Seeing as the following article disappeared off the net due to link rot or some other crap, I had saved it years ago for that very reason. I thought it was good enough to answer the age old questions about capapitors and short enough not to piss off those with the shortest attention spans . . . so without further ado, or doodoo, here's the article I clipped from the Hoagland Brothers . . .

CAPACITOR VOODOO

Since no one really understands how capacitors work, it's kind of the "voodoo" of the wiring harness parts. But it's really very simple when it's explained in english.

Capacitors cut the treble. Period. That's it.

Oh, sure, it's a bit more complex than that. But not much. And I'm not going to get into all of the technical mumbo-jumbo here. (well... maybe just a little of it) I'm not sure that I really understand it all myself. And I really don't need to as long as I understand the effects of different capacitors on the sound of the guitar.

Since humbucking pickups tend to be a little "darker" sounding anyway, guitar companies (like Gibson) use a capacitor with a value of .022mfd (microfarads). They don't want to cut too much of the treble from the pickups but still want the pickup to come across as "dark & sinister" and, for lack of a better term, "Les Paul sounding".

On the other hand, single coil pickups have a brighter sound by nature so guitar manufacturers (like Fender) use a capacitor with a value of .047mfd to retard (or cut) the treble. The caps have a higher value and, therefore, reduce more of the treble from the pickup.

A little more technical explanation on capacitors: Most guitars and basses with passive pickups use between .01mfd and .1mfd (microfarad) tone capacitors with .022mfd and .047mfd being the most common choices. (although there are other values to chose from as well) The capacitor and tone pot are wired together to provide a variable low pass filter. This means when the filter is engaged (tone pot is turned up) only the low frequencies pass to the output jack and the high frequencies are grounded out (cut). In this application, the capacitor value determines the "cutoff frequency" of the filter and the position of the tone pot determines how much of the highs (everything above the cutoff frequency) will be reduced.

So the rule is:

* Larger-value capacitors will have lower cutoff frequency and sound darker in the bass setting because a wider range of frequencies are being reduced.

* Smaller-value capacitors will have a higher cutoff frequency and sound brighter in the bass setting because only the ultra-high frequencies are cut.

For this reason, dark sounding guitars (like Les Pauls) with humbuckers typically use .022mfd capacitors to cut off less of the highs and guitars like Strats and Teles with single coils typically use .047mfd capacitors to allow more treble to be rolled off.

Keep in mind that the capacitor value only affects the sound when the tone control is being used (pot in the bass setting).

The tone capacitor value will have little to no effect on the sound when the tone pot is in the treble setting.

If you're looking for a raw, visceral sound from your guitar and you want to hear 100% of your pickups with NO alteration, order your harness with no capacitors. Easy, huh?