Sgt. Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Want to hear some opinions on matching tone caps to pickups from peeps who be playin' yeah. (okay my gangsta's not that good ...) Question regarding matching paper in oil (pio) tone capactitors with humbucking pickups. Do alnico v magnet Gibson burstbucker pros match well with pio caps such as bumblebees? I am just trying to work this out, the old paf burstbuckers are alncio II and wouldn't be as bright or hot, is that correct? I am aware of some of the characteristics of pio caps on tone. For example, does using a .22 tame a bright/hotter pickup, in other words, the higher cap value will darken the tone more than say the .15? I want to find a good combination of pio caps to alnico v humbuckers. Is the 'woman tone' option a good choice with the alnico v humbuckers or stick with .22s? Also with the 'quick connect' electronics in the les paul, does installing a prewired harness pose any problem for the tech doing the repair? I mean hard wiring the electronics with the existing quick connect wires? Do I need any additional wire? I want to install a CTS/bumblebee cap wiring harness in a lp studio with the quick connect. Yeah I know it's long shaft pots for studio, but I want to make sure of everything before ordering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badbluesplayer Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Want to hear some opinions on matching tone caps to pickups from peeps who be playin' yeah. (okay my gangsta's not that good ...) Question regarding matching paper in oil (pio) tone capactitors with humbucking pickups. Do alnico v magnet Gibson burstbucker pros match well with pio caps such as bumblebees? I am just trying to work this out, the old paf burstbuckers are alncio II and wouldn't be as bright or hot, is that correct? I am aware of some of the characteristics of pio caps on tone. For example, does using a .22 tame a bright/hotter pickup, in other words, the higher cap value will darken the tone more than say the .15? I want to find a good combination of pio caps to alnico v humbuckers. Is the 'woman tone' option a good choice with the alnico v humbuckers or stick with .22s? Also with the 'quick connect' electronics in the les paul, does installing a prewired harness pose any problem for the tech doing the repair? I mean hard wiring the electronics with the existing quick connect wires? Do I need any additional wire? I want to install a CTS/bumblebee cap wiring harness in a lp studio with the quick connect. Yeah I know it's long shaft pots for studio, but I want to make sure of everything before ordering. No problem. For the woman tone, put a 0.022 on the bridge and put a 0.015 in the neck pickup. The 0.022 is stock. The 0.015 in the neck will brighten up the high end on the neck and give it that brassy/glassy sound when you roll back the tone. I installed PIO caps in my axe with the circuit board. I just clipped out the old caps above the board and soldered the new caps to the old leads. If you want to remove the board entirely, it shouldn't be a big deal. The tech can just pull the whole thing out and put the regular harness right back in there. One thing. The guitars with the circuit board have a flat bottom in the control cavity. That means that the pots don't all stick out of the top the same amount. Some of them stick out further than others. You should be able to use all long shafted pots but some of them may need to be set pretty far back into the cavity for them to look right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valeriy Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Hello, Sgt. I hardly understood your term-words because of, in the main, my so-so technical English, of course. But after your expression the 'woman tone' :huh: I, it seems, have understood what can be useful for you, here is a link http://www.gmarts.org/index.php?go=236 (by the way, there is a nice woman with guitar and in the nice tone :) ). There is a phrase “recommended component values” in this article near this woman, push on the phrase to see those values: Tone Capacitors there, pots etc. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 I have found that PIO caps do not sound all that great with alnico V pickups, it's like you can hear the distortion the cap brings in, that translates better on alnico II pickups. I have used Hovlands, Russian PIOs and Orange Drops and the Orange Drops are the best match for the BB Pros. The Hovlans are better caps by far but they do too good a job for a guitar which translates into a more squeaky clean sound. I used 0.022 and 0.015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Posted February 26, 2013 Author Share Posted February 26, 2013 I have found that PIO caps do not sound all that great with alnico V pickups, it's like you can hear the distortion the cap brings in, that translates better on alnico II pickups. I have used Hovlands, Russian PIOs and Orange Drops and the Orange Drops are the best match for the BB Pros. The Hovlans are better caps by far but they do too good a job for a guitar which translates into a more squeaky clean sound. I used 0.022 and 0.015 AH hA! That's what I'm looking for 'PIO caps do not sound all that great with alnico V pickups' all things considered .... It's hard to assess tone caps from youtube vids. I was looking for a vintage tone with a 2011 lp studio w/burstbucker pros (alnico v). I like my Weber Classic alnico 30w speaker and was matching it with a 5w 6V6/12ax7 Fender Champion 600 (external speaker out). I use pure nickel strings too. I want a vintage vibe from the lp too, 50's neck profile, upgrade electronics to CTS and pio caps, but ... I wasn't sure that 'woman tone' was what i wanted. Again it's hard to assess tone caps and what is right for me soundwise from youtube vids. Thanks for the opin. What style of music do you usually play too recommend orange drops with the alnico v burstbuckers? I'm not even sold yet on the 50's wiring option either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Posted February 27, 2013 Author Share Posted February 27, 2013 AH hA! That's what I'm looking for 'PIO caps do not sound all that great with alnico V pickups' all things considered .... It's hard to assess tone caps from youtube vids. I was looking for a vintage tone with a 2011 lp studio w/burstbucker pros (alnico v). I like my Weber Classic alnico 30w speaker and was matching it with a 5w 6V6/12ax7 Fender Champion 600 (external speaker out). I use pure nickel strings too. I want a vintage vibe from the lp too, 50's neck profile, upgrade electronics to CTS and pio caps, but ... I wasn't sure that 'woman tone' was what i wanted. Again it's hard to assess tone caps and what is right for me soundwise from youtube vids. Thanks for the opin. What style of music do you usually play too recommend orange drops with the alnico v burstbuckers? I'm not even sold yet on the 50's wiring option either. the difference in alnico II and V magnets is the strength of the output. II's are weaker than V's, exert less pull on the strings and have lower output, right? I already have to lower the burstbucker pro's significantly from the stock factory setting otherwise they're too hot for my liking. But I don't have any problems with their tone, they sound good. The variables are many. I'm still leaning toward the bumblebees .22s and expect I can lower the pickup height to match an output i'm comfortable with. did some'more research on the subject this afternoon. I don't play high high gain usually, in fact i'll take the fender cleans over the marshall crunchies. i use the tubescreamer for overdrive and that's it. there's inbetween strengths on the alnico mags too, alnico that's aluminum-nickel-cobalt and to reiterate why alnico is so expensive now is because in the day cobalt was needed for bombs in the war so it became expensive to use it. the ceramic copper-ferrite was/is cheaper ... not sayin' better, just different. there are pickup companies using alnico III, gibson does, theres crazy SD Alternative VIII's like i'm thinkin' strings stickin to the pu!!! hahahahaw there's such thing as crap pickups, but bb pro's are expensive and it's a guitar player's perogative to find a comfortable spot in the tone range that suits their playing style. i'm hopin' i can live with .22 pio's and alnico v humbuckers. The higher alnico mag strength is more expensive and VIII's border on where ceramic mags take over in strength. Quote Wikipedia 'Alnico' (just for giggles): "The composition of alnico alloys is typically 8–12% Al, 15–26% Ni, 5–24% Co, up to 6% Cu, up to 1% Ti, and the balance is Fe. The development of alnico began in 1931, when T. Mishima in Japan discovered that an alloy of iron, nickel, and aluminum had a coercivity of 400 oersted (Oe; 32 kA/m), double that of the best magnet steels of the time.[3]" Today's technology in contrast are stronger 'rare-earth' magnets such as neodynium. Ceramic replaced alnico because of the cost. I AM IRON MANNNNNN!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slavestate Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 I did notice a huge difference in the tonal quality of the stock wiring harness I removed from my 2011 SG Standard when I replaced it with a harness that had higher quality potentiometers and capacitors (.022uf in the bridge and.015uf in the neck). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 Caps do make a difference but you are not going to hear it in youtube, the difference is too subtle. A cap is not going to make your tone more vintage, caps filter out some unpleasant frequencies and actually add distortion that we perceive as pleasant. I even added PIOs to my guitars with hot ceramic humbuckers and I like the results. Subtle, but it is there. I like the Russian K40y-9 caps which is what they use inside the current bumblebee reproductions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 I did notice a huge difference in the tonal quality of the stock wiring harness I removed from my 2011 SG Standard when I replaced it with a harness that had higher quality potentiometers and capacitors (.022uf in the bridge and.015uf in the neck). Did you replace the 300k volume pots with 500k? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slavestate Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 Did you replace the 300k volume pots with 500k? The new ones in there are 500k. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 That's where most of the difference in sound comes from, the new caps help too. Alnico V with 500k pots would be too bright, at least for my taste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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