Fender Tone Pot Capacitor

The tone cap is impeding low frequencies but allowing the high frequencies to pass through to ground.

Fender tone pot capacitor. The fender marshall vox tmb treble mid bass tone stack has been around since the 1950 s and has become a staple with fender and marshall amps when marshall copied the fender 5f6 a bassman almost verbatim to create the jtm45 amplifier the fender tmb tone stack came with it and it s still being designed into new amps today. As you turn the pot counter clockwise treble frequencies are cut. Guitar caps are used to manipulate specific frequencies to shape tone. 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.

A low capacitance tone cap 3300 pf for example will pass the least amounts of high end chime to ground. The capacitance of the tone cap determines the cut off point of the high frequencies. One end soldered to the pot s arm and the second leg is soldered to the bottom of the pot or somewhere else in the ground circuit. Because 250k pots are great for single coil pickups they are the most common with fender ibanez schecter and similar guitars.

On a tone pot instead of sending the complete signal to ground the capacitor only sends a part of the signal to ground. The smaller the capacitor value the more pronounced the bass cut. This gives you that rolled off darker tone. Leo fender s design calls for a 1 meg reverse taper pot with a 002 mfd capacitor.

The easiest way to think of a tone capacitor is that in the typical tone circuit they are a high frequency removal device. The tone pots and capacitors combine to create a low pass filter. For example a 001 mfd capacitor provides a more dramatic bass cut and a 003 mfd is more subtle. When the tone pot is all the way clockwise the full signal of the bass pickups come through.

How the tmb tone stack works. When to use 1 meg pots. You can experiment with the capacitor value in the range of 001 mfd to 003 mfd. The more you turn back the tone pot the more the input lug connects to the right most lug.

Another thing to remember is that the tone cap is always part of the circuit and even influences the guitar s tone when the tone pot is left fully open that s the reason the tone cap is such an important part of the sound. In simple terms the tone pot and capacitor act as a low pass filter cutting the treble as you turn the pot counterclockwise. Tone capacitors are the most misunderstood component in a guitar. How you integrate it into your wiring plan adds.

Orange drop these legendary caps were formerly produced by sprague.