Bad treble bleed capacitor?

[Norm]

Paul Yandell had this to say about adding caps to volume controls and is probably at the root of this...

"Another ‘tinker’ I like is that I have put many master volumes in guitars. They might knock a small amount of highs off your tone but I think most guitars have too many highs anyway.
One way to avoid that is to put a small capacitor across the in and out post of the control."
Paul Yandell cgp

At one time the Gretsch people were having the guitars made by Terada (as they are today) but Fred Gretsch used substandard switches and 'economy' wiring on the harnesses. The switches in particular were source of complaint over at gretschpages.com.

When Fender got involve via FMIC the very first thing they did was to go back to the original Switchcraft switches and upgraded the wiring harness. The current line of Gretsch guitars are probably the best they have ever been...

[Mike Nye]

Paul Yandell had this to say about adding caps to volume controls and is probably at the root of this...

"Another ‘tinker’ I like is that I have put many master volumes in guitars. They might knock a small amount of highs off your tone but I think most guitars have too many highs anyway.
One way to avoid that is to put a small capacitor across the in and out post of the control."
Paul Yandell cgp

That's all well and fine, but WHAT exactly is a SMALL capacitor, HOW SMALL and WHERE is it placed in the circuit ? ? ?

There are alotta variables in that statement . . .

Of course, I can only speculate what's actually going on with this guitar based on the word of it's owner . . .

[Norm]

I think the operative word here is 'tinker'.

Paul is no longer around to answer such questions. In other comments about Chet's wiring (which is what the 6122-59 is) he said Chet generally ran both pickups full out and backed off on the bridge pickup a little. Nothing about Chet adding capacitors to his volume pot.

This makes perfect sense to me. I run my guitar pretty much that way and adjust my tone at the amp.

Guitarists can fool around with all this stuff looking for "The Sound" but I really don't think them that pay the cover charge or the tickets really care whether there's a capacitor on the master volume pot or not.

They pay their money to hear a well played guitar. If the guitarist plays poorly all the capacitors and fancy wiring in the world isn't going to get him off the hook.

So, go ahead and tinker and try this or that. I once designed a harness for Gretsch guitars that gave independent tone switches for each pickup and not only did no one else care but I also tended to run the guitar tone switch free.

Tinkering is fun but practice your actual guitar playing while you're at it.

You'll get more gigs that way...

[Mike Nye]

I've never owned a guitar that I didn't modify in one way or another.

When it gets down to it, there's only ONE way to get EXACTLY what YOU want, and that's to do it YOURSELF ! ! !

I've trial & erred, soldering many a cap, to get that 'JUST RIGHT' attenuation of high frequencies . . .

I just can't imagine "Ya git what ya git from the factory, and ya better like it ! ! !"

[Norm]

Well, the fun is in the hunt which is what tinkering and modifying is all about.

I'm just like you, all my guitars have been tweaked one way or another but, like I said, the paying customer doesn't really care as long as the instrument is played well.

They have no way of knowing what your tweak or modification does or doesn't do because they have nothing to compare it to.

They either like your playing or they don't and if they don't like your playing it really doesn't matter what was done to the guitar...

[smokymtguitar09]

Tom,
I've experimented with tone capacitors in various ways over the years and usually ended up using the 'cut & try' method to select one that sounds best. In recent years an array of small capacitors are available from Newark Electronics, Mouser, Digikey, Radio Shack, Parts Express and other sources. As already stated voltage rating of capacitors for guitars is not an issue. The old standby for guitar tone circuits is a small disc ceramic somewhere in the value of .001 mfd (microfarads) or so. My favorite is the small brown silver mica capacitors of various values....but here again 'cut and try'. To knock down some of the treble freq. some guitar makers solder one end of the capacitor from one of the 3 leads on the pot. to the body of the control to minimize lead length. It is easy to get a 'cold' solder joint on the tone pot but don't use so much heat that might damage it or the capacitor. My problem with tinkering with a Gretsch CG or 6120 CGP is how to best get access since they have a sealed top with fake F holes.

You might consider taking the guitar to an authorized dealer for an evaluation after first consulting with the guitar maker's support or customer service dept. with your questions. That's my thoughts on the subject and I hope this helps.

[Tom Workman]

Rob, Norm, Mike, Mark, Gary and Ronnie...
Thanks for taking the time to respond, I really appreciate all the input and suggestions. Some of these have already been eliminated, some yet to be considered. I played the N.C. last night for close to two hours and the problem didn't occur... go figure. It's an occasional intermittent thing and it really wouldn't bother me too much except if it happened while I was performing. Anyway, I'm going to try some process-of-elimination things whenever it happens again to help narrow things down. As requested in a reply, I will post about this again once I have figured it out. Of course, it may simply eventually lead to my taking it to a pro for diagnostics. While we're on this subject, are any of you aware of any other type of electronic problems encountered by owners of the 6122-59 Gretsch? Thanks again to all who responded. -Tom W.

[Mike Nye]

If this issue leads to the guitar as the culprit after trying the guitar with a different amp, and the amp with a different guitar, your next order of business should be REMOVING that cap the guy added, restoring the wiring back to the STOCK configuration per the schematic I'd previously posted a link to . . .

I'm done here . . .

[Norm]

Tom, since FMIC got involved with Gretsch the whole line has been about as trouble free as a production instrument can be. I've not read of any quirky problems with any of the Gretschs over at gretschpages.com except for tuning issues connected with improperly cut nuts and those were easily dealt with by having a good setup guy attend to it.

Mike implies (and he may be right) that the whole problem may be in the original tweak and restoring it to stock might be the best 'cure'. His comment

"If this so-called treble-bleed cap (???) that this guy installed is a bi-polar cap with too low of a voltage rating, it could be charging to it's peak and then rolling the higher frequencies off until it's discharged . . .

http://wpc.077d.edgecastcdn.net/00077D/ ... ircuit.pdf

NOTE: the 22.3K CAPACITOR illustrated for the MASTER TONE POT is supposed to be a .022uf 100V RADIAL or AXIAL CAPACITOR...."

I'd really give it some thought and do as Mike suggests and restore it to stock or have someone who really understands this kind of thing look at it and either restore it or put the tweak right and replacing the current capacitor making sure the proper one is used in the process. Tweaking is fun and interesting but its sometimes best to start from scratch.

Upgrading the pots is a good idea too. I bought a TVJones bridge pickup, the one that rates nearly 8K and while I was at it redid my whole harness and replaced all my pots with excellent units. Just knowing the quality parts are there makes me feel better.

[LMark]

NOTE: the 22.3K CAPACITOR illustrated for the MASTER TONE POT is supposed to be a .022uf 100V RADIAL or AXIAL CAPACITOR...."[/i]

The "3K" in 223K (on the diagram) is a multiplier that yields .022uF in this case. See http://www.turretboards.com/capacitor_conversion_chart.htm. Thank you, Mister Faraday . . . . LMark