Electronics help again

[BlueLesPaul2006]

So I have chosen to replace my Les Paul stock electronics with a set of Seymour Duncan pickups. For the neck an Alnico II Pro and for the bridge a Pearly Gates. I plan on setting them up with the coil tap function since they are four conductor wires. On the Seymour Duncan site they say use .047 caps, when I asked Gibson what they use on their Les Pauls and they told me they use .022 caps. what I want to know is what I should use. what is the difference between .047 and .022 caps? who do they affect tone? and what brand should I use for my LP?

[generation zero]

I don't know much about caps as far as value or brand, because I generally leave my tone knob at 10 anyway, which might as well be a hard wire bypass. I want to say the higher the value, the more high end gets rolled off as you bring the tone knob down towards zero, but it may be the other way around, meaning lower value caps mean darker tone. Couldn't really tell you.

[TWANG]

the higher the value the more highs you cut.

 

They are pretty cheap.

Go to radio shack. buy a .015 and .022 a .033 and a .047

try each one.

You'll have about three bucks invested and you'll find you like one especially well .. maybe even a different one for each pup.

 

Then, if you want to, spring for the same value in a better cap.

200V or less is what you want.

There's not much voltage in the guitar.. it's the uF value that makes the difference.

 

TWANG

[InsideMan]

You're absolutely right. The bigger the cap, the more roll-off of highs, other things being equal. But are they? What is the circuit SD suggests using the 0.047s in?

[TWANG]

I should amend that a little.

You're changing the cutoff frequency. It doesn't actually increase treble.. because this a passive control.

so with .047s you'll have darker sounds when you turn the tone down than with .022s.

 

Usually it's single coils that like the .047s.

 

TWANG

[BlueLesPaul2006]

You're absolutely right. The bigger the cap' date=' the more roll-off of highs, other things being equal. But are they? What is the circuit SD suggests using the 0.047s in?[/quote']

 

the standard humbucker wiring

http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/products/electric/humbuckers/501005-110.pdf

 

Also when I get the coil tapping push/pull pots should i get only 2 and should i put them in the vol or tone spots?

[InsideMan]

Here's a schematic for a Gibby 335 with a coil tap switch for reference. Of course you want to use pots with the switchs built in instead, and this will give you individual control over the pickups.

 

 

You'll note that this schematic calls for the 0.2uf caps in series with 100K pots. My conclusion from all of this is that you should start with your original cap/pot values and see how you like them. If they are too bright, you might go to your nearest electronic part supplier and ask for 0.047 uf caps. These should give you a less-bright sound.

 

As for the placement of the the pots with the coil-tap switches (volume or tone position), it seems more logical to me to put them in the tone position. Cheers.

[Dave]

The tone circuit is a high pass filter governed by the value of the pot and cap values. For those who are into the math, the formula for the center frequency is Xc=1/ (2*Pi*F*C) where F=the frequency of the signal and C=the value of the cap.

 

Here's a link that shows the theoretical graphed results of using various capacitors in a guitar and the roll-off at various freqs. The different colored lines represent the output for certain frequencies with the tone pot at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10. The vertical axis is output level in DBs and the horizontal axis is frequency. You can see resonant peaks at different frequencies with different caps. It's a representation of "Woman Tone" and why it happens with different caps.

 

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/tonefreaks/28638-woman-tone-why-happens-cap-info.html

[djroge1]

So I have chosen to replace my Les Paul stock electronics with a set of Seymour Duncan pickups. For the neck an Alnico II Pro and for the bridge a Pearly Gates. I plan on setting them up with the coil tap function since they are four conductor wires. On the Seymour Duncan site they say use .047 caps' date=' when I asked Gibson what they use on their Les Pauls and they told me they use .022 caps. what I want to know is what I should use. what is the difference between .047 and .022 caps? who do they affect tone? and what brand should I use for my LP?[/quote']

 

The reason they suggest you go to .047uF caps is because a single coil is brighter (more highs). Using the .047uF will filter some of those highs out (send them to ground).

 

My Les Paul is wired using the "Jimmy Page" wiring which has both humbuckers with coil tap. I have a Sprague .047uF on the bridge, but I use a Sprague .022uF on the neck because I don't want my neck to sound too dark (muddy to me).

 

You can use whatever value and brand you want. In fact I've read some good advice around that you can wire your pups and use small alligator clips to try some different values and brands of caps - this keeps you from soldering/unsoldering a bunch. I think this is a good idea because you can order different brand and values often from the same place and since you're already paying shipping (unless it's free) why not - most caps are fairly inexpensive. A couple of things to keep in mind however:

 

1. Caps, like most electronics take a certain amount of time to "break in" to the point where they sound really good.

 

2. Most people do not like the sound of ceramic caps although some cannot hear the difference so it doesn't matter to them.

[animalfarm]

My research on caps as per my "In search of the bottom end" post led

me to this on the Stewmac site:

I'm currently using .022ufd caps and 250K tone pots on my Raven, will switch to 500K tone pots, but

as the diagram below suggests, my current cap value filters out all but the higher freqs. Perhaps

a higher value cap for my desired sound? And I'm still looking for a good solid answer regarding

the pups I installed. Need more input/tech data.

 

What is a capacitor and how does it work?

Capacitors, or "caps," are simple electronic components that are typically used in guitar electronics as filters or barriers for certain frequencies. High frequencies will pass through a cap, while lower frequencies are blocked. The value of the capacitor will determine the frequencies that pass (refer to Diagram #7). Using the filtering properties of a cap, we can affect the tone of the guitar.

 

 

Higher frequencies travel more readily to ground, and a guitar can sound muddy as the volume is rolled off. Many builders overcome this problem by using a ìtreble bypassî capacitor between the input and the output of the potentiometer. The most common treble bypass caps are 680 picofarads (pf) and .001 microfarads (µf). The higher the value of the cap, the more upper frequencies are allowed to travel through it. A tone pot uses the same properties of a cap, but instead of letting the frequencies slip by to the amp, they are sent to ground. Most tone control caps are of a higher value than treble bleed caps, so the overall effect will be more noticeable, with more tonal flexibility.

 

How is a tone pot is wired?

There are several ways to wire a traditional tone control, yet they all end up working the same way.

Diagram #8 shows the most common method.