Capacitor Question..

KevS

I've read many things and they seem to contradict each other,,
or you start reading and give up when you don't find the info after a long read
and your brain just gets tired out if you read an exhaustive essay on the subject.,
with lots of other information...

OK say we have a Gibson Les Paul and the Neck pickup has a 47 microfarad capacitor in it with a 500k pot..
Will the guitar with the volume and Tone control up full 

A... Remain at the exact same Brightness.... or B become Brighter if you change the Capacitor to a 22 microfarad one..?

Cirrus

It'll get brighter, but by an incredibly small amount. Like, the humidity in the atmosphere changing, or powering a fuzz with a Duracel vs. an Energiser 9v levels of tone subtlety.

Funkfingers

With both controls turned up full, theoretically, the only difference is the loading effect of the capacitor on the pickup. 

I know of no reliable predictor of the amount of difference.

As Cirrus says, the difference will be minuscule, difficult to discern and certainly not enough to rescue a guitar that sounds excessively "dark".

A quicker way to brighten a "dark" sounding electric guitar is to change from nickel wrapped strings to stainless steel ones.

Some people argue over the merits of the bridge/tailpiece material. (Doug & Pat have probably made a video about JUST this.) Bonnamassa could probably write a postgraduate thesis on steel versus aluminium and whether the saddle retaining wire is a critical factor.

KevS said:

Gibson Les Paul … Neck pickup

Which make/model? Covered or open bobbins?

Dave_Mc

What @Cirrus said. I did have a few guitars where I thought it made enough of a difference to be worthwhile (or worthwhile enough to put them on a switch)- but they were Strat and Tele-style guitars. I haven't tried it with humbuckers (on a switch) and it may be less noticeable there since single coils tend to have more top end.

@Funkfingers Are stainless steel strings sore on frets? I've only killed the frets on one guitar ever, and I was using stainless steel strings at the time. It might have been a coincidence, but I stopped once I realised that stainless steel frets were a lot harder than regular frets and figured the same might be true for strings..

EDIT: I haven't tried different tailpieces. Another option would be a no-load tone pot, that would brighten things a bit as well.