capacitor substitution

[butch199]

I am building Guitar PCB's V6 board. It calls for a 3n3 (3300p) capacitor on the board, looks to be on treble tone circuit. Is ther a another capacitor value I could us in place of the 3n3 (I don't have one on hand) that would work on the circuit.
THanks

[nocentelli]

Can you use two 1n5's in parallel? Three 1n's might be a squeeze to fit in. You could scale all the caps to match the nearest value you have to the 3n3 (e.g. if you have a 4n7, you could use 470p for c13, and 2n2/22nd for c11/12 which would shift the centre frequencies down a little, but keep the same-ish relationship).

[antonis]

I presume that it's easier to trim the respective resistor value to your handy capacitor...
(but I don't know the exact circuit and the possible resistor change interaction..)

[Mark Hammer]

It's a boost-cut tone control.  The 3n3 appears to be on the cut side.  A larger value would cut at a lower frequency, and a smaller value would cut a bit higher up.  It may be a shift you don't even notice, so don't be afraid to sub other values - be they single caps, or combined parallel values - as long as they aren't too different (e.g., 47nf or 220pf).

[butch199]

could I use a single 1500p cap in place of 3300 with minimal noticeable diff. what range would be acceptable?

[Mark Hammer]

At roughly half the value, it would shift things over by an octave.  Whether that makes a significant difference to you is your call.  You can always add another cap in parallel if it isn't "enough".  I'm assuming you're working with the PCB, so you can simply tack the added cap on the copper side of the board.