Why Is This Cap Worth $10.50?

[GuitarGas]

Hi guys,
A mate of mine was looking at his strat pick guard and noticed it had this cap under the hood...
http://www.allparts.com/EP-4059-000-Vitamin-Q-047-Black-Candy-Capacitor_p_4911.html
He said the tone was one of the best his got it terms of his Strats, would this cap be the reason behind it?
I'm pretty new to all this stuff, building wise and i'm kinda not used to paying that sort of money for one capacitor. Is this normal when it comes to buying caps for your guitar or amp?
Cheers

[rocket88]

my opinion because people will pay it. there are people that clain that they can hear tonal differences between capacitor type of the same value, and typically will claim that PIO (paper in oil) caps are the best. me personally i think it's a load of crap. while there is differences in tone from value to value, the material, IME, doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

and to be completely honest, in all my guitar and bass builds i do use orange Sprague Orange Drop Capcitors for two reasons. One because they look freaking awesome and ridiculous when you open up that cavity and see a huge cap, and two because it's just cool to have a massive cap that looks like a depth charge inside the electronics cavity.

these are what i use in pretty much every bass build, and while they're not $10.50 each these are $3 each:

[Muadzin]

From what I have gathered tone capacitors are basically completely out of the signal path when the tone pot is fully up and even when you start using the tone pot no actual signal that will go to your amp passes through these unobtainium miracle caps, they just bleed off highs to ground. So I suspect anyone who claims they can hear the difference is a TGP sucker waiting to get ripped off by all sorts of miracle talk about wonder NOS unobtainium parts.

On my last guitar build I didn't even bother installing a tone pot anyway, as I never use these damn things.

[MOPO]

 Hello
 I like n 'rarely uses the tone, I generally puts everything thoroughly.
 For capacitors i 'uses drop oranges

http://www.guitarnblues.fr/accessoires-guitare-basse.php?g=condensateur-guitare-orange-drop&r=70&c=50&id=7508

 or oil Russian paper

http://www.guitarnblues.fr/accessoires-guitare-basse.php?g=condensateur-guitare-oil-paper-russe-pio-k40y-9-47nf-0-047uf&r=70&c=50&id=7516

http://www.guitarnblues.fr/accessoires-guitare-basse.php?g=condensateur-guitare-oil-paper-russe-pio-k40p-2-22nf-0-022uf&r=70&c=50&id=7514

 I'm no expert, but it suits me, I have orange drop on telecaster and gibson sg Russian oil and paper on the stratocaster.
 3 euros in the capacitor is in my opinion not bad.

Hello,

[Beaker]

"I'm pretty new to all this stuff, building wise and i'm kinda not used to paying that sort of money for one capacitor. Is this normal when it comes to buying caps for your guitar or amp?"

Just like a lot of things, how much something is worth, is related to how much someone is willing to pay for it - and a lot of people are.

Twenty years ago, just about everyone used 2 cent ceramic caps in their guitars, and everyone was happy!

Then guitar forums came along, with their "Toan quests" and their "Vintage mojo", and their associated cork-sniffing snobbery, and one up-manship. Then everyone was unhappy!

Unhappy that they were missing out on "Toan", so they started buying old caps, and other gubbins that would make them play like Jimi, and sound like a choir of Angels.

In short - HYPE I've never used one of these, but I've fitted loads of vintage caps for customers, who swear blind that their guitar now sounds amazing. Nah!

Personally, Sprague Orange drops, are in my guitars, or Russian PIO caps which look outrageous to boot!

[Frank_NH]

There are SO many other variables that go into guitar tone ("toan") that the type of capacitor you use is, in my opinion, not going to play a significant role.  As long as the cap's ** value ** (e.g. .022 uF) is to spec, that should be all that matters.  Remember that capacitors can have values that vary from 5 - 10% (and more) from the labeled value, so to really do a valid comparison you would need to have 10 caps of the same kind (e.g. ceramic, film, PIO) and swap those one by one and have someone listen to them all and see if you find a trend.
 

[Beaker]

There is at least one "reproduction" cap on the market, that looks just like a NOS "bumblebee" waxed paper cap.

It's just a bog standard modern polypropylene axial cap, inside a resin dummy outer, to make it look just like a bumblebee!

[AC_FX]

As a pro tech, I agree 100% with previous replies indicating this cap is worth $10.50 because there are customers willing to pay that for it.  There is little dissuading those who swear by mojo.  I think of it in terms of time - the time I get to offer them my opinion on tone caps is only a minute, which simply can't compete with the hours they spend on TDPRI or wherever they hang out learning about what makes guitars sound good.  I say my piece, and if they still want the expensive caps, that's what they get.

I have built some stompboxes for commercial sale as well, and in some, I used NOS parts and sold it partially on that basis.  But I quickly got tired of sourcing this stuff, fitting it into layouts, and paying silly prices for it.  I think the stuff looks cool and in a good build it sounds cool.  But I don't believe that it sounds better than the stuff I build using new box caps and what-have-you.  Unless you've got people lining up to pay pretty high prices for this stuff, it's just too expensive and time-consuming to build anything of any complexity around NOS parts.

You know what makes guitars and effects sound really good?  As our master tech at work says, "Get a comfy chair and a f*&kin' metronome!"

[rocket88]

Get a metronome you say? But what if you can't afford to have a drummer every time you practice?

[Muadzin]

Didn't they invent drum machines, just so we no longer had to suffer dealing with drummers?

[Beaker]

" I think of it in terms of time - the time I get to offer them my opinion on tone caps is only a minute, which simply can't compete with the hours they spend on TDPRI or wherever they hang out learning about what makes guitars sound good.  I say my piece, and if they still want the expensive caps, that's what they get."

AC that is so true.

As I said, I have Sprague orange drops or Russian PIO caps in some of my guitars. The others have their original ceramic discs.

To be honest, I really can't notice the difference, and if I did not have surplus orange drops or PIO caps lying around, I probably would not bother.

I'm sure there is a good dose of "The Emporers' New Tone" going on - if you expect to hear an improvement, you will.

[GuitarGas]

Thanks for all of the input guys, a very interesting point of view from all.
But, is there an optimal uf?
The cap linked to above is rated at .047 uf whereas Franked mentioned using a .022uf
Cheers

[Silver Blues]

It's not about optimization, it's whatever sounds best to you. Larger caps will roll off more highs as you dial back the tone control. Heck I modified my most-played bass with a 12-position rotary switch that has mute, pickup-straight-to-jack and 10 capacitor options instead of a tone pot. The low setting is 470nF which totally guts the highs but is a neat thumpy reggae sound

[rocket88]

+1 to what silver said. the big misconception about tone caps is that they act to roll off the highs, as they run from the pot to ground. people see, to thing that tone caps are part of the signal path, but they really aren't.

after all this talk about cap material i think there's only one qualification needed for a tone cap. IMHO as long as the caps are not ceramic you're fine. IME i feel that the ceramic cap adds some microphonics to the signal, and i find poly caps, which is part of the reason i use the orange drops, don't have this issue. other then that, i feel its like throwing money out the window, as a 470nF cap is and 470nF cap as long as the tolerance is not huge it shouldn't matter.

[Beaker]

There are effectively just two standard cap values in guitars - 0.022uF for single coil pickups, and 0.047uF for humbuckers. That's it - though some Gibson guitars come with 0.033uF.

However, you could use anything you want really - too wooly with a .047 - try a .033. Want to get a real "jazz guitar" sound with a single coil, change the .022 for a .047 - it's really up to you, and how you want your guitar to sound.

Like Silver, my Jazz Bass has a pseudo-varitone rotary switch that goes from no cap at all, up to 0.22uF if I remember right.

The cap value makes way more difference than what the cap is made of.

Edit: Zach is correct, ceramics can go microphonic.

[Frank_NH]

When it comes to these things, just remember:  You can buy several very high quality capacitors for the price of that candy bar you just purchased from the vending machine!  

Also - FWIW - there are tons of articles on the internet which discuss various tone controls for electric guitars and basses, from the very simple to the very complex.  As others have said above, there is no one right way - only YOUR way!

[motterpaul]

FWIW - if you google that cap (google "473 orange drop capacitor" and hit the "shopping" option) you will see one guy selling one (I think) for $39.99. Geeze - but the vast majority are going for about $2.00.

You can even get NOS inline Sprague orange caps (the ones real vintage guitars had) for $5 apiece. I guess in Japan that would cost about $500?

I agree with the above, I don't care what cap is in my guitar because I never roll the treble back. In passive circuits going into long cables my instinct has always been "never cut" - give me the full juice and I'll worry about the tone later. I also know that when the tone is up the cap is not in the path anyway. Dumb.

By the way - the one on sale at All Part was an black oiled paper capacitor (not an orange drop) for $10.50

[GuitarGas]

Silver Blues wrote

Heck I modified my most-played bass with a 12-position rotary switch that has mute, pickup-straight-to-jack and 10 capacitor options instead of a tone pot. The low setting is 470nF which totally guts the highs but is a neat thumpy reggae sound

Man that sounds cool, any links on how to do this?
Maybe I could actually start using me bridge pup with something like this set up.
Cheers

[Beaker]

Here is the diagram I worked from, though there are plenty of others on the internet - just google "varitone wiring" and you will get loads of hits, and well as a few insruction guides for doing it. It's a simple job, you just need to use crocodile clip leads to decide on your prefered values before soldering the caps in place. I used "Brownie" poly caps in mine.

As I said, I have this in my Jazz Bass, and I have done it to one of my sons guitars too, a First Act semi acoustic.

http://s637.photobucket.com/user/ANDREWCARRELL/media/SIMPLEVARITONE.gif.html

And I used a switch similar to this one, fitted with a chicken head knob:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6mm-Dia-Shaft-1P7T-1-Pole-7-Position-Band-Channel-Selector-Rotary-Switch-/191343864955?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2c8cfbac7b

I used a 5 way switch on mine, but you can use anything from a 3 way up to, like Silver, a 12 way.

Hope this helps.

[Silver Blues]

Oh man, I'm sure I had found a link somewhere but can't for the life of me remember where. I'm in class right now but I'll see if I can find it for you later.

EDIT never mind, Beaker has the exact diagram I was looking for.