'Tropical Fish' Caps

SunDevil

Without wishing to open up the whole debate on whether caps of an equal capacitance and tolerance should sound the same, regardless of construction, I've wondering if anyone has any experience with these as a cap on a tone pot?

Specifically, I'm considering them for a 335 that's about to get a 50ies re-wire (0.022 in the bridge and 0.015 in the neck)

As it stands, the guitar sounds great with the volumes on 10, but rapidly loses it's dynamics as you roll off the volumes on the 'Memphis circuit'

I'm assuming the change to 50ies wiring will change things up in this regard, but the Tropical fish caps have been described as 'fat' and I'm slightly concerned I may end up with an obese guitar!

Baz

stickyfiddle

A capacitor is a capacitor. Don't worry about it

Corvus

I can't claim to be an expert but I'm re-doing my Dot at the moment. To counter that loss of treble with vol roll-off I'm trying out treble bleeds at the moment, I live on the vol pot so the mud bothers me a lot. So far -

50s wiring (the scheme not just cap values) - didn't like, still got loss of top.
Cap & resistor in parallel - didn't like the effects on the vol pot taper
Cap & resistor in series - best so far, vol taper still good, just need to hit the right values
Cap alone, not tried yet

But this is all personal subjective stuff.
Doing this externally with a template that has the pots/switch/jack in their positions, thin foam on guitar top to stop scratches. Sorting everything out before going fishing...

p90fool

It doesn't matter how "fat" they are, they should still fit in a 335 ok.

Gagaryn

SunDevil said:

Without wishing to open up the whole debate on whether caps of an equal capacitance and tolerance should sound the same, regardless of construction, I've wondering if anyone has any experience with these as a cap on a tone pot?

Baz

Don't post this then! It's a cap of the correct value - therefore it will work fine!

SunDevil

Thanks all

@Billkat - sounds like we have similar volume pot requirements?

To give some context, with a log taper pot, i'd typically be playing clean at 6, breakup 7-8 and lead sounds on 9 or above - sound familiar?

In that context, could I ask what value caps / pots are you using in your treble bleeds and what pickups / pickup height?

SunDevil

@gagaryn ..True, but surely an Orange cap gives you a warm tone and a 'bumble bee' is kinda buzzy, then by that reckoning a tropical fish should provide a broad spectrum of tone, no?

There will always be subjective views on a subjective subject like tone and the internet provides any old idiot with the ability to masquerade as an expert, so it's always helpful to get a cross section views from people with first hand experience

The question was/is that I have these caps available and given that it's a 335 and a pig to work on, I want to ensure as best as possible that installing them is a sensible way to go - hence the post :-)

Baz

ICBM

SunDevil said:

There will always be subjective views on a subjective subject like tone 

That's true, but it's easy to prove that cap type (as opposed to value) has no effect on tone in an electric guitar.

They can in certain applications and locations in amps, but that's because the operating conditions are very different.

ESchap

ON a different slant regarding tropical fish caps. 

I had a few and found them extremely fragile.  Too much heat and the ends came clean off and I'm reasonably proficient with a soldering iron.  This was also for a Gibson ES and unfortunately one where the loom had to go in through the F holes, the TF caps did not like that either.   I wouldn't bother from my experience.

Mallory's are cheap, accurate values and nice and robust for the nightmare of shoehorning an ES loom in.

Corvus

Hi @SunDevil, sounds like it   I've just put in new pickups and am doing new wiring/pots & coil splits. The pickup height is just roughed-in at the moment but they're fairly high. I'll put up some values in a day or two, I've not found the perfect set yet, only got the pickups hooked up last night. The series cap+resistor is most promising for me so far, but I need to mess with values more, and want to try the cap-only way as well.
The final values are always going to be a personal thing I reckon, plus must depend on pickups, pot values & taper and which way the wind blows...

cheers
Bill

SunDevil

Cheers Bill,

If it's of any use, I checked out my LP today, which is running Seth Lovers (DC resistance in the high 7s)

I went backwards and forwards on this a few times, but ended up with 'modern' wiring and a 820pf cap across the Neck volume and a 1000pf on the bridge. Log pots and no resistor and the tone caps are 0.47s

Thanks @Eschap - good tip!

Corvus

Cheers Baz I have caps to play with and more in the post, interesting to see you like it without resistor, I'll be trying that out too.

Corvus

Hi @SunDevil, I've gone with 1nf and 130k in series on both pickups. The cap alone seemed good too, I'm not sure there was much of anything in it vs the resistor. Log pots all round, 022 and 015 tone caps. The loom's still outside the Dot but at the mo the neck pickup is lower than the bridge, not really dialled in yet. I got a Regentone bridge pickup which is great, would've got a neck one too but I'd already got an unused Tonerider cheap, seems pretty good though.