101 Things to do with a capacitor??

[stratotak]

I picked up a replacement volume pot.Its a Fender brand 500k.It came with a .022 capacitor.My guitar has 1 volume no tone and 3-way switch with 2 humbuckers.What would It do to sound if i connected it to volume pot??And what other ways can I experiment with it?

[ashcatlt]

You've got a number of options. The following is a quick look at the basic ones coming to me right now.

If you put it in series with the pickups, either going into or coming out of the volume pot, it'll only the pass the highest frequencies coming out of your guitar. I'd think this would be a horribly thin sound that you wouldn't much care for.

In parallel with the pickups - between the hot output from the switch or tip of the jack and the sleeve of the jack - it'll be like a master tone that's always turned to 0. This'll be muddy and you probably won't like that.

If wired to bypass the pot - between the hot output of the switch and the tip of the jack - it will be more or less normal when the volume is at 10, but may not dull down so much as you roll the volume down. This is a common mod, often referred to as "treble bypass" and highly recommended by some aboard. I've got no idea whether this will be an appropriate value cap, but a quick search should bring up a number of discussions.

Now, is this the same guitar with the hum after cleaning? If so, it seems to have a lonely toggle hanging around there. I'm not sure we here at GuitarNutz can condone an unused switch. I was going to post on that other thread a number of ideas for what to do with that thing. One of them was a tone switch. Is that a 2 position or 3 position switch?


If wired to bypass the pot - between the hot output of the switch and the tip of the jack - it will be more or less normal when the volume is at 10, but may not dull down so much as you roll the volume down. This is a common mod, often referred to as "treble bypass" and highly recomended by some aboard.

Now, is this the same guitar with the hum after cleaning? If so, it seems to have a lonely toggle hanging around there. I'm not sure we here at GuitarNutz can condone an unused switch. I was going to post on that other thread a number of ideas for what to do with that thing. One of them was a tone switch. Is that a 2 position or 3 position switch?

[ChrisK]

0.022uF is a fairly large value for use as a series high pass filter. Typical low cut (high pass) tone controls such as on some G&L guitars use a 0.0022uF or less. Treble (loss) bypass capacitors are typically 500pF to 1.5nF on Strats.

G&L S-500


Any series uses of this large value will sound similar, but slightly weaker/brighter than a direct connection.

And what other ways can I experiment with it?

Well, it's low voltage, have at it!

[stratotak]

Well I tried it on volume pot hot and lug to switch.It didnt effect sound..it stayed loud till I turned it down to about 3..then it sounded like it it had a bit of wah wah in it.Any farther past 3 it was quiet..So from 10-3..about same level of loudness but got a little wahh sound around 3-4..but crack it a hair past 3 and it was like a on/off switch..sound then no sound..