Looking for a good source for snake oil.

Robert Herndon said:
I really never pay much attention to what suffer costs, just that its right for the job....
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I get that, and for a lot of things there is a difference between budget items and their more expensive brethren. Not so with capacitors. The .30 cent ceramic disc is no different than the $20 PIO, and is likely more stable/less prone to drift over time. This is one of those areas that the snake-oil salesmen really get people confused and that's why is makes me mad. They all sound the da
 
...Or old (vintage) is always better.

As far as tone caps, the furthest I have gone is newer orange drops. I saw that Youtube video of that guy who hooked up about a dozen caps with a switch. The only difference seemed to be between cap values, not types.
 
gball said:
I get that, and for a lot of things there is a difference between budget items and their more expensive brethren. Not so with capacitors. The .30 cent ceramic disc is no different than the $20 PIO, and is likely more stable/less prone to drift over time. This is one of those areas that the snake-oil salesmen really get people confused and that's why is makes me mad. They all sound the da
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My 1974 Gibson SG came stock with ceramic capacitors. When I first got it, I'd use the tone control. It worked. I thought the guitar sounded good.

Then, many years later I learned that I wasn't supposed to like the sound of my guitar because it had those cheap, ceramic caps.

Today, it still has those original ceramic capacitors. I still use the tone control. It still works. And I still think the guitar sounds good.
 
My beloved LP Jr.....has this......
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and it sounds fooking AMAZING
 
eSGEe said:
Big BEnds NUT SAUCE will fix all your ills

Guitar Tuning Lubricant from Big Bends Nut Sauce
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gball said:
If you need to put this crap on your nut to get the guitar to stay in tune your nut is cut incorrectly.
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Alright, I’m gonna have to argue this one a bit since I use the stuff. I only use it on three of my guitars. I only apply at string changes, and only to the nut(and in one case a string tree). The three with non locking trem's, one is in my current avatar, one in my sig, and the third is my Strat(I used to just ignore the trem on the Strat, but after success with the other two, I give it a chance now and then).
If I skip it at string change, the D strings on the Gibson guitars bind a bit and stay sharp by about 3-5 cents(just enough to be annoying)after using the bar liberally.
I know that I could make the stuff, or a suitable substitute, myself but storing it in an effective applicator wins my $6-$7 shipped to my mailbox. The first syringe full lasted over 5 years before I managed to lose it, and I wasn’t halfway through it. So yeah, I bought it a second time.

As to the cut of my nuts... they function flawlessly on a nice hard tail...
(y)
 
eSGEe said:
I used those in a couple tone chases....really dont think it did anything more than a tweak of the knobs on the amp would have accomplished......for free and without the use of solder.....
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I've experimented with Bumblebees, Orange Drops, Discs, Chicklets, and just about everything else. I settled on the K40Y PIO's for a very specific reason. They were the only tone capacitors I tested that didn't get muddy when rolled all the way off.
 
gball said:
3 bucks isn't horrible. Still 100 times more than you should spend but not horrible.
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I have a whole bunch of green chiclets I bought when a local Radio Shack was closing up. I bought some .033's and some .015's, which I like in a humbucker guitar.

I tried a few in a couple of project guitars, but I could really hear a difference. The chiclets got muddy when I rolled them off heavily. When I tried the same thing with a K40Y of the same value, it wasn't muddy at all...it just took the edge off.

After that experiment, I stayed with them.

I decided to use Orange Drops on my Von Herndon Stagecrafters because I got a really good deal on them and the harnesses from Tone Man and a lot of folks seem to favor them...but in my own guitars, I use the K40Y's.

IMG_20180209_21563.jpg
 
smitty_p said:
My 1974 Gibson SG came stock with ceramic capacitors. When I first got it, I'd use the tone control. It worked. I thought the guitar sounded good.

Then, many years later I learned that I wasn't supposed to like the sound of my guitar because it had those cheap, ceramic caps.

Today, it still has those original ceramic capacitors. I still use the tone control. It still works. And I still think the guitar sounds good.
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Yeah, funny how that works.
 
eSGEe said:
My beloved LP Jr.....has this......
fullsizerender.jpg


and it sounds fooking AMAZING
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Absolutely no reason it shouldn't. A very good argument could be made that it is a better solution since it's more repeatable and predictable - same reason they started using them in amplifiers. All the goofy voodoo out there about how capacitors and pots "sound" just drives me nuts. I know people say they hear a difference but let's be honest, if they do it's because they want to hear it. I'm no electronics engineer, but my dad was and I learned enough from him over the years to know that any perceived difference has only to do with variances/drift in rated component values, nothing more, and most definitely not anything to do with the construction. It's all pure BS and there is a whole cottage industry making money off this nonsense. Hell, most guitar players never turn the damn knobs anyway, just run everything wide open all the time, mooting the point entirely.

Now, you may prefer one capacitor value over another, or one pot taper over another, but those are separate matters.
 
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