The Ultimate Capacitor Shoot-Out! Bigger and better than my first capacitor shoot out, linked HERE.
Thanks to Jonesy of TONEMOJO (link) fame, who provided the bulk of the awesome caps, as well as great advice. The original capacitor shoot-out was discussed in this thread on MYLESPAUL.COM (link). For great information about capacitors and guitar wiring, and samples and videos, go here to PlanetZ. Ok, let’s do it.
This time I wired the neck position of my 50th anniversary Les Paul, loaded with a Seymour Duncan Seth Lover, but with alligator clips coming out to quickly swap caps without soldering. I played through an old British AC-15. I tried to find a way to send a sample from a loop pedal through a box with volume and tone pots, but I never could get it to work.
I also tested the actual capacitance of each capacitor, and that is reported below.
There are twelve samples, comprised of eleven capacitors and one with no capacitor in the circuit.
Ok, let’s meet the line-up!
1. Russian T-1 Teflon. Rated .022uF tested .022uF
2. Russian K4Y-9 Paper in Oil. Rated .022uF tested .022uF
3. Cornell-Dubilier Paper in Oil. Rated .022uF tested .022uF
4. Goodall Paper in Oil. Rated .022uF tested .022uF
5. Brown Cap (from who knows where). Tested .104uF
6. CRL Centralab Ceramic Disk. Rated .02uF tested .026uF
7. Orange Drop. Rated .022uF tested .022uF
8. Luxe Repro Grey Tiger. Rated .02uF tested .024uF
9. Gibson Repro Bumblebee. Rated .02uF tested .025uF
10. Sprague Vitamin Q. Rated .015uF tested .017uF
11. Jensen Guitarcap Paper in Oil. Rated .022uF tested .025uF
The capacitor audio clips have the same thing played three times, first with the tone wide open, next closed to 6, and finally totally closed. You can click HERE to hear blind samples, with a link to an answer key, or HERE if you’d like to skip to the answer key, which has the samples with the capacitors listed.
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