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Permalink Reply by Jim Goodman on July 27, 2014 at 9:14am

capacitors in a guitar context act as a frequency filter for tone control, different values can give you a different tonal range.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on July 27, 2014 at 11:27am

You can also use a capacitor on your volume pot. If you have a store bought electric guitar you may have noticed this already. When you turn the volume down you loose some of the high tones. Putting a capacitor on your volumes pot will keep these high frequencies from dropping out.

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Permalink Reply by JL on August 6, 2014 at 7:03am

A Capacitor acts like a short circuit to a high frequency signal and acts like an open circuit to a low frequency signal.  By putting it in series with a variable resister (potentiometer a.k.a. POT) you get a variable tone control that can take a little or a lot out of the high end.

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Permalink Reply by Diglydog on August 6, 2014 at 9:07am

As others have said, capacitors on the tone control allow you to 'chop off' the high frequencies.  The bigger the number, the more frequencies can be chopped.  So, a 0.047 microfarad capacitor will allow you to make the guitar sound darker (duller) than a 0.015 microfarad cap.  They act in combination with the tone pot, which controls how much of the pickup signal goes through the capacitor.  There's a lot of stuff talked about the best combination of pickups, control pots, capacitors and resistors........and amps.

Wiki has a useful article on guitar wiring:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_wiring

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Permalink Reply by BUGGY (C) on August 6, 2014 at 11:18am

Typical strat has a 0.1 for lots of twang, humbuckers use 0.022( gibson les paul), single coils work well with 0.047 or 0.033

or woman tone is a 0.015 (warmth) (humbuckers mainly)

I got loads of russian PIO oil and paper one if you need any cheap..Used to sell them on the bay and make bumble bee copies.

0.047 PIO is a good bet if anyone needs some let me know as I have stock

They sound like the ones in guitars from the 50's as its the same technology...and make the biggest difference for bleeding off the tone for warmth..

Most of mine have 0.047, 0.067 or 0.033 in them..

decent CTS big tone pots also help like lots! and decent strings.. but cheap ones are ok from china too..

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Permalink Reply by BUGGY (C) on August 6, 2014 at 11:25am

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Permalink Reply by BUGGY (C) on August 6, 2014 at 11:29am

Also google Cocked wah wiring, which uses a small cap and a 100k resistor on the vol pot for volume bleed

gives you a differnt sound to normal which is marmite...

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Permalink Reply by BUGGY (C) on August 6, 2014 at 11:30am

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/guitar/acapella-41/1106532-

sorry 3.3k resistor in this diag

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on August 6, 2014 at 6:56pm

*capacitors also provide one of a guitar hackers favourite brain teasers...

They are very easy to fry with your solder iron, and will appear (and smell) unaffected, allowing you to scratch your head and puzzle over circuit diagrams for hours wondering what you did wrong.

Great fun :)

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