This video explores whether changing a guitar's potentiometers (pots) and capacitors (caps) actually affects the tone, or better stated, how much the tone is affected.

The experiment was done on a 1996 Gibson Les Paul Classic with a Wolfetone Dr. Vintage pickup in the neck, and all tests are done on this neck pickup (as the bridge pickup was changed with the pots and caps).

The original pots were 300K factory installed by Gibson (brand unknown) and the guitar came with ceramic disc caps. The guitar has now been upgraded to 500K CTS pots with Orange Drop .022 caps.

The comparison examples are done with the values fully open at 10, run into a Clark Beaufort tweed amp, with a Sennheiser e906 mic. No settings were changed between tests.

There is a "roll off" test with the new pots showing the tone and volume manipulation. The settings are full, then at 5, then at 1, with the volume being rolled between 1-10.

Unfortunately, the video/audio of the 300K pots being rolled off was corrupted, and thus, I apologize, but is not included here. However, if you have a stock Gibson, you should be able to compare the video roll off here to your guitar.

Hope this is helpful, despite the missing roll off test.

The examples contain clean, wah wah, OD, stacked distortion, and clean with reverb.