Ah - got it. Yeah for swirly ambient stuff that makes sense.
It’s explained in the circuit illustration I linked to – basically it’s a fixup of the ‘modern’ wiring so that rolling off the volume doesn’t roll off the tone.
So, what are the capacitor food gr-
Kidding.
Don’t joke about it. I have seen people on guitar forums swearing that vintage capacitors sound better than modern ones, and there is a market for vintage-style capacitors.
The guitar world is all about cognitive biases. I don’t even get into those sorts of arguments any more. Guitarists make conspiracy theorists look rational by comparison.
First of all, I agree with **Shakester **that 99% of stuff that guitarists geek out about on message boards is snake oil. Or - if there is a grain of truth to it, it usually primarily applies in a professional/gig setting, or if you are a seasoned pro. In golf, does having hand-forged, hand-edged irons make a difference? Well, if you’re Tiger Woods and playing the Masters - then yeah. For the rest of us? Not so much.
**squeegee **- all kidding aside, there is a taxonomy of capacitors - two actually: one for guitars and one for amps. In both cases, the key difference is how the cap is made. As I have discussed on the 'Dope before, old wax-paper-and-oil capacitors are more inefficient that they new polymer ones, and that that inefficiency can be a good thing for musicians. The new ones are more precise in their ability to cut off frequencies above the threshold you dial up with your knob; the older ones have more leakage above that threshold, so you get some richness in the overtones.
Now - should you be paying hundreds of bucks for an old bumblebee cap? No - that would make you an idiot, unless you are a collector and have a pristine old Gibson or something where restoring its original components adds to its value - but that is a collectibility issues that has nothing to do with being a player.
But - should you consider upgrading your caps if you have modern ones in your lower-priced guitar? Well, if, like Shakester, you play clean with effects and use those effects and alternate tunings to shape your tone, no. But if you play straight-up rock and blues with distortion in your signal - then for a few bucks, yeah, an old-style cap can add a little “sumthin’ sumthin’” to your tone and help you with your sound when you roll off the Tone control just a bit to take the edge off of a dialed-in rhythm tone.
My $.02
Actually, I don’t use effects other than a little reverb or delay. I’m going for a vintage sound in terms of the way electric guitarists actually sounded before big amps and distortion were standard. 1950s jazz guitar is the closest thing I can think of for an example, but I don’t play in anything like that style.
Got it. Remind me: any experience with P-90’s? I want to say you’ve commented on them but can’t recall. Seems like they’d be up your alley bigtime.
Wow, WordMan delivers again. Sweet!
I was only kinda’ kidding – I’d just been staring at this page over at AllParts, completely bewildered about what kind of caps I should get for my “Xaviei e” rewire. I just figured the topic was pretty far into the weeds, and I’d just go bone up at one of the guitar sites. So, thanks – that saves me a ton of time. I need a .022uf cap, according to my wiring guide, so it looks like this guy is what I need (although $14.50 for a cap (!) takes my breath away), right? The ones that are currently in that guitar look like this in green, I’m not sure what that says about the electronics. Anyway, thanks again.
I like 'em, but I can’t use 'em straight because I can’t use regular single coils. I can always hear the hum/hiss when I use them, and it drives me crazy. So I’m a big fan of pickups that sound like a single coil but aren’t.
A lot of players insist that you can’t get that sound with anything but a real single coil and that the humbucking versions always sound “wrong”. Personally, I find that I can get a sound that’s close enough for me and that I seriously doubt anyone else could tell wasn’t coming from a single coil pickup.
So, for my two regular electric guitars, I have two different solutions:
My Strat (actually a partscaster) has a set of Lace Holy Grails. I don’t care for most Lace pickups, but the HGs are a completely different kettle of fish. I listened to samples online and they sounded very convincingly Strat-like. I bought a set, and yes, my “strat” sounds just like a Strat should… but with no hum.
My semi (Hagstrom Viking) had two generic humbuckers. I replaced them with custom ordered Bill Lawrence “Wilde” pickups. (The real BL, not the guy who stole his name and who sells pickups as “Bill Lawrence USA”.) The bridge pickup is an L-610: a sort-of P90 with steel screw polepieces, and the neck is an L-610: closer to a Jazzmaster style pickup with magnetic rod pole-pieces. They’re excellent pickups and they sound great in that guitar.
In my electric resonator guitar, the neck pup was a generic P-90 type. I replaced it with a DiMarzio Virtual P90. Not as refined as the BL Wilde L-610, but it works well with the reso and was a good choice.
On my lap steel, the two pickups were extremely cheap and nasty strat-types. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on replacements so I chose two cheap rail humbuckers from Hong Kong on eBay because they were advertised as having AlNiCo magnets, unlike the usual ceramic magnets in blade pickups. It turns out that they are AlNiCo and the pickups sound amazingly good for under $20 each. I recently bought another one just for the heck of it, just to have one around in case I find a need for it.
I’m happy with the pickups I have, and feel no need to change them. If I get more guitars, I’ll probably choose other pickups because there are plenty of good ones around and I feel I know enough about them to make the right choices. Any other guitar I got would be for more variety so I’d want a different sound to the the ones I already have.
I’m happy to advise if anyone wants my advice. As long as we all understand that opinions on these matters can vary wildly.
Yes - that’s what you want, and yeah $14.50 is a lot for a cap - but not a large amount of money in an absolute sense. From what I was reading on line, some brands had a good rep, like RS Guitarworks and some of the stuff available on Allparts, Stewmac, Callaham, etc. sites, so I just sucked it up and paid a bit more.
I want to say your green cap is the modern kind, but can’t say for sure. I am sure there are websites that walk you through cap upgrades - heck i bet there is Youtubes on doing those kinds of mods…
Shakester, I am noisy guitarist under the best circumstances, so tend to be less annoyed by the hum; but it drives my bandmates crazy so I use a Noise Suppressor NS-2 from Boss; does a decent job. I also got used to rolling off my Volume pot at the end of the song.
I have a Seymour Duncan Phat Cat (a noiseless P-90 / Jazzmaster hybrid in a humbucker cover) in my homebrew Blackguard Tele and a Duncan P-Rail (P-90+blade humbucker) in my homebrew Tele Special, so I hear you about cutting noise…
I like Seymour Duncan pickups, and that Phat Cat looks really nice. AlNiCo magnets get my seal of approval. I don’t see anything Jazzmaster-esque about it, though. Don’t be fooled by the similar appearance: P90s and Jazzmaster pickups are completely different designs.
I have a feeling I’m going to have to explain the difference between rod magnets and steel screw polepieces any minute now. Fortunately, I can just copy/paste from one of my previous essays on pickup design…
Yep, here’s one I wrote some time back in a different place…
[QUOTE=Shakester]
There are two basic varieties in pickup design – but I’m not talking about single coil vs humbucker, I’m talking about magnetic rods vs bar magnets.
In Fender pickup designs – Jazzmaster, Jaguar, Strat, Tele – the polepieces are magnetic rods.
In Gibson-style pickups – PAFs, P-90s – the polepieces are non-magnetic screws or rods which connect with a bar magnet. In the two-coil variety, the bar magnet is between the two rows of polepieces, 6 on each side. In a P-90, the screw polepieces pass through 6 holes in the bar magnet. EDIT: some P-90s have two bar magnets, one each side of the screws.
Fender-style magnetic rod polepiece pickups are known for their clarity, Gibson-style bar magnet pickups (single or double coil) are known for their warmth. This is because the bar magnet design emphasises the midrange, while the magnetic rod design emphasises the highs and lows. (I don’t know why, it just seems to be built-in to those designs.)
That’s why Fender pickups are perceived as “clean” and Gibson-style are “warm” (or “muddy”) – it has more to do with the magnetic rod vs bar magnet design than a simple “single-coil vs humbucker” issue. It’s not about the number of coils, it’s about what’s attached to the coils.
[/QUOTE]
Yep, I edited it a little, but that’s the basic story, and it should explain why Jazzmaster pickups sound nothing like P-90s despite them looking similar and both being single coils.
The humbucker/single coil divide isn’t as simple as it first appears.
No, **Shakester **- we’re good; I know most of that stuff. The Phat Cat was simply described from a “cork sniffer” standpoint on various forums as “a P-90 style pickup designed to fit into a humbucker slot - but that it isn’t quite a pure P-90 tone”
Here is the link: Legendary Tones - Seymour Duncan Phat Cat Review
And here’s the quote:
So I wasn’t commented on physical construction…
I recently dug out my Yamaha FG-300 that I hadn’t played in a while and changed the strings on it…ALL BY MYSELF! (I’m so proud of myself!) I figured I couldn’t take it in to my local shop every time I wanted to switch strings, that would cost too much money. It was not nearly as hard as I thought it would be.
I took off the old silk and steel strings, and replaced them with a new set of standard Phosphor Bronze. I don’t know why I didn’t do this earlier. It’s a little harder on my hands, but Oh. My. God. it sounds AMAZING! So now I’ve started playing some of the old Carter Family classics, like this one.
I am having a lot of fun with this now, and it feels less like “practice” and more like “just playing” you know?
CBEscapee would like to know good songs for a beginner.
And there’s a nice long discussion about how the body of a guitar affects the sound here.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13958315
I wanted to show y’all my music room where I have my drums, guitars, keyboard and amps set up, but I’ll have to do it in segments, because the room is kinda small, so bear with me.
Since I no longer work, I plan to spend an hour every day with each instrument learning to play it or play it better.
The reason I have this room at all is because a few years ago some folks from The Straight Dope (several in this thread) helped me out of a tight spot during what I call “The Troubles”, and I’ll be grateful for that for the rest of my life.
One word of explanation: my tom-toms aren’t seated like I wanted them In one of the pics, and I’m still not satisfied with the way I have them now, but any drummer will tell you that Pearl Forums are tough on toms, seating-wise.
Here are the pics…
The black things you see on the cymbals and drums are rubber “mutes” to keep the neighbors happy.
Also, we did a test last Sunday with the amps to see at what loudness point they could hear them and I didn’t get to turn even one to “11”;).
I am fortunate, however, that the amps are okay at level 5. As you can see they are small for the guitar and one rock square for the basses (25 watts). I want one for the keyboard, but that’s way in the future.
I have a very small amp that plugs into the bottom of the guitar (where the cord goes) and I can use headphones with it. Sounds very good.
I appreciate y’all taking a look.
Quasi
PS: I wanted to add that several of those guitars unfortunately spent some time in the pawn shop. I felt like a douche for having to do that…
… Quasi, do you have cattle mutes in your music room? ADMIT IT!
How come your drum throne has arms? I had to take an arm off my chair to practice guitar with.
Is that a shiny new Epi LP, or do you just keep the foam on the switch?
Nice Fender G-Dec. 30 or 15? How’s the modeling sound? I’m still insanely happy with my Vox, though I’m thinking of going to the modeling + tube version, the VT series.
Also, if you want a plug-in modeling headphone amp, I have a Pocket Rockit V2 that I am no longer using, in favor of a Pocket POD. Yours for the asking… allowing for some time for me to find the box, et al.
E-buddy!!!
That seat you’re looking at isn’t the throne. You’re looking over the drums to the left-hand corner of the room where my computer sits and that’s the seat for it. The throne is your every-day run of the mill hemorrhoid antagonist! :p;)
That’s a G. Dec. 15, and I love the modelling. It’s been three years since I’ve used it because of the packed sardine way of living we’ve had to do, so I am getting reaquainted with all its toys.
That’s a shiny new Epi, just out of the box and not yet played. I forgot to take the foam off :rolleyes:, so thanks for the reminder!
“Cattle mutes” - I actually had to look that one up, but no, we have a big back yard, but no mutilated cows as of yet, sorry!
And I’d LOVE to have the V2, E, thanks! Please allow me to pay for it, however!
One more pic: http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff71/Drummerboy49/giwdul001.jpg You should know who that is, right? I have him velcro’d down on that rim, so no probs with him falling off.
Thanks again.
Your pal
Quasi
If you tilt his head back, is there a button to open the Quasi-Pole to the Quasi-Cave? And really, no charge, it’s been sitting on my dresser for six months, and therefore has been designated ‘useless’. Useless things are to be given to people who can get some use out of 'em.
I enjoy this rule because it allows me to do nice things for people for zero reason.
Ha! 
I had to slowly dissect that first sentence, but then I remembered the bust on Batman the TV series! 
Takes me a while, but I usually get there.
A friend with a rule such as this is to be respected, and so I gratefully accept this very kind gift from my friend E-Sabbath!
I will pm you my address any time you’re ready, keeping in mind that there is absolutely no rush, please, okay?
Thanks again for thinking of me.
Bill
Y’all ever heard of doing this?
When I took the Jasmine for a “tune-up” and pre-amp battery replacement a couple of years ago (my ham-fisted hands won’t fit into the sound-hole to do it myself), I remarked on how shiny it was, and my guitar guy told me that is what he uses on all his guitars and those that he fixes and sells.
Thanks
Q