Questions about Capacitors changing tone controls

[RollnROCK89i]

Hey, I have a Les Paul that I believe has .02 uf capacitors on the bridge and neck tone controls. I always keep the tone controls on full, literally always, I never turn them down because I think it gets too muddy.

If I replaced each of these with capacitors of lower values, such as 0.01 uf capacitors (as john reccomends in his tone shift mod), this would brighten up it how much?

I like the sound I get with tone controls turned all the way up on .02uf caps, I would still be able to get that sound with the new caps, just with the tone controls turned down somewhat, correct?

If this is true, I definetly think I'll do the mod, I won't be losing any tone possibilitys, only gaining more treblier ones. Thanks for any imput.

[JohnH]

I doubt youd hear much difference at full treble, since in that position the capacitor acts in series with a 500k resistance from the pot. With a lower cap value, as you turn down the pot, the treble roll-off will start at a higher frequency, so it trims only the highest harmonics.

[ChrisK]

With a 0.01 uF cap, it will sound somewhat brighter when the tone is turned down since the filter cutoff "point" is at twice the frequency. Once the tone pot is all the way down to "0", the cap will create a resonance w/ the PU's inductance. This resonance will be half of an octave above the resonance from the 0.02 uF.

Fres = 1/(2*PI*FREQ*[LC]^0.5)

One of the things that I like to do is to add a small cap across the outer two terminals of a tone pot. For a humbucker, 330 to 680 pF (picoFarad as in 0.000330 uF) seems appropriate while around 1,000 pF (0.001 uF) works for single coils. When the tone is at "10", this cap will form a resonant peak """around""" 3kHz.

It's more effective on single coils when used in conjunction w/ a move from 250K to 500K Ohm pots. A 500K audio taper pot is already down to about 250K at "8'ish". In a sense, it makes yer tone go to "12".
(Since nothing is really free, this resonant peak comes at the expense of additional high frequency attenuation at frequenciey beyond the induced peak.)

Not for Everyone, perchance Madmen Only.

[RollnROCK89i]

Thanks guys, good thing I asked, I didn't understand what it really did. I don't think I'll bother with it, doesn't sound like it would've made much of a difference.