BB Caps

[mmorrison1]

Some people are probably thinking "Oh boy! Here we go again about Bumblebee caps."

I have heard that Gibson is selling fake BB caps for $25?? Is this true? I am considering buying Gibson 1957 LP Custom Reissue or a 1957 LP Standard Goldtop reissue. Does this mean that the historics-VOS/Reissues are having fake BB caps put into them???

If so, where do you get the real BB caps?

To make this clear also - From what I have heard that the only difference between VOS and Reissues is that - VOS are the aged looking LP and Reissues are glossy(Like you went back in time to the 1950's and walked into a guitar shop to buy a 57 LP Goldtop.). Am I right here??

Thanks,
morrison

 

[MATTM]

The Bee reproductions Gibson uses are mediocre at best. If memory serves, they are Wesco poly caps inside the bee jacket. They sell them for $125 a pair, not $25.00. It's absurd money for what they are.

If you can't afford the real deal 50s Bees, Luxe is the only replica cap I'd recommend.

 

[jamman]

+1 for Martin6string . If your going to spend money like that, for Caps, get real bee's. you'll be glad you did . The Luxe Caps (repro's) are nice too . Many of the vendors here also sell Caps. Look in the vendors or members section .

 

[JimmyAce2006]

I got a set of Luxe caps from Kim at Retrospec

Luxe Bumblebee Capacitors - $46.00 : RETROSPEC - Vintage Inspired Guitar Equipment, Vintage inspired parts and accessories for guitarists.

I plan to put them in the Jimmy Page Black Beauty (3 pup 1960 reissue) LP Custom, after I find one to buy!

 

[mmorrison1]

Well - Who sells the real Bumblebee capacitors? I have noticed Luxe brand capacitors. Are those the real BB capacitors?

 

[CRobbins]

I found this on the Gibson site, which leads me right back here.

These aren't even the real deal they are actually Wesco 32 PL Polyprop .50 cents a piece that Gibson puts a bumble bee shell on. http://www.mylespaul.com/forum...

 

[MATTM]

Well - Who sells the real Bumblebee capacitors? I have noticed Luxe brand capacitors. Are those the real BB capacitors?

The Luxe are reproduction Bumblebees (the paper in oil version).

Real Bumblebee's are tough to come by and are quite expensive.

 

[mmorrison1]

Well I have read about capacitors called: Russian silver k-40 capacitors.

What do you know about these caps???

It seems that I have heard BB caps are pretty hard to find also...?

Well I am looking to purchase a Gibson LP Custom shop reissue ( I am looking at 4 guitars) - either:

LP Standards - 57 goldtop Reissue or a 56 goldtop reissue (the ones with P-90's)
OR

LP Customs 57 black VOS reissue or a 1954 black VOS guitar w/ P-90 in the bridge and Alnico V in the neck.

I have played them all and I liked them all. It's so hard to decide - they are all great guitars, but I have not made up mind yet.

I do know that all of these guitars (being VOS or reissues) have BB Caps and CTS pots. I know pot means potentiometer, but what is a CTS??? I need some advice.

 

[MATTM]

Well I have read about capacitors called: Russian silver k-40 capacitors.

What do you know about these caps???

It seems that I have heard BB caps are pretty hard to find also...?

Well I am looking to purchase a Gibson LP Custom shop reissue ( I am looking at 4 guitars) - either:

LP Standards - 57 goldtop Reissue or a 56 goldtop reissue (the ones with P-90's)
OR

LP Customs 57 black VOS reissue or a 1954 black VOS guitar w/ P-90 in the bridge and Alnico V in the neck.

I have played them all and I liked them all. It's so hard to decide - they are all great guitars, but I have not made up mind yet.

I do know that all of these guitars (being VOS or reissues) have BB Caps and CTS pots. I know pot means potentiometer, but what is a CTS??? I need some advice.

The K40Y-9's are excellent NOS paper in oil caps. In my opinion, worlds better than the Gibson Bee Reproductions, but not quite in the same league as the 50's Sprague Bumblebees. Definitely a much cheaper option than sourcing real Bee's if money is an issue.

CTS is the brand of potentiometer and widely regarded as the best. However, there are many versions of CTS so they are not all equal. For example, there are CTS 550K Pots and CTS TVT's that are much better than the normal CTS 500K pots that come in Historics.

In short, the electronics in the Historics sound good when you read it on paper, but in reality, are mediocre. I would certainly not let the stock electronics sway my decision on whether to be a certain LP or not and most of our clients view it the same way.

 

[nicolasrivera]

If so, where do you get the real BB caps?Thanks,
morrison

Ebay!!! look for old Tube radios and parts!! i found many that way and they are extremely cheap, you can find BB caps and old PIO's in tube readies going for 30 to 60$ and you can get 4 or 5 caps there, as long as you get a photo from the insides.

I got lucky and found and old piece of electronic boars full of them for less then 40$ i think...

If you want to hear a tone test of some of them here you go....

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSE8HsSw3pI]YouTube - Bumble Bees and Black Beauties tone test[/ame]

 

[mmorrison1]

In short, the electronics in the Historics sound good when you read it on paper, but in reality, are mediocre. I would certainly not let the stock electronics sway my decision on whether to be a certain LP or not and most of our clients view it the same way.

I see it makes sense. If it isn't electronics then.... what is it about the Historic reissues that makes them so appealing to some. Just curious. I'm sure some it is how guitar feels to them - personal preference. But, why are the historic reissues so high. I know they come from the custom shop at Gibson, and that normally means more expensive than say the Gibson USA line. Makes me wonder if I should look at a LP Traditional Pro then make changes to it a little at a time. Money is no issue when it comes to great guitars like Gibsons, especially LPs. I'll spend the money to improve my guitar.

I have also been looking at Gibson SGs - which I love because: it has a neck like the LP which I love. But, what I really like about the SG is that it is more comfortable and lighter than LP. It's a sweet guitar too!

Can you find a 550K CTS online? I assume there has to be crapload of BB Caps out there.

 

[nicolasrivera]

We have a great selection of vendors that can truly give you 550K measured Audiotaper Pots, just look at the vendors section and ask around for a quote! they are all extremely helpful and you may not find a better place to buy then here!

 

[KenG]

Ebay!!! look for old Tube radios and parts!! i found many that way and they are extremely cheap, you can find BB caps and old PIO's in tube readies going for 30 to 60$ and you can get 4 or 5 caps there, as long as you get a photo from the insides.

I got lucky and found and old piece of electronic boars full of them for less then 40$ i think...

If you want to hear a tone test of some of them here you go....

YouTube - Bumble Bees and Black Beauties tone test

Using old used stock won't always get you what you want. PIO caps dry out over time and can lose their capacitance when actively used in circuits (especially with DC Volategs present). If you want to use them I would recommend testing them to see how much the value has drifted.
If you're really into PIO buy either new or NOS ones.
Bumble Bees are no big deal, old Spragues (yellow PIO) and the Black ones from years ago are just as good, as a amtter of fact PIO was common back in the low-tech days. The only difference was outer shell and markings used(colour bands for BBs (Red, RED, ORANGE) vs numeric markings (eg 0.022UFD) MIL style markings "223".
Todays "look like" PIO BBs from Gibson are better than the Ceramic Caps they've replaced (ceramic being the cheapest types generally available) and electronically speaking dielectrics like Mylar, Polyester, Polypropylene etc are more accurate, stable and better constructed than the PIOs everybody's after, they just don't react the same as PIOs which is why so many prefer them to modern caps.
Personally I'd like to see some Frequency sweeps ( 0-20KHz) in a test circuit with the different types caps to see where the actual difference lies. I'd also like to see a random sampling of PIOs to see how much variance in measured value they typcially are.

 

[nicolasrivera]

Using old used stock won't always get you what you want. PIO caps dry out over time and can lose their capacitance when actively used in circuits (especially with DC Volategs present). If you want to use them I would recommend testing them to see how much the value has drifted.
If you're really into PIO buy either new or NOS ones.
Bumble Bees are no big deal, old Spragues (yellow PIO) and the Black ones from years ago are just as good, as a amtter of fact PIO was common back in the low-tech days. The only difference was outer shell and markings used(colour bands for BBs (Red, RED, ORANGE) vs numeric markings (eg 0.022UFD) MIL style markings "223".
Todays "look like" PIO BBs from Gibson are better than the Ceramic Caps they've replaced (ceramic being the cheapest types generally available) and electronically speaking dielectrics like Mylar, Polyester, Polypropolene etc are more accurate, stable and better constructed than the PIOs everybodies after, they just don't react the same as PIOs which is why so many prefer them to modern caps.
Personally I'd like to see some Frequency sweeps in a test circuit with the different caps to see where the actua difference lies.

Yes, very true.

I really feel that we all should experiment until we get a great tone cap, i mean, pickups are all different from each other we do we have to assume the same cap will sound or be the best for that particular set of PU's.? Not true, the best way to achieve your instruments full potential is to custom fit a cap for each of the pickups.

Thats why its fun to stock pile caps, you can have hours of fun just playing around with them and your guitar!

 

[lespaul01]

Ebay!!! look for old Tube radios and parts!! i found many that way and they are extremely cheap, you can find BB caps and old PIO's in tube readies going for 30 to 60$ and you can get 4 or 5 caps there, as long as you get a photo from the insides.

I got lucky and found and old piece of electronic boars full of them for less then 40$ i think...

If you want to hear a tone test of some of them here you go....

YouTube - Bumble Bees and Black Beauties tone test

The one second to the left end was the best imo.. The 002 one.. Veyr loose.

 

[HellRot]

The K40Y-9's are excellent NOS paper in oil caps. In my opinion, worlds better than the Gibson Bee Reproductions, but not quite in the same league as the 50's Sprague Bumblebees. Definitely a much cheaper option than sourcing real Bee's if money is an issue.

CTS is the brand of potentiometer and widely regarded as the best. However, there are many versions of CTS so they are not all equal. For example, there are CTS 550K Pots and CTS TVT's that are much better than the normal CTS 500K pots that come in Historics.

In short, the electronics in the Historics sound good when you read it on paper, but in reality, are mediocre. I would certainly not let the stock electronics sway my decision on whether to be a certain LP or not and most of our clients view it the same way.

As "one of the clients" of Matt, I agree... It does make a clear difference...

 

[dotnetguy]

Nothing really to add to this thread but everytime someone talks about 'bees... I think this:

Conan - Oprah gives BEES!!! - YouTube

Though, in reference to 'having fun and trying out different capacitors', I always imagined there's going to be much soldering/testing/unsoldering trials to figure out what 'sounds good to me' (which sounds really tedious!)... Or to shortcut that, do people just use alligator-clips and wire to test out capacitors in their guitars?

Edit: Nevermind... I guess using alligator-clips is common practice that I didn't know about (that Google answered for me with the right keywords..)

 

[ubw]

Am thinking of replacing the fake Bees in my 2011 59 reissue with say the Luxe Bees or some proper PIO caps. I know it's all subjective and thats cool, as I just want to hear from those who have done this, how you perceive your sound has changed and in what way.

At this stage I am not thinking of replacing the stock Burstbuckers or the CTS pots, just the caps.

 

[honkytone]

I'm a player of vintage guitars for over 35 years, having gotten into Historic Les Pauls only in the last few. I was very skeptical about the hooha over pots and capacitors. I figured it was just guys hearing what they wanted to hear after paying the extra bucks. But in trying some different pickups in my '11 R9 a tab on the treble volume pot became loose, and while tightening it I broke the phenolic material it was mounted on. So I decided to throw down for the CTS/Luxe Bumblebee wiring harness sold by martin6string. I was stunned by how much better the guitar sounds across the entire range of the volume and tone controls. I wonder now what all those pickups I bought and sold REALLY sounded like (though I'm very happy with the Bare Knuckle Mules).

 

[ubw]

That's interesting. I am no expert on pots and caps but was only thinking of changing the caps. Now you've got me thinking whether I should be looking at changing the pots also.

I have no idea how good or otherwise my pots are but they are no more or less responsive than pots on any other Gibson that I've played in recent years, which means what I am not sure. So am just curious whether a change to "real" 500k CTS pots will make that big a difference.

Decisions, decisions...