There are tons of different articles and books about guitar wiring and electric guitar electronics that make an attempt to explain what a guitar capacitor is and how it works. If you are anything like me, reading a manual is boring and I lose interest pretty quickly. Not to mention, most of these articles are pretty confusing and not easy to read.
That is why I decided to write this article. I want you to understand the important parts of capacitors and how to incorporate them in your guitar wiring setups. Guitar capacitors are actually pretty simply devices that can be explains pretty easily. In this article, I’ll talk about what a capacitor is, how it is measured, how it works, and how to choose one for your guitar.
Well, a guitar capacitor is no different than any other capacitor. It is just a lot smaller. A capacitor is simply a device that uses metal plates and a non-conducive substance or a dielectric to divert the flow of electricity or in a guitar’s case the flow of frequencies. A capacitor diverts the flow of lower frequencies and allows higher frequencies to pass through it. The cutoff point between the lower frequencies that are diverted and the higher frequencies that are allowed through depend on the value of the capacitor.
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A capacitor is measured in farads (F). A capacitor with a value of one farad is huge! Way too big for any guitar. Guitar capacitors are measured in fractions or decimals of a farad. Here are the three measurements you will probably hear:
As you can see, 1 F or one farad would be a HUGE capacitor, as guitar capacitors are measured in millionths, billionths, and trillionths of one farad. Capacitors might use these measurements interchangeably. Here is a simple conversion for you.
Generally Microfarads are used to measure caps down to about .01 uF and then the measurements switch to Picofarads to measure smaller capacitors.
Do Expensive Capacitors In An Electric Guitar's Tone Circuits Really Sound Better Than Cheap Capacitors?
You may be looking at a capacitor and wondering what all the numbers on the back of it mean. Newer capacitors have a 3-digit code on the back to identify the value. Older capacitors, capacitors made before the 1970s, are generally not marked consistently. You may want to check these with a meter to find the true value. I know what you are thinking. Why don’t they just print the value instead of a code? Who knows? Luckily the code is easy to read.
The three-digit code can be translated into Picofarads pretty easily. The first two digits remain the same and the third digit refers to the number of zeros that need to be placed behind the first two. In other words, the code 222 represents 2200pF.
Some capacitors also have a fourth letter in the code. This letter represents the tolerance percentage. Here is a list of the tolerance codes.
Orange Drop Caps
You may be thinking all this measurement stuff is great, but how does it work with my guitar? Remember I said that a capacitor’s job is to divert low frequencies and only allow the higher frequencies to pass through, right? Well, when you think about it that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in a guitar. Most guitar players want to get rid of the high frequencies not pass them along.
A cap is usually soldered in between the pickup and jack as a shortcut to the grounding wire. Since electricity will always follow the path of least resistance, the electricity will flow through the capacitor to the ground.
Now the capacitor starts to work. Only the high frequencies will be able to pass through the capacitor and escape through the ground. The lower frequencies will be trapped in the guitar circuit and will flow down to the jack and speaker. Thus the capacitor “rolls off” the high frequencies.
Tone Capacitors... Do They Really Make A Difference?
A capacitor in and of itself changes the tone of the guitar, but it is static. There is no way to alter the tone unless you put a resistor or guitar pot in the guitar circuit or wiring diagram. If you wire in a guitar pot before the capacitor, the pot will be able to control how much of the electricity flows through to the capacitor essentially changing the original cutoff point we talked about earlier. Generally a configuration like this where there is a cap and a pot are wired parallel with the signal is called an RC filter or low pass RC filter.
The pot acts like a dimmer on a light switch. When the pot is dialed to zero all the electricity flows through to the capacitor and your guitar will sound like you don’t have a pot wired in. If you dial the pot to ten, no electricity will flow to the capacitor and the guitar will sound like there isn’t a capacitor. Essentially the pot is used to adjust the amount of capacity the cap delivers.
When you start looking at what capacitor to use in your guitar circuit, you have to think about what potentiometer you are going to use. Remember, the pot and the cap work together to produce your guitar’s tone. The most frequently used caps are the .047mF and .022mF. This is generally how these two caps are paired with pots:
Complete Guide To Electric Guitar Capacitors
As far as your actual guitar setup, it really depends what kind of sound you are looking for. With either of these pairings above, the tone can get kind of dark and muddy if the pot is turned all the way down. This is because the entire high end is being sent to ground due to the powerful capacitor. Many people with these setups rarely use the lower numbers on their dials because of this. That is why I suggest getting a slightly smaller capacitor. It will make your full range of pot more useful because the lower numbers, 0-3, will not filter so much high end.
As I said, great tone is a personal preference. It depends on the style of music you are playing the particular setup you are working with. This article should give you enough info to start messing around with what cap/pot combos work best for you.ca·pac·i·tor /kəˈpasədər/ noun a device used to store an electric charge, consisting of one or more pairs of conductors separated by an insulator.
If you found the definition above to be completely inadequate in describing how a capacitor affects your tone, then this article is definitely for you. For anyone just taking in an interest in the electrical components and circuits in their guitar, the ability to truly understand how they work can become very abstract – usually because we tend to try to visualize everything, which is pretty hard to do when it comes to sound and electricity. When you think about a sound after it’s been converted to an electric signal[transduce], what do you see in your mind’s eye? I’m willing to bet that it’s something like this:
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You pluck an open E, your pickup’s magnetic field is disrupted and the vibration of the string is inducted by the magnetic coils and the frequencies travel through a copper wire (or silver, if you’re fancy) – so far, you can see everything happening as we go along, but there’s a capacitor in the circuit coming up fast. The frequencies pass through the solder joint, up the little leg into the component. And…something happens in there…
What we know for sure is that the sound is different when it comes out through the output at the end of the line, but how is the tone cap actually affecting the frequencies?
Here, according to definition, our frequencies sit for a brief moment before coming out the other side. Not exactly, let’s forget the definition entirely – it’s a very simple, broad definition that doesn’t really have specific consideration for audio applications. Take a look at your capacitor if you have your circuit handy, or just look at the images below for a moment:
Tone Chasin': The Skinny On Capacitors And Potentiometers (or Caps And Pots)—part 2
I’ve marked the capacitor wires in blue and given a top and bottom view of the wiring setup – it’s a fairly standard setup, and even though yours may appear a bit different, the capacitor & tone pot are likely the same: one end soldered to the pot’s arm and the second leg is soldered to the bottom of the pot (or somewhere else in the ground circuit). Why doesn’t the whole frequency get grounded off then? Let’s look at the circuit diagram now:
The capacitor provides a route to the ground, but only higher frequencies will be able to pass through – the rest will continue to the output.
The capacitor is selectively drawing out the higher frequencies and leaving the lower frequencies untouched to carry along down the line. Note that the bass frequencies are ignoring the law of electricity taking the path of least resistance (to the ground). This is where things get slightly complicated: capacitors are actually meant to divert lower frequencies, which is the opposite of what we actually see happening in the diagram – and of what we know happens when you roll your tone knob around.
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All of the frequencies are originally attracted to the path
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