Fender Student Model tone capacitor?

Nico Hillary · From: France

Hi all, bonjour from France ! Smile

Long time listener, first time caller!
I have a question about my '76 Fender Student Model S10. The tone is kinda thick and full. It just doesn't have that real classic crystal PSG tone.
The pickup wires (red + black) go straight to the jack. Someone resoldered at some time and made a real mess of it. That or it was a REAL Friday afternoon job at the Sho-Bud factory. Lol Did someone maybe remove the cap at the same time?
So my question is can I cut out some of the bass frequency by soldering in a capacitor between a pickup lead and the jack? If so, can one of you good people tell what cap specification/value and where to put it in the circuit.
Thanks in advance and God bless!
Nico

Nick Krol · From: Rhode Island, USA

Hi Nico

It is definitely possible to do that but finding a correct value that works will be a bit of a pain. It's going to depend on a lot of things, such as:

The impedance of your pickup
The length of cable between your guitar/pedal
The type of volume pedal
How loud you have the volume pedal
The input circuitry of your amp

Changing any one of these will affect the location of the cutoff frequency that adding this cap will create.

Have you messed with pickup height? Tone controls on your amp? Just turning a couple knobs on my amp can get it from sounding thick, full, muffled to brilliant and glistening highs
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The sticker makes it sound better

J Fletcher · From: London,Ont,Canada

Those guitars are pretty bright sounding as a rule . Has the pickup been changed ?

Nico Hillary · From: France

Hi Nick, Hi J,

Wow, thanks for the speedy replies. FWIW I was reading my post again, and I think "rich" might be a better description of the tone. It'd make a great jazz pickup - after all, it's just an overblown Jazzmaster - but I just can't get that brittle, crying tone from it - like with the Jazzmaster "strangle" switch.

First up, the pickup is stock, rated to around 9kOhm IIRC. It bolts straight onto the top of the guitar so the clearance is pretty much fixed at max 4mm / 1/6in. I could maybe shim it up a credit card's worth if that might make a difference.

My cables are pretty long. Decent if not finest quality. Not total cr4p either. 2 x 5m is maybe excessive, especially for bedroom practice? Smile

My volume pedal is an old Proel that I changed the pot from a 20k to a 500k and travel adjusted to go from just-open to full-on. Again, not top quality but it does the job.

Amp wise, I'm using a red stripe transtube Peavey Envoy. Optimum settings seem to be Input = Clean, low gain, 'vintage' voice, V=4, B+2 M-7 T+4. I also have a Crate GX212 (kind of tranny Twin-a-like) and a Line6 Spider 5 V20 - surprisingly good on the 'Clean' settings pretty much straight out of the box if you remember to turn off the D-FX. I've spent hours messing with all the amps, but it always turns out much the same.

...so that's why I'm thinking a bass-cut in the circuit might be the way forward. Oh, and the guitar is totally original and unmolested so I wanted to avoid any major surgery if at all possible.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end, hope this gives you something to work on... Smile

Mike Auman · From: North Texas, USA

A capacitor to ground, including the capacitance of long cables, will reduce the treble frequencies. To reduce the bass frequencies, add a capacitor in series between your pickup and output jack. To make it variable, add a pot in parallel with the cap. However, nothing passive will increase treble, a passive control can only reduce, not add.

If you do want to reduce bass, here's how the adjustable bass rolloff is done in standard guitars, including G&L and Reverend. The effect is not as dramatic as the Tone pot, but you can cut about 5 dB at 100 Hz, which is audible. Put a capacitor in parallel with a large potentiometer: 1 Megohm, C taper recommended for easiest control, but 1 Megohm A or B taper will work, and 2.2 nanofarad (nF) cap recommended to start. Put this circuit in series between your pickup and the amp, preferably before the volume pedal, even in a small box. No power needed. Pickup is to the left, volume pedal to the right. You can use a smaller value capacitor (1nF) to reduce the bass more, but it also starts reducing the midrange, so it's a judgment call. If you don't need to adjust it, just solder the cap in series between the pickup and the output jack of the guitar.

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Long-time guitar player, now wrestling with lap steel.

Jim Palenscar · From: Oceanside, Calif, USA

Shooting from the hip- the most common value I encounter in tone caps is .047 microfarad

Nick Krol · From: Rhode Island, USA

Nico

It could be worth trying to circuit discussed above. But based on your explanation, I think your volume pedal could be causing issues.

You changed the pot from 20k to 500k. When the pedal is anywhere below max volume, a 500k pot will significantly cut the treble - imagine on a 6 string electric the difference in tone between max volume and rolling off the volume a little bit. There’s a big cut to the high end as you reduce the volume.

All the well known volume pedal designs that use the high impedance pots like that 500k one will incorporate treble bleed circuitry into the pedal. If you just switched the pot without changing anything else then that could be your issue

Try the guitar directly into the amp without the pedal. Are you able to get the sparkle in your tone back?
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The sticker makes it sound better

Nico Hillary · From: France

Hello Mike,
Thanks for your reply. Wow, I'm genuinely astonished. Just swapped out the cables from the guitar to the VP and VP to the amp for ones half the length and hey presto TONE! Smile

In fact, I just tried out my little Peavey Blazer 158, which always sounded genuinely terrible, and it's actually a little cracker. Next step is to try the shortest possible cables - say 4ft to the VP and 6ft to the amp - and see if that improves things further.

Thanks also for the schematic. I have an ancient Ogden's* tobacco tin somewhere that would make a neat little casing for an outboard tone control.

Thanks again to you and Nick and J for all your excellent advice.

*as in The Small Faces album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

Mike Auman · From: North Texas, USA

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