Ibanez RG270 tone pot upgrade??
Hey ive seen on Ebay they have these tone and volume upgrades they usea orange capacitor or resistor that is supposed to be an upgrade that you solder in yourself comes with a wiring diagram has anyone ever done that or heard about them?? i was thinking about geting it but wanted your opinions it only cost $7 including shipping and handling.
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Whether or not to even bother depends on how intensely you focus on tone...
But if you can pick up the cap for a few cents and don't mind doing the work, it's worth trying, just to see if you like it.
Your guitar is a 5-way lever switch, 1 Volume, 1 Tone, typical H/S/H guitar with auto coil tap. The capacitor is on the tone pot to provide a variable low pass filter. Most passive pickups use between .01 and .1 Microfarad tone capacitors. Two most common are .022 and .047. Only the low frequencies pass to the output jack and the high frequencies are grounded out. The capacitor value determines the \"cutoff frequency\" of the filter and the position of the tone pot determines how much the highs (everything above the cutoff frequency) will be reduced.
Larger capacitors will have lower cutoff frequency and sound darker in the bass setting because a wider range of frequencies is being reduced. Smaller capacitors will have a higher cutoff frequency and sound brighter in the bass setting because only the ultra high frequencies are cut.
Humbuckers typically use .022MFD capacitors to cut off less of the highs. Single coils typically use .047MFD capacitors to allow more treble to be rolled off. These capacitors will only affect the sound when the tone control is being used in the bass settings. Little or no affect happens with the tone control in the treble frequencies. Capacitors are used so your guitar doesn't get too dark or muddy sounding.
The \"upgrades\" are different size capacitors depending on your pickups, to bring out the harmonics better, or where you want the tone values. Some of these will help, and some won't make much difference at all over stock caps. You'd have to be willing to try out different sizes, until you find the one that gives you the tone or overtone, you are hoping to get. You should go on the Jem site, or the Ibanez site, and see if anyone else has dinked around with changing caps on a similar Ibanez guitar. The manufacture of pickups will matter. You can't compare DiMarzio's to IBZ or Duncan and expect the same results. There is quite a bit more involved, I won't go into, unless you are serious about whipping out your soldering iron. But I'd go to one of those sites, or even a site based on your pickups, like the Seymour Duncan site, etc. and do a little searching.
You can also put a \"bleed capacitor\" on your volume control to prevent treble frequency loss as the volume pot is turned down. This is done by placing a .001 MFD cap between the input and output terminals of the volume control pot. As the volume is reduced, the capacitor allows high frequencies to bleed through to the output and keeps the tone from getting muddy at lower volume settings. My Ibanez JS 1000 is set up with this, and I love it. I practice all the time at lower volumes.
You will find out there are plenty of tone freaks. Whatever you can dream up, has already been done, and altered since. I can't say I don't enjoy playing Doctor with my guitar. :oops: You will develop G.A.S., (gear acquisition syndrome) but it's all good. Just try to research what you are doing, so you make good choices for yourself, and only after you've done your guitar lessons for the day, first. :P
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Some guitarists don't even bother using the tone control. (like me) Most tone controls only change tone between 7-10. Below that, you hardly notice any difference. The guitar I'm gassing over only has a pickup selector and a coil-tap volume control. (no tone control)
The value of the cap is what really matters, not the volatage rating. If you decide to try some different caps, here is a great idea.
Open your guitar and desolder and remove the existing tone cap. Solder the end of the wires opposite to the alligator clips to the points where the original tone cap was connected and close your guitar leaving the wires hanging out. Now you can change the different caps within seconds by simply connecting with the alligator clips. Play your guitar and use the tone control to see which value works best.