shivelblah
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 2
Likes: 0
|
Post by shivelblah on Oct 13, 2006 11:55:05 GMT -5
Hi,
New member, total guitar repair newbie here, with a question:
I want to shield my 1978 Fender Mustang in an attempt to reduce the hum. Through another message board, I was directed to the article on Guitarnutz called Quieting The Beast.
Who out here has tried this, and who has noticed successful results?
Seems like it could be complicated to do (mainly the soldering part of it), and I want to make sure it's worth the effort.
I have some doubts because I spoke to a couple guitar techs in my city and both say that shielding yields negligible results....not worth it at all....single coils will always produce hum... yada yada yada.
It could be that these guys are simply doing it wrong.
Who has shielded the Guitarnutz way, and what were the results?
Thanks, Shiv
|
|
guitarmole
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 24
Likes: 0
|
Post by guitarmole on Oct 16, 2006 22:51:28 GMT -5
I used that method when I wired up my H-S-H. Both humbuckers are coil-splittable (neck isn't installed yet) and the middle single is a humbucker with coils in series. I don't know if split humbuckers are noisy as true single coils but I don't notice any increase in background noise when running the humbucker in split mode.
I keep seperate grounds for the signal and shielding using star grounding to prevent ground loops, and combine them with the capacitor in the path between the two. All my wire runs have braided ground cable, all cavities (including pickup) are shielded foil and connected together electrically.
Shielding is important and many high end guitar companies feel it's important enough to upgrade from super thin foil to thicker copper foils and/or conductive paints, wiring with shield braids, etc, and eliminate the more common ground-loop issues and areas of noise injection. There are also many high end guitar companies that don't seem to wire any different than the generic ones.
Outside of guitars, high-fidelity audio/video gear, radio gear...almost every single commercial/industrial manufactuers take shielding very seriously, but their products require electrical and electronic engineers to develop. The guitar industry doesn't seem too concerned with it and standard wiring on guitars is fairly basic compared to pedals, keyboards, amplifiers, etc. There are only so many ways you can wire up 2-3 pickups (excluding exotic setups) so it doesn't usually require a panel of engineers to R&D, and without them, standard practices aren't always put into the products.
There is also the issue of time, money, and effort involved in production so save a few minutes and dollars per guitar, and it adds up fairly quickly.
|
|
bjg
Apprentice Shielder
Posts: 37
Likes: 0
|
Post by bjg on Oct 17, 2006 19:33:19 GMT -5
I believe most people on this forum have preformed the quiet the beast mod that you have referred to. I have done it on all of my guitars (including a strat) and have definitely noticed results. There is less hum and improved tone. Single coils are noisier than hb's yes, but shielding and grounding will definitely help out. It took me a little over an hour the first time i did it and i definitely think it is worth it.
There are guys on here who could probably quantify things for you but i am certain almost all who have done it successfully would recommend it.
|
|
|
Post by classicrocker on Oct 18, 2006 7:08:50 GMT -5
I've done it with good results in two Strats.
|
|
resonance
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
|
Post by resonance on Oct 19, 2006 22:21:29 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum shivelblah. I did my first shielding mod a couple of weeks ago while installing Kinman noiseless single-coils. My mexi-strat is unbelievably quiet now. Before the modification it was completely unusable in the studio - I can honestly say I haven't been able to put my guitar down since 'quieting the beast'. It's definitely worth the effort. Res
|
|
shivelblah
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 2
Likes: 0
|
Post by shivelblah on Oct 20, 2006 19:01:57 GMT -5
Ok I'm getting some pretty positive responses.
I have taped the pickup routes.
Do I need to tape the other cavities too? (vol knob cavity and vibrato cavity).
After taping, I simply plugged the guitar in the amp and noticed there was no reduction in hum. Could that be because I haven't soldered yet, nor have I actually put the thing back together?
Like, dudes, this guitar is NOISY and I'd love to quiet the thing down.
Thanks for the responses... keep 'em coming!
Shiv.
|
|
guitarmole
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 24
Likes: 0
|
Post by guitarmole on Oct 20, 2006 21:02:53 GMT -5
Oops actually I lied, I do get hum and noise on my single-coil operating humbuckers, but only if I'm very close to my speakers. Otherwise they are awesome when coil-tapped.
What type of tape are you using? It all needs to be electrically connected together and drained to ground (isolate with cap when tying to signal ground if desired like in QTB). I used copper tape with a conductive adhesive so all I had to do was overlap the layers (and you can solder to copper as well). To connect all the pickup cavities together, I either used a strip of tape or soldered wire. All my cavities with guts in them were shielded.
Also if your pickup wires have a braided shield, they need to be taken care of as well unless all wiring takes place inside an already shielded cavity. Some of my pickup wires run outside the shielded cavities so my wire shield/drains are grounded as well.
Lastly, it WILL hum if you don't put it back together. If the rear cavity lid is off, the internals are no longer effectively shielded at all from that side and at the mercy of whatever interference is floating about. If you're plugging it in with the guts exposed, then it won't help to determine the problem(s)
|
|
png123
Meter Reader 1st Class
Posts: 73
Likes: 0
|
Post by png123 on Oct 22, 2006 3:17:19 GMT -5
hey guitarmole,
another question on the subject,
If i were to cover all the cavities (pup cavities and control cavities) - as in QBT tele style, without doing anything else, would it reduce the hum?
|
|
guitarmole
Rookie Solder Flinger
Posts: 24
Likes: 0
|
Post by guitarmole on Oct 22, 2006 22:44:52 GMT -5
It would reduce hum if the shielded cavities were all electrically connected to a shield drain/ground and if you have a lot of electromagnetic interference injecting noise into the wiring which is otherwise exposed to the interference. However if you want to maximize results, you will have to rework some of the ground wire runs to avoid ground loop situations. Every little bit helps, but it makes most sense to try working on every potential source of noise possible. You can try one thing at a time if you want to see exactly how much each mod helps, but only if you don't mind assembling and disassembling your guitar multiple times.
|
|
|
Post by UnklMickey on Oct 26, 2006 15:22:56 GMT -5
...Do I need to tape the other cavities too? (vol knob cavity and vibrato cavity).... shielding the control cavity is always helpful in minimizing hum. i can't see any reason to shield the trem cavity. unless, like a strat, the cavity extends behind the pickups. in that case it would add another layer of shielding behind the pickups. unk
|
|