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OIL AND PAPER CAPACITOR

#22
To the OP, the tone cap does not "add" anything to the circuit. It works by subtracting the highs, not adding anything. The signal that goes through the cap is being shorted to ground and therefor not going to your amplifier. The capacitor passes the highs to ground removing them from your signal. As you turn the tone knob up to increase your highs, you are actually turning the potentiometer down or closing it.

If you want to explore easy circuit mods, I suggest you start with just replacing the pots with nice Bourns ones or changing the cap values.
 
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#23
You have to get the paper in oil capacitors that are made with snake oil. The ones made with mineral oil don't sound as good.

The tone capacitor together with the tone pot and rest of the circuit forms a low-pass filter. The value of the capacitor determines the roll-off frequency of this filter. Larger values (like 0.1 uf instead of 0.033 uf) will make a lower frequency knee, so roll off more mids and highs. The material of the capacitor doesn't matter at audio frequencies, but the value does. You probably can't hear much difference if the value varies by 10%, but you could likely hear a 50% difference. Of course, you actually have to turn the tone knob down for the tone cap to matter. If it's on 10, then the capacitor is basically irrelevant. Here are some plots: The effect of Tone Capacitors | GuitarNutz 2
 
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#24
leonard said:
You can use the low tolerance for your advantage. Buy 20 cheap ceramics with a couple of bucks and test them through with your pickup and your bass and choose the one that sounds best to you. They all sound a little different because of slightly differing values.

If you're not finicky like me buy an orange drop and be done with it.
Click to expand...

Why not just buy an assortment of different valued capacitors? For the cost of buying 20 poorly spec'd ceramics, you could buy 5 tightly spec'd films, in an assortment of values. Then you would know exactly what you are getting, without leaving anything to chance.
 
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#25
Hopkins said:
Every modern P that I have worked on lately has used a film type capacitor. I don't see many ceramic caps used anymore. But to answer your question, they used them because they are dirt cheap.
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I'm pretty sure the American Standard Fenders were equipped with ceramic (at least every one I've ever opened). Not sure what the new Pro series uses, but I bet they're the same ceramic caps as always. The only P basses I've seen recently that didn't were Squires and the MIM Classic Series. I'm sure there's probably been some runs through all of those where Fender/Squier just used whatever they had that could be bought cheap, again as always.
 
#27
There may be some slight differences brought about by the normal variances in your pots and your tone cap(s) since none of those are going to be spot on 250K or 500K or 0.47 or 0.33 or whatever. And no two pickups are ever going to have the exact same measured specs. So in an inductive circuit like a guitar or bass, there may be some differences in the sound you actually hear. But it's more the luck of the draw than anything else after a certain point, and hardly worth pursuing for most people. Especially when you can do so much more to change the tone with the EQ settings on your amp and how you play.
 
#30
line6man said:
Why not just buy an assortment of different valued capacitors? For the cost of buying 20 poorly spec'd ceramics, you could buy 5 tightly spec'd films, in an assortment of values. Then you would know exactly what you are getting, without leaving anything to chance.
Click to expand...

Unless you're buying from a non-reputable source (Alibaba or similar), ceramic caps aren't going to be that far out. I test every cap I use and most have been within 20%, with a good chunk being within 10%. I've never had a ceramic cap anywhere near 80%.
 
#33
If you pay $20 for a tone cap, you will convince yourself it sounds better than the 20 cent ceramic.

There are other qualities of a cap besides capacitance. Resistances vary among different types of caps of the same value that may affect pickup loading not to mention the inductance differences. I was one who thought it didn't matter, but a few years ago, I did some experimenting and could hear differences, but not according to price, but the construction materials of the cap. I could hear differences in different types of the same value cap, but different doesn't mean better. All the differences were a bit subtle.
 
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#35
Steve Dallman said:
If you pay $20 for a tone cap, you will convince yourself it sounds better than the 20 cent ceramic.

There are other qualities of a cap besides capacitance. Resistances vary among different types of caps of the same value that may affect pickup loading not to mention the inductance differences. I was one who thought it didn't matter, but a few years ago, I did some experimenting and could hear differences, but not according to price, but the construction materials of the cap. I could hear differences in different types of the same value cap, but different doesn't mean better. All the differences were a bit subtle.
Click to expand...
...interesting.
 
#39
shababy32 said:
Hey everybody! Hope everyone is enjoying this dismal looking day today. At least it looks that way here in God's Country. Mississippi! Anyway I was watching some videos on YouTube the other night and a guy was redoing his "innards" on his p bass. In the process he switched that little pancake lookin' cap out for an oil and paper capac. Looked cool. I had no idea what the hell it did though. Then I did some research. It seems if it holds true, why don't u hear about this being done too much. Is it worth it. They had some around 9 to 20 dollars.
Anyone ever done this to their p bass? I'd love to hear what it did for yours?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
So I had an Emerson .047 paper in oil capacitor in my rosewood alder pbass with "Original" fender precision pickups. Frankly I did notice a bit of a tonal difference compared to the little .047 ceramic cap that I had, although I'm not sure just how real the difference actually was and it could actually come down to the different resonant frequency created by slightly different cap values. I wouldn't hesitate trying one out to see if it imparts a little magic to your ears although I would try a 0.1 uf paper in oil if your going for that 57-65 pbass tone. I think they changed to the .047 value from the 0.1 in the late 60's as .047 bleeds off less treble as you roll it off. Happy tone questing!
 
#40
Killed_by_Death said:
not entirely true
unless you're using a no-load potentiometer which disconnects the capacitor from the circuit in the fully clockwise position
Click to expand...

No, he is correct. There is some complicated physics behind it, but what you hear when the tone control is at "10" is the result of the resistance of the pot loading the circuit. The capacitor does not play any part in it. Try replacing your capacitor with a piece of wire, and the tone control should still sound the same, at "10." (Albeit different from if you removed the tone control entirely.)
 
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