# Exotic tone capacitor does the trick



## peter benn (Mar 29, 2007)

I wasn't convinced before, running a normal .1 K orange tone cap in my Tele circuit. I thought it was normal to have a 1/8th turn usable sweep on the tone pot, in any given situation.

Now with the .047 oil-in-paper cap (It actually fit without routing!) I have a much lower-geared usable sweep of about half the taper. Tonewise, changes happen slowly and there's yards of room in there to get it right, if you know what I mean.

It is possible I have lost extremes of treble and bass, but I'm watching the situation.

http://xs.to/xs.php?f=008_RT8.jpg&h=xs218&d=07343


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## suttree (Aug 17, 2007)

that is a pretty damned fine looking tele.


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## Mr Yerp (Feb 24, 2006)

Yup, a real looker!


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## Greg Ellis (Oct 1, 2007)

Exotic?

.047 is a pretty standard value for a tone cap, isn't it? .022 would be 2nd most common. 

I've never seen a .1, maybe that's a tele thing (I've never owned a tele).

Did you try the .022, to see if that extends the useful range of your tone pot even further? Or are you happy with the .047 now?

Maybe I'm missing the point - it's not the value, but the cap construction that you think is making things magically wonderful?

That would surprise me, but then I'm sort of a noob at this. How much did the fancy exotic capacitor cost, if you don't mind be asking.


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## dwagar (Mar 6, 2006)

If you've never tried PIO caps in your guitar, you might be surprised with the warmth of tone they give. I think they can be a really cheap upgrade.
I pretty well use PIO Bumblebees (I buy pulls as they are cheaper than NOS) in my guitars.


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## Stratin2traynor (Sep 27, 2006)

dwagar said:


> If you've never tried PIO caps in your guitar, you might be surprised with the warmth of tone they give. I think they can be a really cheap upgrade.
> I pretty well use PIO Bumblebees (I buy pulls as they are cheaper than NOS) in my guitars.


Where do you buy those? I don't recall seeing those caps while shopping online.


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## flashPUNK (Feb 16, 2006)

http://thetubestore.com/paperinoil.html


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Greg Ellis said:


> Exotic?
> 
> Maybe I'm missing the point - it's not the value, but the cap construction that you think is making things magically wonderful?
> 
> That would surprise me, but then I'm sort of a noob at this. How much did the fancy exotic capacitor cost, if you don't mind be asking.


During the past 2 years I spent a lot of time on the Seymour Duncan forum. The debate (often very heated to virtually nasty) about caps comes up very frequently. Not so much about the electronic specs, as they ranged from .01Mfd to .047Mfd, and everyone had their preferences, for various reasons.

The debate is always the cost. (i.e., are they really worth it, and do they really improve tone) Some of the caps were about $12.00 USD. *EACH.* 

Someone made a switching system to compare caps back and forth while playing (to keep everything equal). He couldn't hear any difference betwen the expensive and inexpensive caps (he was a well recognized member of the forum). Others claimed that there was a VAST difference.

I'm not trying to start a debate, or offer my personal opinion here.

Dave


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## PaulS (Feb 27, 2006)

There is one point here I agree on, the type of cap, PIO/Poly/Ceramic, will give a different taper to the tone pot. After a lot of testing I also had found the PIO's or Vitamin Q styles had the nicest taper to them. They didn't roll everything off on a small turn of the dial.... The value is usually related to the pickup type, 047 for singles and 022 for HB's. I have seen some older tele's with the .1


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## jimmy peters (Nov 29, 2006)

instead of caps you guys should try BILL LAWRENCE tone cubes. much wider range, from a nice and soft bass or mid tone to an ear piercing treble that will take your ears out.also for you single coils, no hum...

good luck
jimmy peters


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

jimmy peters said:


> instead of caps you guys should try BILL LAWRENCE tone cubes. much wider range, from a nice and soft bass or mid tone to an ear piercing treble that will take your ears out.also for you single coils, no hum...
> 
> good luck
> jimmy peters



Bill Lawrence has them on his site, called Q-Filter.


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## dwagar (Mar 6, 2006)

Stratin2traynor said:


> Where do you buy those? I don't recall seeing those caps while shopping online.


You can identify old PIO Bees by the oil filler tube (it'll have a small drop of solder on it - good pix at the bottom of this page http://www.doctorvintage.com/electrics/gib_electricals.html ).

I buy them off of Ebay. The old Les Paull .022 400v are way too expensive IMO, so I try to buy pulls (used) rather than NOS, voltage doesn't matter so maybe 600v, and I'll use .010, .015, .018 instead of the standard .022s.
Old caps tend to drift up in value anyway. My .010s read .013, my .015s read .018, etc.

My last old Bee 'score' was 3 -.010 400v for $10.

They sound GREAT! When you roll one of these back to zero on the tone control, it sounds like you kicked in a wah pedal. I haven't found any new cap that can do that. To me, it's a very vintage tone.


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## peter benn (Mar 29, 2007)

*Where I got the cap*

http://www.angela.com/ had a range of them, and I just picked the most expensive ($18) one.

Peter


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## fraser (Feb 24, 2007)

ive always disconnected all my tone controls- leads back to when i got my first strat- the pickups were pretty weak to my ear lol- i found if i removed the tone circuit i got a bit more juice- i ended up doing it to every guitar i owned for 26 years just out of habit lol-
but i recently wired one of my strats to have a single master tone for all pickups,
after a while using it i took out the .022 cap and replaced with a .022 orange drop- it made a huge difference, overall tone is improved, and if i put the tone control on about 3-4, the fekking thing just screams- its like a wah almost- i did the same to my tele last night, but ended up swapping the original .022 for an orange drop .022 back and forth about 5 times-
i read the same posts on another forum that greco did, guy built the device to test the caps side by side etc- but i know now that caps do sound different from type to type, for sure
im going to get some of those vitamin q's from the tube store..............
love your guitar peter- that pic of yours is one of my favourite guitar pics


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## peter benn (Mar 29, 2007)

Lester B. Flat took the pics. He turns sows' ears into silk.


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## peter benn (Mar 29, 2007)

*Second thoughts department...*

It's a B. Hefner alder body from about 2003, and was on sale for like, $145 U.S., when I called. When it came, I looked at the edges of the body and thought that nobody could improve on the edges, or the overall outline. Apparently there were some incremental changes to the Telecaster body before 1971.

I did use some filler, but I forget which. Paint is Dover clear, amber, chestnut brown and black, some #000 steel wool between coats done slowly. Three plastic wood-filled divots are screwdriver burns from using a less-than-12" screwdriver to set intonation. Live and learn. I may dig it out and go back to the divots.


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