SoZo Next Gen Mustard tone capacitors
£5.99
About
I have used these in the past in my harness kits and they were a great item. I have found them to be well made with strong lead outs, consistent in their tolerances and also are a nice compact size making them easy to work with and not too bulky for tighter guitar cavities.
Although initially developed for guitar tube amplifiers, this cap also works great in guitar control circuits too! The way I see it, if these caps are high quality enough for some of the worlds finest amplifiers, then they will be over engineered for our guitar circuits making them a more than ample option to use! They are handmade to exacting, vintage style specs.
"After years of painstaking research and development, in 2003 SoZo Amplification began manufacturing the SoZo Mustard Cap™ capacitors, which quickly caught on among discriminating musicians and amp designers. Now, hundreds of thousands of capacitors later, SoZo has engineered capacitor product lines optimized for different products, including amps by Marshall™, Fender®, Vox®, HiWatt, and others, as well as professional sound gear from Neve, API, Neumann, Universal Audio, Urei, and virtually any quality gear from the 1950s on.
These caps are successful recreations of the originals and are superbly built and excellent-sounding caps. When one considers the audio signal passes through as many as ten capacitors before exiting the amplifier, you can see how these components play an extremely large role in the tone of the amplifier."
Which value for my guitar?
Although choices of cap value can be down to personal preference, there are some general recommendations that are followed -
.0047uF is used for wiring schemes such as the Esquire 'Eldred Mod'
.01uF is also used traditionally used in a Fender Jaguar rhythm and lead tone circuit but as also discussed below, can be a handy value to try if you have muddy pickups and want to try and squeeze a little more clarity from it.
.022uF is a popular choice all-round but is perhaps a more common choice for humbucker pickups, this will help the characteristically darker sounding pickup retain some treble frequency clarity. Some players can also opt for a .01uF value in the neck humbucker position to further help clear up a particularly muddy/dark sounding pickup. The .022uF value can also work great with single coils though, and offers a more subtle effect on trebles than a .047uF.
.033uF value is traditionally used in Jazzmaster lead circuits, perhaps due to the 1 MEG volume and tone pots and the single coil pickup design. This is usually based off the pickup manufacturers recommendations.
.047uF is a popular for single coils, which will help tame some of the treble frequencies from the characteristically bright pickup design.
0.1uF was the value commonly used in 50s Fenders like the Strat, Tele and P-Bass. Some fans of traditional specs and tone recreation still favour this cap value for it's warmer tone. From a recent bit of researchIt is is a popular choice among bass players is a 0.1uF, as I believe Pino Paladino opts for this spec in his signature bass.
So to summarise, if you have a particularly dark or muddy sounding pickup that you'd like to let breathe a little more and allow some treble frequencies through, a lower value cap like a .010uF or .022uF cap will work great. If you have some particularly bright pickups and you want to tame the treble frequencies, a .033uF or .047uF is a great choice.
For example, I have gold foil pickups in my main guitar, paired with 500k pots. These can be quite a bright single coil, so I didn't like the .022uF as it made them sound a bit too bright for my tastes, but the .047uF choked them up a bit. So I opted for a .033uF which seemed to find a nice middle ground of still sounding very clear, but with a touch of warmth when needed.
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About
I have used these in the past in my harness kits and they were a great item. I have found them to be well made with strong lead outs, consistent in their tolerances and also are a nice compact size making them easy to work with and not too bulky for tighter guitar cavities.
Although initially developed for guitar tube amplifiers, this cap also works great in guitar control circuits too! The way I see it, if these caps are high quality enough for some of the worlds finest amplifiers, then they will be over engineered for our guitar circuits making them a more than ample option to use! They are handmade to exacting, vintage style specs.
"After years of painstaking research and development, in 2003 SoZo Amplification began manufacturing the SoZo Mustard Cap™ capacitors, which quickly caught on among discriminating musicians and amp designers. Now, hundreds of thousands of capacitors later, SoZo has engineered capacitor product lines optimized for different products, including amps by Marshall™, Fender®, Vox®, HiWatt, and others, as well as professional sound gear from Neve, API, Neumann, Universal Audio, Urei, and virtually any quality gear from the 1950s on.
These caps are successful recreations of the originals and are superbly built and excellent-sounding caps. When one considers the audio signal passes through as many as ten capacitors before exiting the amplifier, you can see how these components play an extremely large role in the tone of the amplifier."
Which value for my guitar?
Although choices of cap value can be down to personal preference, there are some general recommendations that are followed -
.0047uF is used for wiring schemes such as the Esquire 'Eldred Mod'
.01uF is also used traditionally used in a Fender Jaguar rhythm and lead tone circuit but as also discussed below, can be a handy value to try if you have muddy pickups and want to try and squeeze a little more clarity from it.
.022uF is a popular choice all-round but is perhaps a more common choice for humbucker pickups, this will help the characteristically darker sounding pickup retain some treble frequency clarity. Some players can also opt for a .01uF value in the neck humbucker position to further help clear up a particularly muddy/dark sounding pickup. The .022uF value can also work great with single coils though, and offers a more subtle effect on trebles than a .047uF.
.033uF value is traditionally used in Jazzmaster lead circuits, perhaps due to the 1 MEG volume and tone pots and the single coil pickup design. This is usually based off the pickup manufacturers recommendations.
.047uF is a popular for single coils, which will help tame some of the treble frequencies from the characteristically bright pickup design.
0.1uF was the value commonly used in 50s Fenders like the Strat, Tele and P-Bass. Some fans of traditional specs and tone recreation still favour this cap value for it's warmer tone. From a recent bit of researchIt is is a popular choice among bass players is a 0.1uF, as I believe Pino Paladino opts for this spec in his signature bass.
So to summarise, if you have a particularly dark or muddy sounding pickup that you'd like to let breathe a little more and allow some treble frequencies through, a lower value cap like a .010uF or .022uF cap will work great. If you have some particularly bright pickups and you want to tame the treble frequencies, a .033uF or .047uF is a great choice.
For example, I have gold foil pickups in my main guitar, paired with 500k pots. These can be quite a bright single coil, so I didn't like the .022uF as it made them sound a bit too bright for my tastes, but the .047uF choked them up a bit. So I opted for a .033uF which seemed to find a nice middle ground of still sounding very clear, but with a touch of warmth when needed.