# using Caps to cut the ice pick



## dwagar (Mar 6, 2006)

here's a trick I picked up off of Seymour Duncan's site. Alot of guys don't know about it, and alot of guys disagree with it. But you might want to give it a spin.

This is for LP style humbucker equipped, never tested it on a Fender.

If your bridge pickup is ice picking you to death, you should:
- try lowering it, adjusting the pole pieces
- could opt for 1 or both pots at 250K

here's the other trick:
take a very small cap (.0033, .0047 - yes that's 2 zeros, not one), attach it to the pickup hot lead where it connects to the pot. Ground the other end of the cap to the back of the pot.

The setup on my LP Custom (very bright guitar to begin with)
- Voodoo 59 pickups, both at 7.8 K, Peter Green magnet flip on neck
- 500K pots on neck, 1 500 and 1 250 on bridge
- vintage .015 bumblebee on neck
- vintage Sangamo .033 on bridge, vintage Sangamo .0047 grounded cap.

With my bridge pickup right open (on 10), I get not only a good treble that cuts through the mix with no icepicking, but also the vintage hollow (wah) tone. 

This tone is not for everybody, but it's a really cheap and easy trick to cut the icepick out of a Les Paul.


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## Lester B. Flat (Feb 21, 2006)

What's the difference between this and tweaking the tone pot? I don't often see 'Les Paul' and 'very bright' used in the same sentence!

Have you got some maple in your Custom?


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## drift_boat (Feb 2, 2006)

MyR7 Les Paul was ice pickey in the bridge also. Rather than replace the stock Burstbucker pup, I opted to replace the stock "fake bumblebee" (cap value unknown) with a vintage bumblebee with a value cap of .033

It gave the stock bridge pup a very nice vintage treble sound reminiscent of George Harrison's tone on some of the Beatles albums where he used an SG.

This worked so well, that I did the same to my '64 SG standard which was verrrrry ice pickey in the bridge!:rockon:


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## dwagar (Mar 6, 2006)

Lester, yes, most customs have the maple top (real 50's and 57RIs are solid mahogany), add the ebony board and it's pretty bright. As I tried to say above, bright to my ears anyway, others may like it that way.
The difference, they way I see this mod, is it just cuts the edge, adds quite a bit of color to the tone, and leaves me full range of the pot, without getting into the muddy zone. I haven't lost my treble setting, but it's 'warmer'.

Drift_boat - I cannot say enough good things about real vintage bees. I think it's a crime that Gibson is using fake bees. Guys will think they know what a bee sounds like. That is so wrong.

As Drift_boat can attest I'm sure, when a Les Paul gets into the ice pick zone, it'll tear the fillings out of your teeth.

I'm going to try to make a blues jam this afternoon, wind it out a bit in my Marshall, make sure I haven't gone a bit too far at stage volumes.


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## Yerffej (Feb 7, 2006)

http://www.jpbourgeois.org/guitar/micos1.htm

I am considering the low value cap also, its cheap. I think I may just give it a shot for the 50 cents I will pay


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