So this is just a question on what capacitor does the best job controlling a piezo rod?
While I'm at it what do you find to be the best saddle material for piezo rods.
I have tried many different combos and wanted to hear your ideas on this.
One thing about root instruments I really like, is the minimalist approach.
here is one of my builds with a .022 orange drop and bone saddle.
If you have not tried this its the least expensive way to get a good sounding electric guitar, the rod alone sounds good but have a harsh high end. Depending on it's value of the cap. lets you tailor the overall tone.
My reason for this post is I found a odd cap. that really shines with my scratch build amps .
What Says You!
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think of a volume pot this way
A crowd of people are on the top floor of a high rise building and told to evacuate, so they go down the stairs.
if you put on your superman cape and fly up and save someone who just went down 1-2 floors they will still have a lot of strength left.
if you save someone who has gone down 45 floors, almost to the ground level exit they will be exhausted and weak.
in a volume pot, the pup signal enters on lug 1 (top floor), runs through the long resister around the circumference, (down the stairs) and exits on lug 3 connected to ground (ground floor exit). lug 2 is superman, picking off people, either near the top where they are strong (volume up) or near the bottom where they are weak and worn out (volume down).
The cap in a tone control is a slide that lets you zip all the way to the ground floor bypassing the stairs and any chance for superman to pick you up. small slides (small caps) only let very skinny people (very high frequency) through, medium and fat people (mid range and bass notes) cant fit and have to go down the stairs. depending on the size of the slide as to just how skinny a person has to be to get on and zip to the ground.
adding to the metaphor a tad... a resistor (or a POT) in front of the tone cap is like the lifeguard at the top of the slide, making people wait their turn before going down the slide, a little resistance and the line moves quickly and a lot of skinny people take the slide (tone cap) bypassing the stairs (volume pot to output jack), a lot of resistance and the line moves slowly and only a few skinny people can take the slide, most go down the stairs cause its easier.
just to further the physics that muddy these waters ...
The tone pot could be replaced with a fixed value resister if you can decide on what setting of your pot you like best and measure it.
in the case of just a cap without a pot, you are essentially doing that with a very tiny value resister being the inherent resistance of the cap's internals, resistance of the legs, resistance of the wires, etc.
if it were a resistance-free path, the juice would shoot through the wire with so much amperage that the wires and cap would melt...(Amps = Volts / Resitance and if R = 0 then A = V / 0 = infinity even if V is in the microvolts range)
"Got my black cat bone, my John de Conquerer root
A variable resistor, and a .047 uF cap to boot
Jus' tryin' dump them howlin' freqs to ground
Give myself dat Delta sound."
Let me see if I can find my Mr. wizard hat...
capacitors take a little time to charge up. while they are sucking in charge the current still flows. once they are fully charged the current stops.
high frequencies that switch much faster than the capacitor shoot right through the capacitor as if it were just another wire.
low frequencies that switch much slower than the capacitor will charge the capacitor in a fraction of a cycle and the capacitor acts like a cut wire, no current passes through.
so putting a cap across the signal/ground in a git acts like a short to high frequencies and grounds them out before getting to the amp, and low frequencies practically ignore the capacitor.
putting a resister on one of the cap's legs reduces how much of the energy it can suck in, so those high frequencies lose less energy.
I think I get that I think.
All I know is it sounds better with one
Most of the guitars that I've played, the tone pot was all the way up. ONly a couple of my guitars/CBGs do I use the tone rolled down some. A few just have a volume pot straight to the jack that offer more brightness.
When doing the cap across the the jack, have to remember that the tone pot is a variable resistor coupled with a cap. So if a cap alone doesn't do it it for you, you can try a resistor with it like the treble bleed circuit.
If a tone control is setup right it should work -maybe some cheap pickups won't be effected but the difference is slight and useable at volume. Treble bleeds work of the volume pot and meant to keep from losing high end when the volume pot is tuned down.
My interest is pickup only.
You can put 2 caps. together to get different values depending on how you connect serial or parallel
I wasn't suggesting a treble bleed circuit, I was using it as an example of wiring a cap and resistor together at the jack.
If your using pots, the better the quality pot - the better the results. I prefer the large Alpha's or the large CTS pots. Never met a mini pot that was worth the money spent on them. Got a mini pot in a CBG right now that needs to be replaced, you only get full on or half on from 9 to 0.
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