Guitar Tone Capacitors Compared


Guitar Tone Capacitors, part 1: Evaluating Material Types was uploaded by: johnplanetz
Duration: 625
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Here’s a comparison of Guitar Tone Capacitors, via johnplanetz:

In part one of this video on tone capacitors, I demonstrate the sound characteristics of 7 different capacitors with dialectrics of different material types.

The caps I try here are: Orange Drop 225P 100V (polypropylene), Mallory 150 series (metallized polyester film), Russian K-409 PIO (paper in oil), mystery vintage yellow cylinder (identified as WMF 1S22 Polyester Film 100v from CDE Cornell Dubilier), the original Epi tone cap from my Riviera (probably mylar polyester film), mystery vintage gray cylinder (identified as Mullard/Phillips Mustard polyester foil/film 630v), and a vintage tropical fish (polyester film).

Everything is played on my Epiphone Riviera P93 with Vintage Vibe Guitars P-90 pickups, through my Vox VT30 on the Boutique Clean model, mic’d with a Rode NT1 large diaphragm microphone.
In the part two, I’ll demonstrate how the capacitance value affects the range and usefulness of the tone knob.

Here’s part 2:

Here’s what he’s got to say about part 2:

In part two of this video on tone capacitors, I present a tutorial on how to read cap values, an explanation of how the capacitance and resistance work together as an RC filter in the tone circuit, and some audio examples to help in selecting a useful cap value for a tone circuit. The caps I play through here are all Orange Drop polypropylene caps with values .047uF, .022uF, .01uF, 6800pF, 4700pF, 3300pF and 1000pF.

Everything is played on my Epiphone Riviera P93 with Vintage Vibe Guitars P-90 pickups, through my Vox VT30 on the Boutique Clean model, mic’d with a Rode NT1 large diaphragm microphone.

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