Members BigGreen Posted February 11, 2010 Members Share Posted February 11, 2010 http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2008/Mar/Auditioning_Tone_Capacitors.aspxI read this article and I still dont really understand what they do. Can you use them without a tone Knob? Guess Im in the dark on this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members igge Posted February 11, 2010 Members Share Posted February 11, 2010 Yes, but then you'd have a combined tone/volume pot. As the volume gets turned down, the higher frequencies are reduced at the same time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AxAxSxS Posted February 11, 2010 Members Share Posted February 11, 2010 Basically the capacitor bleeds off the high frequency tones to ground. The tone control determines how much goes to the capacitor. If you always have your tone knob dimed and want more high end, eliminating the cap from the circuit or changing its value can help with this. If you like a warmer sound than you are getting, replacing it with a larger value can help you get that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BigGreen Posted February 11, 2010 Author Members Share Posted February 11, 2010 Ok I was guess I was thinking of them more like a filter of some kind. So your saying they basically react to whats being put through a knob. Would they effect the tone just by being installed? Like could you hear the difference between having one and not at full volume. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Darkstorm Posted February 11, 2010 Members Share Posted February 11, 2010 Yes, but there is no reason to. The cap value combined with a tone control is what allows one to customize the tone controls affect to best suit you. Caps that bleed off more treble are favored by some who prefer darker tones. However this is because of how that cap value affects the tone as you rotate the tone control. If one has overly bright/trebly pup/s but otherwise really liked them. Then changing cap value and possibly even pot value might fix that. Same if ones pups are a bit lacking in treble bite for the desired voice. Sure you can try pup after pup going for that magick to you tone. And find one thats allmost exactly it in your guitar. And adjust the pups height and angle and pole peices to taste. And trys various string brands for best tone on that guitar with those pups etc etc. Untill finds best match. If you then customize what cap and pot values you use for the tone control, you can take that last step for perfect to you tone. There are guitars custom made and stock that have a varitone tone circuit. In these a multiposition switch selects what cap value out of the values loaded onto it. This then goes to tone pot. If one just went to ground after the varitone circuit, one would not have the ability to fine tune how that caps voice tweak affects ones voice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Citizen_Insane Posted February 11, 2010 Members Share Posted February 11, 2010 Capacitors only filter sound when combined with a resistor (a pot = variable resistor). You get what's called either a high pass filter or low pass filter, depending on whether you're measuring the voltage across the resistor or the capacitor. The beginning of this wiki article explains it, but then it delves into the differential equations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-pass_filter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members hshaitan Posted February 11, 2010 Members Share Posted February 11, 2010 I think it's interesting that no one has mentioned that different kind of caps; i.e. - paper and oil, ceramic, etc, have different sounds as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members inkblot Posted February 11, 2010 Members Share Posted February 11, 2010 A capacitor can be put in a a guitar circuit any number of ways, but most of them other than the traditional tone circuit would not be desirable in most situations. You could install one directly across the output jack, and it would be equivalent to having the tone knob rolled all the way down. Wired in a different way, a capacitor could also be used to remove bass from your tone. Other than a traditional tone circuit the most common use for caps in a guitar is probably a treble bleed, which uses a cap to stop the treble from disappearing as you roll down the volume knob. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AwayEam Posted February 12, 2010 Members Share Posted February 12, 2010 Capacitors only filter sound when combined with a resistor (a pot = variable resistor). HEY BRO I've mostly dealt with caps in PCBs and not audio, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BigGreen Posted February 12, 2010 Author Members Share Posted February 12, 2010 So they're like restrictors as opposed to adding to the sound? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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