Recap guitar electronics?

[flexoffset]

I read in another thread about recapping guitar electronics with Jensen copper foil in oil capacitors, specifically.

Will this improvement be worth the cost? It's a stock 1986 or 1987 Charvel Model 7.

Has anyone here experienced recapping a guitar and can vouch for the improvement in sound quality and improvement in the actual tone?

Thanks in advance
Richard

[jbuntz]

Yes. Old filter caps can cause odd noises and loss of bass. I had this old 1949 amp recapped and it was as noticable of an improvement as re-tubing.

[Etnier]

Yes. Old filter caps can cause odd noises and loss of bass. I had this old 1949 amp recapped and it was as noticable of an improvement as re-tubing.

He's asking about recapping the electronics in his guitar. AFAIK the typical tone control cap in a conventional electric guiar is a mica disc, and not subject to the aging effects that occur with electrolytics. I do know that when I turn down the treble on my older guitars the treble decreases substantially, and that's a much better fit of design to function than NASA has managed to average in decades.

I don't know shit about mid-80's Charvel, or Baskin-Robbins or any of those firms: maybe they have active electronics, in which case all bets are off.

[jbuntz]

Oops.

[Jay Kahrs]

Yeah, it's a ceramic cap in the guitar and it won't wear out like an electrolitic. If the guitar has active electronics then it's probably not worth dicking around with. If it's passive then you could try replacing the cap on the tone control with a lower value would be good. You'll lose less top as you roll the tone control down. Gibson uses .22uF caps which basiclly turn to mud with a slight turn. Going to something like a .10uF would be a lot better. If you never use the tone control you'll never hear a differance. Still, when I think '80's and Charvel/Jackson I can't help but think that better pickups would be dramatic improvement.

[flexoffset]

I have been wondering about that. Who would you suggest I contact. I run the gamut from clean Jazz sounds through heavy distortion.

It sounds like these stock Jackson pickups are a little muddy and I would prefer more definition. The electronics are active so that rules caps out.

I want more definition and I want each string to be balanced out through the pickups. Would you suggest a custom mfg. or something like EMG or something?

I'm currently saving up for a few other guitars...PRS, Gibson, etc.
I've only got a Charvel (bought by Fender) and a completely stock '59 strat right now, though.

Thanks for all your responses.

[Chae Ham]

Originally posted by flexoffset
I have been wondering about that. Who would you suggest I contact. I run the gamut from clean Jazz sounds through heavy distortion.

It sounds like these stock Jackson pickups are a little muddy and I would prefer more definition. The electronics are active so that rules caps out.

I want more definition and I want each string to be balanced out through the pickups. Would you suggest a custom mfg. or something like EMG or something?

I'm currently saving up for a few other guitars...PRS, Gibson, etc.
I've only got a Charvel (bought by Fender) and a completely stock '59 strat right now, though.

Thanks for all your responses.

If you want a more open sound an easy and cheap yet extremely noticeable mod you could make would be to replace your stock volume pots for 1M pots. The higher impedence of the 1M pots bleeds off less of the high end freqs. so you get a more defined "open" sound. This is assuming you're using the usual 500K pot for your humbuckers.

If your pickups are 'active' it will most likely be using a 25K pot, and the above mod may not work so well. You could however try a 250K pot and see how that works out--I'm sure it would be interesting as an experiment. Same idea though, the higher resistive value the less hi freq. signal gets bled to ground and more output to the amp.

Hope that helps.

[Jay Kahrs]

Originally posted by flexoffset
I have been wondering about that. Who would you suggest I contact. I run the gamut from clean Jazz sounds through heavy distortion.

There'a a whole thread on guitar pickups in my forum and it's pretty current.