Guitar Tone Capacitor Polarity

The tone control capacitor.

Guitar tone capacitor polarity.

A capacitor is a device that stores electricity. The larger cap will give you a darker tone when you roll down the tone knob. This component is usually attached to your tone control and it s the only difference between the tone control and the volume control. The negative side goes to the back of the pot.

Guitar capacitors explained what do capacitors do. Solder the capacitor from tab 3 of the tone control to the back of the tone control pot being mindful of the polarity of the capacitor. The tone pots and capacitors combine to create a low pass filter. Capacitance is measured using farads from picofarads to kilofarads from very.

Let s dig in a little bit and figure out what a tone capacitor is doing to your guitar signal first. Tone capacitors are the most misunderstood component in a guitar. Capacitors in guitar circuits. It seems like i read something about cap polarity here at some point but my search didn t turn up anything useful.

Capacitors are often used in electrical and electronic circuits as energy storage devices. The tone control capacitor resides in the control compartment of your guitar where all of the electronics are stored. Capacitance is defined as the ability of a component to store an electrical charge. How you integrate it into your wiring plan adds another dimension to the manipulation of your tone.

The process of storing energy in the capacitor is known as charging and involves electrical charges of equal magnitude but opposite polarity building up on each side. 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. They are used primarily on tone controls to bleed treble to ground. Now you won t be able to fit your handmade capacitor inside your guitar but there are mass produced capacitors that fit nicely and change the tone of your instrument by rolling off the high frequencies in conjunction with the guitar s tone pot.

Guitar tone control caps usually range from 022 µf 047 µf. From what i ve read the outer foil lead should be toward the input and the inner foil lead toward the output. Add the tone control by soldering a wire from tab 1 of the volume control to tab 2 of the tone control. They can also be used to differentiate between high frequency and low frequency signals.

Guitar caps are used to manipulate specific frequencies to shape tone. The smaller the capacitor like 022 015 or less the less the treble is removed this is because the filter frequency shifts higher so more high frequency remains. I ve recently read that tone capacitors should be correctly oriented in their polarity or there will be a high end roll off. The value you choose is rather subjective.