just yet. Would a .1uF cap on the 1M pot give a wider (useable) range of tones than a 500K pot with a .047uF cap?
