"the whole mojo component thing"

I read this sentence from 11Gauge with delight. I bought into the component mojo briefly. Then two things happened. First a local pedal builder who makes some pedals that I really dig told me about his use of electrolytics and the "dreaded" tantalum capacitors in some of his circuits. Including the TS variant that he makes that I love so much.

Then I modded my Boss CS-3 to the specs for the "Ultimate CS-3 Mod" and it uses tantalums heavily in a few critical places. And I think my modded CS-3 sounds FANTASTIC.

So it only took two nails to close the coffin on all that BS for me.

So why does this "component mojo" myth persist, and how can will kill it dead?

I think people some people are very conservative in the guitar world and everyone is always trying to copy someone or something. Add to that the fact that there are a bunch of companies that incite the whole thing to reel in the cash.

For low voltage/current devices such as stomp boxes, tantalum caps are gonna be sonically the same as an electrolytic. A Germanium diode behaves on the same principal as its silicon equivalent, but it only drops ~0.3 volts where the latter drops ~0.6 volts. There may be some difference in generated noise because of this difference but in practical use, the Germanium will clip at lower signal levels. Like a diode, resistors are inherently noisy and its composition ( ie: carbon, metal film, etc) contributes more to its power/heat rating than its audio capabilities. Again, with a stomp box, power rating is a non-issue and tolerance is what is important. You can certainly induce additional noise in the chain when using even high tolerance series/parallel resistors when trying to achieve an odd or fine grained value. Short, shielded leads, good ground planes, true bypass and a good soldering technique contribute more to a better sounding effect.

Here's mojo components for you - the Kinks slashing their speakers for overdrive... something Link Wray did with pencil holes. Ike's guitar player having his amp fall on the road, damaging it and making "Rocket 88" a fantastic piece of rock history.

Some classic had some brutally lo-fi pieces of equipment, or even junk gear to capture their "mojo." Add noisey old mixing boards, awful mics, and all kinds of gear in the production of some of our greatest classics.

Just a few things to consider:

Jimi's coily cable.

Buck and Don playing sparkly guitars with thick automotive paint.

James Burton's Paisley Teles.

Brad Paisley's Paisley Teles.

All of the above defy all of the "conventional wisdom." All had/have pretty darn good tone that most of us seek.

My advice is to try anything you can afford, but start with the cheap stuff first.

Sometimes noise levels of components are unacceptable, like with the original 741 op amp. Luckily, there are other companies now making the chip, and some are a bit quieter than others. And before judgement is passed on this chip, it should be known that it was in older Crowther Hotcakes!

And sometimes noise actually adds something to the tones. Part of the magic with a tube amp is that the power section gets modulated to some degree by A.C. signals that cannot be filtered out (or purposefully are lightly filtered). While you are only going to get a fraction of the same effect in a pedal, it cannot be denied altogether, IMO.

Open up a bunch of pedals that sound nice and you're bound to see cheap mylar and ceramic caps, polarized electrolytics, and all other sorts of "reject" componentry. The OCD line uses greenies for coupling caps, and a "rejected for noise" TL082 chip. It also uses a tantalum output cap. I believe that the KoT does/did use tantalum on the o/p, as well, and it uses the same op amp as the Bad Monkey - the 4580! And the Dirty Little Secret is also greenies and ceramics, and "non premium" 2N5457 jFET's. I could go on and on...

If you're building on a small scale, the metal film stuff is fine, and it does cut noise when you've got a complex circuit (i.e. NOT a simple booster or OD pedal). And metal films are great for tolerance reasons.

What is also frequently forgotten is how the noise floor thing (as well as subtle tonal differences) is typically a moot point at gig levels.

kill the component mojo thing? unlikely, because there's so many knuckleheads with too much time on their hands chasing that ever elusive mystery tone unlocking secret component - whether its a capacitor or pedal or cable or tube - that they'll always generate tons of web blahblah.

Blame Eric Johnson, king of the knuckleheads. He epitomizes the super precious about tone attitude that goes completely against the grain of making good rock and roll. Talk to the old timers who gigged with whatever amp they had and made it work, instead of obsessing about rubber bands on fuzz faces and cable phase issues.

And sometimes noise actually adds something to the tones.

Amen! If my P90 guitars didn't sound like they were working for a living, I wouldn't trust them.Any tonal tweak that doesn't present at least a touch of extra noise isn't worth making. We distort our guitars on purpose, but then we complain about the chaos?

Blame Eric Johnson, king of the knuckleheads.

He's the one who claims he can hear the difference between different brands of batteries, right? Fine. He can keep listening to his batteries, while the rest of us spend our time listening to music.

I'm pretty sure all this BS is why Billy Gibbons has the reputation for being less-than-up-front about the gear he uses. Here's the secret: He spends his time practicing being Billy F'n Gibbons, not wiring up mystical racks of guitar gear. I've never heard him make a single sound that I didn't think was coming from a simple, decent quality guitar amp - not a super-secret pile of NOS capacitors made in 1932 from children's tears. He's not here to explain to his audience what gear he's using. He's here to rock.

SRV jut plugged in lenny all he went for was some extra thickness from a tubescreamer.

Within a 9 volt circuit the biggest difference In sound is the high end retention along the chain, dirt/grit, and headroom. between material types.

Although I will say a DS-1 with the scoop moved up to 800hz and replace one silicone diode with a mosfet wired up for the popular rat style gives an instant early alice cooper lead tone. Billion Dollar Babies and the like.

I think it has more to do with headroom and high end roll off from the mosfet than the reverse diode mojo. Still sounds good though.

and I can't stress it enough, new guitar players think I'm full of it, but the amp is more important. You can plug a lot of guitars into a good amp and sound good, but with a mediocre amp you'll only sound good with a small range of guitars. Same goes for effects. I still recall the day a guitar center I was playing on a champ and the guy told me to try out some line 6; I nearly vomited. The tele sounded strangled.

"He's not here to explain to his audience what gear he's using. He's here to rock. "

AMEN Brother!

I like foolin around with tones and tweaking my homebrew amp, I confess yes.
But there's a limit. Sometimes ya have to let it go and just play. because that's all that really matters, the playing and the singing, not how infintesimally better your guitar tone is on this gig compared to last gig.

It AMAZES me how much attention is paid to things like different op amps in distortion boxes and what 6L6 tube sounds the best.

HOOEY!!

This has to be about the time that someone comes ranting about a standing resistor acting as an antenna and that small things make huge differences. I have recently come into a bunch of mojo parts that I paid zero dollars for - they are available in old electronics that people give or throw away, if you want to spend a night salvaging. Then you have useful parts for zero dollar that are "mojo", and you can even A/B things yourself. It's what I'm going to do, because arguing with free is just something I'm not into.

Also, children's tears caps vary in quality - the ones that were made with teenage tears make everything sound more dark and angsty. Be careful when ordering online, as most have been picked over.

I agree to use what sounds good regardless what it is. However, regarding tantilum capacitors - in 30+ years, the only cap I have ever had FAIL was a tantilum. I'm probably lucky, but that sticks in the back of my mind when I build something. Probably the same as a Rock Star who swears by brand X because it's all he ever used and is superstitous in changing anything. They learn what it's made out of instead of how it works. How may of these superstars even change their own strings? How many can do it correctly?

I for one believe to some extent in the mojo of some parts.

For something like a Fuzz Face which is really simple, some sound absolutely great and some very, very average. If putting in some old stock Ge transistor makes that difference, then that transistor has mojo.

Just like the current thread about the current Big Muff. I tried a little Big Muff that had mojo, and then ordered in a big one...and no mojo. Just doesn't have it. Wish I'd bought the little one. So you try a different part, trying to get those harmonics and overtones going off like fireworks.

Hell man, it's what we do...it's it's own hobby, almost apart from playing guitar.

Tone searching is quite like another hobby, true...but the Little Big Muff and other Muffs have slightly different circuits, so that's not really a straight-up component comparison.

If putting in some old stock Ge transistor makes that difference, then that transistor has mojo.

Incorrect - that transistor has the proper gain and adequately minimal leakage (if a germanium transistor is indeed used). And that same germanium transistor will lose it's mojo as the temperature goes up.

The Fuzz Face is basically a Rubik's Cube designed by a caveman, but needs to be "solved" by someone who can work with an extremely small and basic circuit. Kinda like balancing a table with 3 legs of different lengths - it can be done, but it's tricky. But once you figure it out, it's basically formulaic at that point. No mojo needed.

BTW - some of the best Fuzz Face clones that I've heard were all silicon units.

SRV jut plugged in lenny all he went for was some extra thickness from a tubescreamer.

True, but he plugged into 5+ amps, sometimes over a dozen in the studio!

They learn what it's made out of instead of how it works.

In many cases, it's even worse. Some guitarists will swear up and down that a capacitor has a sound.

And lots of times, it's a case of not seeing the forest for the trees - there's too much attention given to only certain components - usually semiconductors and capacitors. I see lots of mods and "tonal improvements" that don't touch the resistors at all.

But the worst part about component isolation is that it prevents one from learning about the interaction of caps and resistors, about impedance, inductance, and how to tweak or design a circuit without even doing anything other than computations first - it really gives a leg up when fine tuning the circuit, rather than a purely empirical method, IMO.