What do I have?

[Neo Fender]

Just ordered and installed a loaded pickguard from Carvin.  It's an HSS Setup.  Bridge pickup is a C22B, full-sized bridge humbucker, Alnico 5, 13.6 KOhms.  Middle and Neck pickups are AP11s, (presumably) Alnico 5 @ 4.3 KOhms.

For the neck and bridge, I'm looking for "regular" (in my mind) Strat tones e.g. "The Wind Cries Mary", "Couldn't Stand the Weather" (yes, I know - not an actual Strat but a Hamiltone - close enough).  Anyway, these tones seem easy to come by in most Strats.  I've even played an old MIM Strat that nails it. 

Initial impressions are that these pickups have a "spiky", "harsh" or "ice-picky" high end.  No "glass".  At 4.3K, they are the "coldest" winds I've ever heard of - most Strat single coils are at least 5 KOhms or more.

I'm wondering if different capacitor values may help?  In the photo, the left pot is a volume pot and the right is a global tone pot - both 500K (I think)  Not shown are a coil split switch and a switch that enables the bridge (i.e. all) pickups not matter what position the 5-way switch is in.

Not sure which cap is doing what.  The green cap reads "223J" and "100V".  The orange (brown) cap reads "181J" and "500V".

Ironically, I'd like a little more mid to upper-mid "honk" from the humbucker, which may be an opposite direction capacitance-wise then what I want from the single coils.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[Cagey]

It's tough to be certain, but it looks like that green cap (.022µF) is your tone control cap, and the ceramic (18pF) is a treble bleed. You can probably get rid of a bit of the edge on things by simply eliminating the bleeder, but it'll change how the frequency response curve looks as you roll down the volume. The vast majority of guitars to date don't have that cap, so that may be the behavior you're looking for.

Also, it looks like one lead of that green cap is within a hair's breadth of shorting out your volume pot. I'd find a way to insulate that.

 

[Neo Fender]

It's tough to be certain, but it looks like that green cap (.022µF) is your tone control cap, and the ceramic (18pF) is a treble bleed. You can probably get rid of a bit of the edge on things by simply eliminating the bleeder, but it'll change how the frequency response curve looks as you roll down the volume. The vast majority of guitars to date don't have that cap, so that may be the behavior you're looking for.

Also, it looks like one lead of that green cap is within a hair's breadth of shorting out your volume pot. I'd find a way to insulate that.

Thanks - food for thought.  I need to play through it more to be sure of what I want.  So the 3 = micro and the 1 = pico.  Also, I notice the proximity of the two leads as well and wrapped a piece of electrical tape around the culprit.  Thanks. 

 

[line6man]

It's tough to be certain, but it looks like that green cap (.022µF) is your tone control cap, and the ceramic (18pF) is a treble bleed. You can probably get rid of a bit of the edge on things by simply eliminating the bleeder, but it'll change how the frequency response curve looks as you roll down the volume. The vast majority of guitars to date don't have that cap, so that may be the behavior you're looking for.

Also, it looks like one lead of that green cap is within a hair's breadth of shorting out your volume pot. I'd find a way to insulate that.

Thanks - food for thought.  I need to play through it more to be sure of what I want.  So the 3 = micro and the 1 = pico.  Also, I notice the proximity of the two leads as well and wrapped a piece of electrical tape around the culprit.  Thanks.

Capacitors work the same way as resistors, except that the code is in numbers instead of color bands. Here's a code calculator page.
http://www.electronics2000.co.uk/calc/capacitor-code-calculator.php

 

[drewfx]

Keep in mind that the tone cap isn't really going to matter if the tone isn't rolled off. And the treble bleed should have no effect if you are at full volume.

You might try adjusting the PU heights as that can have a big effect on the tone of Strat PU's.

 

[Neo Fender]

So if I'm understanding correctly, if I don't like the tone I have with the volume and tone dimed, then neither one of these caps are in play then.

Keep in mind that the tone cap isn't really going to matter if the tone isn't rolled off. And the treble bleed should have no effect if you are at full volume.

You might try adjusting the PU heights as that can have a big effect on the tone of Strat PU's.

 

[Cagey]

Well, the tone cap is, but not to any great degree. It's rolling off frequencies that are much higher than are normally paid attention to with guitars.

 

[Dan025]

So if I'm understanding correctly, if I don't like the tone I have with the volume and tone dimed, then neither one of these caps are in play then.

Keep in mind that the tone cap isn't really going to matter if the tone isn't rolled off. And the treble bleed should have no effect if you are at full volume.

You might try adjusting the PU heights as that can have a big effect on the tone of Strat PU's.

what cagey said... the tone control only uses 2 posts on the pot. while a volume uses all three. the volume pot value loads the circuit directly while the tone pot loads it in series with the cap. when the volume is dimed the treble bleed is shunted onto itself rendering it ineffective while on the tone there is only an increased resistance reducing the effect. you could wire a tone like a volume and it does work and could shunt the tone cap as well to get no treble roll-off from the cap but then it would also load the circuit and you'd need a larger pot value on both pots to get the desired tone.  nobody does this...

anyway part of playing is finding the settings that do sound good to you. i'm not sure a guitar can just always sound good.

but yeah there is a big difference in windings from your singles to the bucker, you can lower the singles to soften things up and reduce "stratitis" which is a condition caused by a focuesed magnetic field too close to the neck creating harmonics and sucking sustain. but you may have a big volume change... you can also have no tone for the bridge if you wire the tone through the 5-way like fender does. you can permanately wire a capacitor to each single coil pickup, or use a resistor on the singles and up the volume pot value. as far as brightening up the bridge, you can use lighter strings, raise the bridge pickup. or buy a bill lawrence q-filter (wilde pickups, not bill lawrence usa. he sold rights to his name and some old product in a bad buisness deal so avoid "bill lawrence USA" they are imported copies of bills old designs.) the q-filter can be used a few ways. it can be added to the tone circuit, sometimes with a resistor to make a sorta notch filter, it sounds a lot like a normal tone control but keeps presence, you can change the resistor to fine tune the high end. or you can put a q-filter in series to a resistor about 10k and put that combo in parallel to the bridge pickup making it sound like an under wound pickup.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

If you have some left over push back cloth or some heat shrink, I'd re-solder those caps to provide some protection against shorting out.

This may look a bit extreme, but I have the utmost confidence that all my wiring is at no risk of shorting anywhere, especially on the push/pull pot.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

My rule is that I am happy to leave anything uninsulated, as long as it's something that's permanently grounded. So on tone controls, one leg of the cap is allowed to stay uninsulated - the grounded leg. Ground wires from pickups are allowed to be uninsulated. And so on. I don't care if grounded things touch each other in the cavity. But I do act as if everything in the cavity is going to touch everything else at some point (however unlikely that may be), so anything that I don't want to be a permanent ground, I put some heatshrink around.