I have a tele that was loaded with a fairly standard wiring loom. 2x250k pots, a .22 tone cap and another 22 treble bypass (treble bleed) cap across lugs 2 and 3 of the volume pot. I swapped a 4-way switch for 3-way.
When I played through my pedals, I found that the guitar's volume pot didn't make my fuzzface cleaner when rolled back. In fact, both tone and volume pot seemed to do very little until the extreme end of the sweep.
I switched the volume-tone pot connection to the
50s/Fezz Parka style (which I tend to do on most of my guitars) and it was still largely the same until I
also removed the treble bypass cap. Then, the guitar's controls and their interaction with the fuzzface worked as expected.
What I don't understand is why did the treble bypass cap affect the fuzzface cleanup interaction so drastically? I know that the fuzzface/vol pot cleanup is related to the impedance of the fuzz input and the impedance of the guitar's output but I don't know enough to say how/why the cap changes things.
With that cap installed, the guitar was very midrange-heavy and had a nice, fat grunt but the controls were basically useless. With it removed, it's much more trebly with vol/tone maxed and the controls have a much more noticeable effect on the sound.
Comments
The useful value range for it is usually 100pF (.0001uF) to 1000pF (.001uF). For what it's worth, unless that .22uF is a typo your tone cap value is also a factor of ten too large, in which case the treble-pass is actually 200 to 2000 times too large and is essentially bypassing the taper entirely, so you will only hear a difference when the pot gets close to zero. Tone caps should usually be in the .01uF to .1uF range.
Even with the right cap value the Fuzz Face tends to not clean up as well with a treble-pass, so I would completely expect it to not do at all with that size of cap.
But that said, unless you've also wired something else up wrong, the treble pass cap should have no effect on the tone with both the volume and tone up full.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Is the reason for this simple enough that you could explain it to a simpleton like myself?
I'm not totally sure, although it's something I have noticed. I assume it's because the input impedance of the Fuzz Face is quite low, in parallel with the lower part of the pot track, and so the pot is effectively 'turned down' further than it physically is and the effect of the cap is then exaggerated.
I have to admit I'm not a fan of Fuzz Faces and that overly-touchy interaction with the guitar. For me there is only one good setting, which is both the pedal knobs and the guitar volume up full...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Next time I do a part order, I'll grab a couple of .047 caps to try out.