Hi everyone. In my American P I would like to install the seymour duncan antiquity II pickups but I have the doubt about which condenser to use..I love the vintage and warm sound of the precision 60s .. thank you so much to everyone!
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Precision capacitor with Antiquity II pickup
- Thread starter Pantofolaio79
- Start date
Hopkins
Commercial User
I would assume that the American P uses a .047 capacitor. If you wanted a darker sound you could go with a .1uf, but personally I think the .047 is pretty much ideal.
I'm not sure on the timeline and models, but I think by 60s all P basses had .047 (.05) uF caps. Some older models I think had .1 uF, which would also work - it just goes deeper into the lows as you roll off the highs.
Note that it doesn't really matter all that much what value cap you have until the last ~25% of the tone pot turn. Most of the "tone" effect before that last bit seems to come from changing the resistance (i.e. the pot itself). So unless you often roll off your tone by 75% or more, I wouldn't be too concerned about it.
Different brands and materials don't affect the sound (IMO, IME, this is a controversial topic), except that with looser tolerances the actual capacitance may be +/-20% (or more) from the nominal value. I think if you get some poly/film or even ceramic caps with 5-10% tolerance, you should be just fine. They're cheap, so try out a bunch (with alligator clips you don't have to solder), see what you like.
Note that it doesn't really matter all that much what value cap you have until the last ~25% of the tone pot turn. Most of the "tone" effect before that last bit seems to come from changing the resistance (i.e. the pot itself). So unless you often roll off your tone by 75% or more, I wouldn't be too concerned about it.
Different brands and materials don't affect the sound (IMO, IME, this is a controversial topic), except that with looser tolerances the actual capacitance may be +/-20% (or more) from the nominal value. I think if you get some poly/film or even ceramic caps with 5-10% tolerance, you should be just fine. They're cheap, so try out a bunch (with alligator clips you don't have to solder), see what you like.
What you need is what I just bought. I gave my last one away last night and this thread reminded me to reorder. Done. This guy's stuff usually gets here in about 7 days.
5x 0.047uF 400V K40Y-9 PIO PAPER IN OIL Audio CAPACITOR USSR RUSSIAN QUALITY | eBay
Don't listen to the mad haters about caps not making a difference. I know what you need, man. This is the straight dope.
5x 0.047uF 400V K40Y-9 PIO PAPER IN OIL Audio CAPACITOR USSR RUSSIAN QUALITY | eBay
Don't listen to the mad haters about caps not making a difference. I know what you need, man. This is the straight dope.
As an eBay Associate, TalkBass may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.
USSR RUSSIAN QUALITY? Doesn't seem like a great selling point to me 
Thank you very much for the answers .. I think at the end that the ideal is to have several to be able to do some tests and understand what you like .. regardless of the values ..
It’s a roll of foil and paper wetted with oil and put in a can, sealed for military applications, not rocket science. Speaking of which, the Soyuz space vehicles seem to have a pretty tight record....USSR RUSSIAN QUALITY? Doesn't seem like a great selling point to me
I use the soviet pio caps too. They’re cool. But I don’t believe the talk of magic.
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Get 4-5 of the smallest sized (like 50V) tightest tolerance (5% or less) .022uF caps you can find. Just keep piling them up in parallel until you reach the roll off you like. You will have .022, .044, .066, .088 & .110uF to try out. I would guess that .044uF or .066uF will be the choice, as those typically do wonders in a P.
Just looked, these are perfect for the experiment. 5 x .022uf 100v 5% Tolerance ECQ-V Polyester Film Guitar Tone Upgrade Capacitors | eBay
You can find exactly what roll off you like for the price of 1/2 of a PIO cap and these are small enough to stack up and leave in there without taking up a ton of space like a 600V orange drop.
Just looked, these are perfect for the experiment. 5 x .022uf 100v 5% Tolerance ECQ-V Polyester Film Guitar Tone Upgrade Capacitors | eBay
You can find exactly what roll off you like for the price of 1/2 of a PIO cap and these are small enough to stack up and leave in there without taking up a ton of space like a 600V orange drop.
As an eBay Associate, TalkBass may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.
Heck, it’s Christmas. OP can pm me and I’ll send him a couple soviet PIO for free; I’ve got a bunch of them. From Canada! We wish you a merry Christmas, we.....
Oh and mine are painted green military caps, decades old, the schizz, very cool.
Oh and mine are painted green military caps, decades old, the schizz, very cool.
Every time I install a new pbass pickup, I will try .022, .033, .047, .068 and .1 uf cap.
I found the wide open tone knob sound are notible different between .022.033.047 vs .068 .1 poly cap use.
The wax and pio also produce different hi frequency sound at wide open tone even with same value cap.
My current favorite cap on my both bass are orange drop 225P .068 cap. The wide open tone knob sound are rounder, meaty and less harsh.
I found the wide open tone knob sound are notible different between .022.033.047 vs .068 .1 poly cap use.
The wax and pio also produce different hi frequency sound at wide open tone even with same value cap.
My current favorite cap on my both bass are orange drop 225P .068 cap. The wide open tone knob sound are rounder, meaty and less harsh.
Thanks to everyone for the advice .. it would be interesting to try them all but I'm interested in keeping a sound faithful to the 60s to combine with the Antiquity II Seymour Duncan so I think either 0.1 or 0.05 .. thank you all.
I’d love to hear sound samples of the differences with tone wide open. Do you have any, or know of any?
Hopkins
Commercial User
Or you can literally buy 50 mylar film capacitors for the same price that do the same job and are made of better quality materials. The whole vintage thing is nothing but nonsense. Cloth wire and expensive capacitors are a complete and total waste of money.
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Then you don't have to buy them. No one is twisting your arm. Who said anything about cloth wire? Was it a straw man?
I understand trying to keep it traditional, but keep in mind that those ceramic caps had a +/-20% tolerance on a good day. That .05uF cap could be anywhere from .04 to .06uf and the .1uF could fall in a .08 to .12uF range. You can see that it's not a stretch for a .033 or .068uF to nearly fall in line with the tolerances.
This is why I prefer to tune my tone control to what works best with the pickup and my ear. A touch of experimentation has certainly made my final cap choice not what I thought it would be on a few occasions.
There are a lot of misconceptions about tone caps, but the cold hard truth is that there is simply no electrical difference between types (different materials) of capacitors. All that matters is the value. And in fact, not even the value matters until the tone control nears the end of its rotation. Before that, the increased parallel resistance from the pot is doing all the work dumping highs to ground, not the capacitor. Then, in the last bit of the rotation, the cap plays a roll, its value determining the hinge frequency above which highs are shunted to ground.
So if you roll the tone off all the way, or close to all the way, the value makes a difference. If you only roll the tone pot back to 3 or 5 or maybe 7, you don't even need a cap, just a wire connected to ground!
There are some great demonstrations of these principals here: Video Drop: Tone Cap Shootout (All About Tone Controls Parts 1 &2)
TL;DR: If you're paying more than a buck or so for a cap, you're getting ripped off. (The design consideration behind the original caps in old Fender basses: "What's the cheapest option?")
So if you roll the tone off all the way, or close to all the way, the value makes a difference. If you only roll the tone pot back to 3 or 5 or maybe 7, you don't even need a cap, just a wire connected to ground!
There are some great demonstrations of these principals here: Video Drop: Tone Cap Shootout (All About Tone Controls Parts 1 &2)
TL;DR: If you're paying more than a buck or so for a cap, you're getting ripped off. (The design consideration behind the original caps in old Fender basses: "What's the cheapest option?")
Hopkins
Commercial User
It's an apples to apples comparison. Capacitor type in a bass/guitar application makes ZERO difference as long as the values are the same. For some reason, the ridiculous notion that somehow old, obsolete technology sounds better than new has been firmly planted in peoples brain.
Hopkins
Commercial User
Tone caps are only grounded through the capacitor, if the signal was grounded with a wire, you would have another volume knob.
Sorry but regardless of the value of the capacitor the voltage which is the most suitable for the Precision?
Only at the very end of the sweep does it become another volume pot in this scenario, which goes to demonstrate that the cap isn't playing a role until the final part of the sweep. (Volume and tone pots aren't wired the same; there's an open lug on a tone pot, and it's wired in parallel with the circuit, whereas a volume pot is wired in series, it takes longer for the shorted tone pot to shunt the signal to ground.) Check it out--there's no difference between a piece of wire and a cap until the tone pot is dialed back about 3/4:
