Capacitor experiment accident

[fenderbassabuse]

I swapped the stock cap in fender jazz to a 0.01 uf and I have noticed some bizarre goings on. With the tone control full up, all is normal. With the tone half down, it sounds like the stock, but all the way down. With it all the way down, it has a mid-boost, and sounds great for getting a pickstyle growl out of it.

How has this happened? I thought caps took treble away? Anyway, I'm keeping it like this because it sounds soooo cool.

[Lockout]

0.01? Isn't that a pretty low value for a tone cap? Seems like many of the people on TB prefer between 0.047 and 0.1 for bass.

[Bassic83]

I had a .022 in a couple of my basses, and it was pretty cool- very "bell-like" tone...I have never tried a cap that low in value, however.

[Lockout]

Yeah, I think most passive Fenders come with a 0.022 stock.

[luknfur]

Originally Posted by fenderbassabuse

I swapped the stock cap in fender jazz to a 0.01 uf and I have noticed some bizarre goings on. With the tone control full up, all is normal. With the tone half down, it sounds like the stock, but all the way down. With it all the way down, it has a mid-boost, and sounds great for getting a pickstyle growl out of it.

How has this happened? I thought caps took treble away? Anyway, I'm keeping it like this because it sounds soooo cool.

FWIW:

.01 is more a guitar cap value - Fender actually, like strat. No suprise, Gibons are on the bass side at a more typical .05.

No suprise to hear of apparent (not real) mid boost by varying upper or lower frequencies - since it's an interactive thing. I don't think I've ever seen a chart that listed caps values and frequency range affected. I've never heard caps referred to as anything other than treble bleed (cut) and by definition, you can't get boost from a passive system.

Ears are wierd things, sometimes the harder you listen the less you hear and the more you imagine, especially when the brain knows anything in advance or has expectations. Fender did research back in the 80's and basically concluded that musicians hear what they want to for the most part. Aside from that, it's difficult to pinpoint what is and what isn't when it comes to hearing. You almost have to be able to do a side by side over time to come up with something definitive cause the ears forget and adapt quickly.

[Bassic83]

Actually, most Fender Basses have the standard .047 uf cap. I think it was an article I read back in the early 80's about Jaco that I got it from...

[Moo]

Originally Posted by luknfur

I don't think I've ever seen a chart that listed caps values and frequency range affected.

I don't think it's that cut and dried and varies by the properties of the signal coming into it (the impedance I believe). It is easy to figure out how one cap will act relative to another, doubling the cap value lowers the cut threshold one octave. So compared to a .1, a .2 will be one octave lower and a .4 will be 2 octaves lower.

[Bassic83]

Someone should get Mr. Villex to answer this one...

[luknfur]

Originally Posted by Moo

I don't think it's that cut and dried and varies by the properties of the signal coming into it (the impedance I believe). It is easy to figure out how one cap will act relative to another, doubling the cap value lowers the cut threshold one octave. So compared to a .1, a .2 will be one octave lower and a .4 will be 2 octaves lower.

FWIW:

personally I haven't jack with cap values much primarily cause I don't use onboard controls (but I could as easily stick them between ground lead and the jack - and might in the future now that I think about it) - mostly just what I've read. It's my understanding that a cap is variable with resistance/impedence controlled through the pot where a resistor would be fixed. I don't remember hearing the octave thing before but with bass values are typically between .01 mfd and .09 mfd. and it takes about a .025 variaton for it to be significant. But if the octave thing is accurate - then there are direct correlations in terms of frequency - open E would be roughly 40 Hz and octave up 80 Hz. Makes my head hurt thinking about it. What matters is the ballpark range and knowing which direction to go to get what you want - then trial and error to get it.

But caps are the cheapest, easiest, most dramatic fix that can be had to alter tone that I'm aware of and deserve consideration before making making more dramatic changes - like swapping pups.