Guitar capacitor tester: let your ears decide

Ever wonder whether a different capacitor would affect your tone? It's between you and your own ears, nobody else can tell you what you hear. Erick Coleman's got a simple way to prove to yourself which cap is the choice for you.

For more information on tools and parts:

Orange Drop Caps

Paper-in-Oil

Ceramic Caps

Mini Toggle Switches

Rotary Switches

Kester Pocket-Pak Solder

[grangerousdesigns]

It really helps to hear a difference when you play the same lick.Just saying.

[orbita]

Thanks for showing us each cap on the rotary switch

[bashea]

Erick, you are a man's man. With a saw and a drill you've created an amazingly cool and effective way to test various capacitors simultaneously. Bravo, my man. And in a stone-grey factory work shirt! Classic!

[guitartec]

Most players keep their tone pots at full-on when playing. If you do this, here's a great, inexpensive & simple suggestion; Install a .001uF cap in place of the typical .022 or .047uF. This low value cap is usually used in a treble bleed circuit for guitars. This little cap gives you a very subtle tone shift from 0-10, thus, giving your guitar two totally usable voices at full-on or full-off. Again, it's VERY subtle, but SO usable. You can also try slightly higher value caps. EXPERIMENT!

[obiequan]

would help if you would play the same thing to determine difference.

[donepearce]

I have done exactly that with my Tele. A rotary switch fits perfectly between the volume and tone knobs.

[jimjim]

I would have liked to have heard what the difference between the paper/oil and ceramic cap sounded like.

[seangrexa]

.033 uf is a nice choice for those who can't decide. Also, should have setup this test with a Fralin / Kinman treble bleed mod in the circuit as many guitar geeks who "fret" over these kinds of things will no doubt be interested. Thanks for the video!

[notanotherguitarchannel]

If you're like me, you've never touched the tone knob except to check that it's all the way up.

[truthfulrobot]

maybe you should play the same chord and riff everytime to really hear the difference and not just noodle around randomly.

[jeff]

Stewmac should sell the rotary test set pre-made

[JulioJustiniano]

This was an awesome test. Man I wish they made a vid like this for a bigger variation of capacitors.

[futureyou]

I agree the .o47 sounded better to my ears. Nice test.

[jcripp]

Capacitors dont have a sound. They just remove frequencies. They dont have a "tone" of their own. Doesnt matter what theyre made of. Only their value.

[ScienceofLoud]

The physical construction and materials used make a noticeable difference to the tone you get. A lot of it has to do with quality of the component and the consistency of the materials used. Even with close tolerances the differences in construction and material produce different sounds.

Try a cheap ceramic, and then swap it for a decent orange drop. The sweep in the tone control is much more lush and vibrant, even if both have the same treble bleed range.

[Semimentalman]

i like the idea of putting a rotary switch in the guitar with multiple caps, so one can change their mind easily and as frequently as they like.

[stevengutierrez]

Have someone else switch the contraption for you while you're not looking so that you can actually decide which one sounds better instead of allowing your biases to choose the one that you already thought sounded best before you even heard it.

[lydmo]

The difference was so subtle, I would imagine you could tweak your amp settings to achieve that small difference; or use a EQ pedal and make slight adjustments.

[evilcowboy]

.047uf sounded better to me as well for the warmth.

I could see using the .022uf in a situation a person want more treble which is usually the situation in heavy metal music.

Me I am more of a solo player so I liked the sound of the .047uf for the warmth since the guitar was pretty bright. That usually means any type of treble added at the EQ will make it easy to bring it back to a bright sound. Trying to go from bright to more warmth at the EQ is harder when the guitar is so bright.

To me a Les Paul should always have an underlying warmth to it so the .047 is the clear choice and could probably stand to go up a few picofarads more than the .047.

[ALFxx]

Great Vid. Has anyone ever put two different caps in their guitar and then mounted a switch to toggle between them for two different tones like he does in the video, except all inside the guitar obviously