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Tone capacitors help

M

Mattbass97

Apr 9, 2011
531
10
#1
Hello all, I've heard occasionally about changing out the capacitor on your tone control on a passive bass, I never got into depth with it and whenever I did I couldn't find the answers I wanted. Anyway, does changing the tone cap give a noticeable difference in overall tone from your bass? If so what cap values give what results? Is it worth changing?

Thanks!
 
#2
what i have found is there is a small change,
changing from a 0.022 to a 0.047 to a 0.067 gives you a very slight change, its so slight its hard to hear any change, it can be seen when you record it on the graph.
so there is some change. overall there is so little change its hardly worth doing. that was my findings.
 
#3
bill reed said:
what i have found is there is a small change,
changing from a 0.022 to a 0.047 to a 0.067 gives you a very slight change, its so slight its hard to hear any change, it can be seen when you record it on the graph.
so there is some change. overall there is so little change its hardly worth doing. that was my findings.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that :) I'll not bother with it haha
 
#4
bill reed said:
what i have found is there is a small change,
changing from a 0.022 to a 0.047 to a 0.067 gives you a very slight change, its so slight its hard to hear any change, it can be seen when you record it on the graph.
so there is some change. overall there is so little change its hardly worth doing. that was my findings.
Click to expand...

+1

I saw a video a while back of someone testing the various cap values and giving sound samples of each. The differences were very very subtle.

Anyway... I found this video to at least give you an idea of how subtle they are.
 
#5
Changing the value of the cap changes the frequency where the tone starts to roll off. I found that you have to make a large change of around 2:1 to have a significant difference in the sound when the tone is rolled off. i.e. .047 to .1 will be significant.
 
#10
bill reed said:
what i have found is there is a small change, changing from a 0.022 to a 0.047 to a 0.067 gives you a very slight change, its so slight its hard to hear any change, it can be seen when you record it on the graph.
so there is some change. overall there is so little change its hardly worth doing. that was my findings.
Click to expand...

Unless you are using flats and a dark tone at the amp, you will certain hear a different between a .02 and .047µF cap. The value of the capo changes the frequency that the cap starts to roll off the high end.

The .02 will only roll off the very top end and leave all the mids. The .047µF will roll off most of the mids for a darker tone. A .1 will roll off all the high end.

But this is when the tone control is on zero. When it's al the way up you won't hear any difference between cap values.
 
#11
SGD Lutherie said:
Unless you are using flats and a dark tone at the amp, you will certain hear a different between a .02 and .047µF cap. The value of the capo changes the frequency that the cap starts to roll off the high end.

The .02 will only roll off the very top end and leave all the mids. The .047µF will roll off most of the mids for a darker tone. A .1 will roll off all the high end.

But this is when the tone control is on zero. When it's al the way up you won't hear any difference between cap values.
Click to expand...

hi
when i was trying to get a change in tone it was on a beatles bass! ie no tone control. i do use tru-bass 88 flats on the bass.
i tried to change the on/off pick-up switches to work as tone on-on, it did work but there was very little change in tone.
changing the tone cap that was over the tone control pots on both my Yamaha and Epiphone basses did give a little more change and they both have roundwond strings but still not that much change that it was worth changing.
 
#12
bill reed said:
hi
when i was trying to get a change in tone it was on a beatles bass! ie no tone control. i do use tru-bass 88 flats on the bass.
i tried to change the on/off pick-up switches to work as tone on-on, it did work but there was very little change in tone.
changing the tone cap that was over the tone control pots on both my Yamaha and Epiphone basses did give a little more change and they both have roundwond strings but still not that much change that it was worth changing.
Click to expand...

I saw that thread. I think it might have been the way the cap was wired up then. I didn't look at the wiring diagram carefully.

If you connect the cap between hot and ground you will hear it.

What I would have done for that mod was to unwire those pickup switches and just have the two volume controls working, and then wired up a switch to switch the cap into the circuit.

Or, rewire one volume control as a tone, and the other as master volume, since you have the two pickup switches.
 
#13
SGD Lutherie said:
I saw that thread. I think it might have been the way the cap was wired up then. I didn't look at the wiring diagram carefully.

If you connect the cap between hot and ground you will hear it.

What I would have done for that mod was to unwire those pickup switches and just have the two volume controls working, and then wired up a switch to switch the cap into the circuit.

Or, rewire one volume control as a tone, and the other as master volume, since you have the two pickup switches.
Click to expand...

i have since changed how i wired it and put it more like how the Hofner is wired. i now have some tone control but again not anything great. with any switchs down it brings in the tone cap and the load resister, with both switchs on there is no treble clip and i use the volume for control. i do like your idea of using one of the pots as a tone control.
 
#14
bill reed said:
i have since changed how i wired it and put it more like how the Hofner is wired. i now have some tone control but again not anything great. with any switchs down it brings in the tone cap and the load resister, with both switchs on there is no treble clip and i use the volume for control. i do like your idea of using one of the pots as a tone control.
Click to expand...

The problem is that 8.2k resistor. That is preventing the tone cap from working fully.

If you haven't noticed it, you already have a .047µF tone cap in the circuit, before the 8.2k resistor. The way you have it set up, you are putting two caps in parallel with each other before that resistor.

Remove the resistor and you will have full treble roll off.

You also don't need two caps.
 
#15
SGD Lutherie said:
The problem is that 8.2k resistor. That is preventing the tone cap from working fully.

If you haven't noticed it, you already have a .047µF tone cap in the circuit, before the 8.2k resistor. The way you have it set up, you are putting two caps in parallel with each other before that resistor.

Remove the resistor and you will have full treble roll off.

You also don't need two caps.
Click to expand...

thanks. i'll remove the resistor and see what happens.
the reason i added the other cap was so that when one switch is dowm (Off) then at least one cap in in the circuit so there is some treble cut no matter what pick-up switch is down. with only one cap then would it only be when i had the bass 0n/off switch off would that cap work!!! with the treble switch off then nothing would happen but the pick-up would switch off.
maybe i have it wrong!!!
 
#16
bill reed said:
thanks. i'll remove the resistor and see what happens.
the reason i added the other cap was so that when one switch is dowm (Off) then at least one cap in in the circuit so there is some treble cut no matter what pick-up switch is down. with only one cap then would it only be when i had the bass 0n/off switch off would that cap work!!! with the treble switch off then nothing would happen but the pick-up would switch off.
maybe i have it wrong!!!
Click to expand...

That's why I said to rewire the switches in the first place. You are trying to add something that wasn't meant to be there.
 
#18
wired up my bass as per the hofner diagram, (my beatles style bass came with only one load resistor and no caps) i added two resistors and replaced a third, also added three caps.
overall the tone is much better.
having the off switchs through a 0.047 cap does clip a little of the top end but its hard to hear any change.
you see the change on the graph more than hear it.
it could be like SGD Lutherie said abouth my trubass 88 flats already giving me such a deep sound i cant hear the changes like i with with rounds fitted.
will leave the bass wired up like the hofner with one added cap. think it has a more mellow sound with the extra parts fitted.
think sometime later i'll make up a switch box with maybe 10 diffrent caps and have in the line from the guitar to the amp and then i'll see if there a big difrence using a bigger range of caps.
did not work as i wanted but over all a better sound achived.
if you have a non-hofner beatles style bass then it may be worth rewiring it like the hofner as there is a big improvement in the sound. not sure if other will be wired like mine with just a load resistor.
 
#19
SGD Lutherie said:
Unless you are using flats and a dark tone at the amp, you will certain hear a different between a .02 and .047µF cap. The value of the capo changes the frequency that the cap starts to roll off the high end.

The .02 will only roll off the very top end and leave all the mids. The .047µF will roll off most of the mids for a darker tone. A .1 will roll off all the high end.

But this is when the tone control is on zero. When it's al the way up you won't hear any difference between cap values.
Click to expand...

As usual David is right on. My "standard" tone circuit uses a center off SPDT mini-switch that selects between 0.047 and 0.015 mfd. That gives me a reasonable difference between the two plus the "off" position makes the bass as bright as it can go because it removes the R and C totally from the circuit. I love that mod. Another thing I love about the switch is that it lets you flip between "bright" and a pre-set tone value without twiddling knobs. Handy addition to a passive bass.
 
#20
SGD Lutherie said:
Unless you are using flats and a dark tone at the amp, you will certain hear a different between a .02 and .047µF cap. The value of the capo changes the frequency that the cap starts to roll off the high end.

The .02 will only roll off the very top end and leave all the mids. The .047µF will roll off most of the mids for a darker tone. A .1 will roll off all the high end.

But this is when the tone control is on zero. When it's al the way up you won't hear any difference between cap values.
Click to expand...

+1
 

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