Pickup brightness, Pots and caps

[Wraptail]

Question for those that know more than I.

If I lift one leg of a tone cap off either the volume or tone pot what effect does that make?

I just did that and I thought the guitar would get a whole lot brighter and it had no effect except that the tone pot didn't work.

I did something similar (I thought was the same) on another guitar - take the cap & tone pot out of the equation to see if it would make it brighter and get more use out of the volume pot.

That guitar got A LOT brighter - way way too bright, but I wanted to see.


Any thoughts from those that understand such things?

Thanks!

[cooljuk]

How were the two guitars wired?

When I lift the tone cap (and resulting tone pot) out of a 50's style wired LP type setup with standard value components is makes little or no difference.

[Wraptail]

Both LP Junior style guitars. I thought both were wired 50s style.

The last one - that had no effect, like yours, is definitely 50s style as I just did it.

Maybe different with modern wiring? Or I'm just a knut....

[cooljuk]

Originally Posted by Rude Dog

Both LP Junior style guitars. I thought both were wired 50s style.

The last one - that had no effect, like yours, is definitely 50s style as I just did it.

Maybe different with modern wiring? Or I'm just a knut....

You're not a nut. It definitely depends on how the load of the cap and pot is placed into the circuit.

[Wraptail]

Cool.

Anybody else have some input?

[SKATTERBRANE]

The few times I removed the cap out of the circuit on Historics, I got a brighter tone from each of the pickups I had in each of the Les Pauls. Now if you have "no load" tone pots, then you would not get that effect, because you are ALREADY getting that effect when the no load tone pots are on 10. (they have an insulator that takes the tone pot/cap out of the circuit at 10)

[jonesy]

You will get a clearer sound many times by removing not only the cap, but the tone pot itself. As Rod mentioned that is what no load pots do. Basically your are sending the signal from your pickups to the volume pot then straight to the output jack. I have used the no load pots on my Tele and I also have the bypass circuit wired into one of my Esquires and it a brighter more raw tone. But it depends on the original wiring, pots and pickups as well. A 250K pot will sound more compressed when not bypassed than a 500k etc.

[Mouse]

pots have certain load effect on the high freq. peak. if you wire the pickup direct to your output jack you'll clearly hear what that means.
certain old pots have switch which disengages pot and his load, cts have this kind of pots still available for amps and old radios and you can try it. they have two additional 'brake circuit' legs on the back of the casing.

[Mouse]

CTS 270-SW-500R-LOG :: CTS :: Potentiometers :: Passive Components :: Electronic Parts :: Banzai Music

[Wraptail]

Thanks for the input guys.

I did not fully change it to 50s wiring, which I was trying to do, - I believe that's why the cap leg lift had no effect.

The guitar is one of the dirt cheap AXL LP juniors. I ended up changing both pots and wiring & now it's right where I want it.

The other guitar that I did the cap leg lift on is a 1965 Epiphone Olympic that has an early 50s P90 and harness courtesy of an ES 125 of the same vintage that was beyond repair. With the tone pot and cap out of the equation that thing got WAY too bright, but glad I did it just to learn a bit about what affects what.