Guitar shielding hack: How to KILL THE HUM for FREE!!!
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- Опубликовано: 5 июл 2024
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*Prices mentioned in this video are subject to change without notice. Please check the links below for current pricing.
Here is the stuff I used in this video:
P90 Jazzmaster Kit (use coupon code GUNSNGTRS to save $10):
thefretwire.com/shop/featured...
spray adhesive:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01...
here is a smaller can (cheaper):
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Full disclosure: I am an Amazon Associate, and the links in this description are affiliate links, which means that if you make a purchase, it doesn't cost you any more money, but I will earn a commission.
Heavy duty aluminum foil: I was going to put an amazon link here, but honestly it's so much cheaper to buy it at your grocery store, so get off your lazy butt and get some if you don't already have it for your kitchen.
This is a cool hack that I have done on every guitar I've built since the beginning. Just use a light amount of spray adhesive and glue in a bunch of foil in your pickup cavity and the back of your pickguard. then make sure it's touching a ground connection somehow. It's pretty hard to screw up. Have fun!
Full disclosure: Links in this description may be affiliate links 
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![GUITAR SHIELDING 101: A [Relatively] Quick Guide to Working with Foil Tape](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-mLBo4y9t8Y/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you so much guys for all the helpful info, I stand corrected! Electromagnetic frequencies and sound frequencies are not the same thing. My bad! I’m so glad that people smarter than me watch my videos, I love learning! At any rate, this hack really does work well, despite my ignorant understanding of the subject. Thanks again guys!
Not to make less of the video but wouldn't it be easier to use HVAC tape? Same price as the can of glue and it already comes with adhesive. Also is 3 mils thick. I've been using it forever on single coiled guitars. Just a thought.
I love your videos, first of all cause they are free and well presented and also fun. You rock, bro. You teach me, and I teach me (Pokémon!)... So, I still gave you a thumb up. But let me clarify once again that while shielding will mostly make electricity noise disappear, if you are in a place with the presence of a heavy RF noise, shielding will do nothing, only humbucking (split coil or dual-coil jobl) will. :)
Guns and Guitars LES PAUL OR 50s STYLE TELE
Also one minor correction, Copper shielding tape does have conductive adhesive. The metal duct tape (3m) however does not. Using that, which is real cheap, you need to fold it so that metal touches metal. The copper tape can just be laid in any old way as long as there are no gaps. I always use the metal duct tape on my pickguards with the copper in the cavities and a super light gauge wire to connect to the grounding system.
This has been verified with a multimeter. ;) Hope that helps a bit
The adhesive on this is not conductive. See my comment below.
It is a good idea to shield your guitar. One night years ago, I was playing an unshielded cheap guitar and my amp/ guitar/ pedal set up actually picked up a shortwave radio broadcast! I could hear a guy speaking french through the amp! When I grounded the strings with my hand, it stopped. Freaked me out at first...thought I was hearing voices! Lol😂
You don't ground the strings by touching them. You actually provided the shield.
RCbeastly if your touching a solid ground yourself, you will be grounding them. If your not grounded, then it's as you say.
Happens to me too. Would shielding help stop the noise even when my hands are off the strings?
Dr. Phill I think it does help! Anymore I use shielded wiring in my builds where ever possible too! It's a wire with a braided series of wires around it...similat to tv cable. I just did a cigar box guitar. It has a single coil and piezo pickups. I used all shielded cables and it works well. No hum or noise!
74dart man well my pickups are 12k PAF clones with standard 4 wire with the rubber coating on them do most I can do is replace ground wires plus I have a phase switch which makes yet more noise
Aluminum foil + spray adhesive + me = strips of foil stuck on everything. I would become my own faraday cage.
😂😂😂
@Vinnie Provolone 🤣🤣🤣
🤣
😂
When you mentioned the metal cage it reminded me of an episode of Metalocalypse where the guitarist was trying to record a song but no matter what he did his guitar was buzzing uncontrollably, but only when he touched it. So he found out if he wasn't standing on the ground while recording the buzz went away, and the natural conclusion was that he had to record the solo while parachuting!
Thank you for your tips. What I don't understand is why electric instrument manufacturers don't incorporate these, seemingly, simple fixes in all their instruments before they are sent to market. According to my research, the first commercially available electric guitar was sold in the U.S. back in 1931. This means that the industry has had 88 years to develop effective means to completely cure the cursed 60-cycle hum problem. I have seen many videos describing various ways to fix this problem but, I fail to understand why I, as a purchaser, should be forced to spend many hours and/or many dollars to make my instrument playable. That or buy the $4000 custom shop guitar.
It's a cost factor. Each one may only cost pennies but it adds up over time and thousands of instruments. Even though it's only a matter of pennies the companies who don't provide it aren't willing to pay. Sucks
RF is not high frequency sound. Sound is compression waves propagated through air, water, or some other fluid. (Yes, air is a fluid in this context.) Radio frequency waves are electromagnetic waves. They do not require any medium. They propagate well in the vacuum of space. Light and radio are both different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. Sound is a completely different phenomenon.
Aluminum foil is good at blocking the electrical portion of the electromagnetic wave but isn't the best shielding material. It works better at blocking higher frequencies. Most of the electromagnetic interference that a musical instrument needs to block is the 60 Hz from the electrical system (50 Hz for people in Europe). Copper foil is better for that. Mu metal is probably the best, because it's formulated specifically for this purpose, but is a bit expensive.
Liberty4Ever boy am I glad somebody corrected this statement too. The explanation he gave about what rf is should’ve triggered some self doubt because even people who are far away from science know sound can’t travel in vacuum and space tech is very dependent on radio frequencies ergo RF isn’t sound.
Also, RF can be at frequencies between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. This said, once they arrive in your strings and/or pickups, no shielding can do anything to them. Only a humbucker-made pickup can make them "silent". Shielding is meant to aim electricity noise/dirt to the ground wire. So you could both get RF-based HUM coming to your pickup because they are electromagnetic waves, and also electricity-based HUM coming to your instrument output signal throught wires. The RF-based HUM cannot be solve with shielding at all. Only a split-coil or dual-coil humbucking pickups can.
For example, I'm lucky enough to live in a place where my electricity is very clean, and also with nearly no RF reaching my house. So I'm both happy while playing single coils that aren't splitted and humbucking pickups. But recentyly I had to live near an airport. Not only the electricity of the house was noisy as hell and I couldn't afford a power conditionner. But even playing on batteries (then, not affected by the dirtyness of the house electrical installation), the radio emitters transmitters of the airport gave me such a strong HUM that on my passive Jazz bass, it would be impossible to play on one pickup without getting a headache... back to my home, all that hell ended.
air is a fluid not just in this context, air is a fluid, period. Fluid is not sinonimous with liquid
Thanks for all the info guys, I stand corrected! I’m glad people smarter than me watch my videos. Either way, this hack really does work if you try it
So here's a little background on the topic: PIckups pick up changes in the electromagnetic field around them using induction. Because the movement of the strings changes the electromagnetic field, the movement is picked up. The keywords here being "change" and "movement". If pickups just detected the strength of the electromagnetic field surrounding them, you'd always get the sound of the field, not its change. That is also the reason why shielding doesn't affect tone, even if you did it with a magnetizable (not magnetic) material like steel. If you chose a material that is magnetic itself, i.e. non-magnets made out of magnetizable material stick to it, it might be a different story, I'm not sure.
Regarding the hum: When current flows through a wire, it generates and electromagnetic field. As the current in the household is alternating, the electromagnetic field emitted from it reverses its direction 50 times a second or 60 times a second, depending on where you live. If the electromagnetic field is close enough to your guitar, it affects the electromagnetic field detected by your pickups. These changes get transformed into sound, and if your power grid has 50 hz, the sound will have a frequency of 50 hz and if you have 60 hz, the sound's frequency will have 60 hz. And this is the hum.
Drink every time he says “continuity.”
he said it like 100 times
Constantnudity
i did, now i'm drunk.
Great video, really useful and some good tips. Just a little extra tip for people....
The inside of a guitar is usually quite dusty. Whether that’s small wood clippings from where is was cut, micro-fibers if it’s a cast body or just general dust and crap from been sat around your home for years. It’s a good idea to use just some general everyday tape to ensure you get all this dust and stuff up before you start shielding. An extra step is to use some form of compressed air to blow out any bits that aren’t visible to the naked eye or in difficult to reach places. 👍🏻
This was the perfect solution to the bit of noise I got off my new Squier Affinity Jazzmaster. They had a tiny bit of foil under the pots from the factory, but fully lining the pickguard and cavities like you showed really quieted it down. Now it's almost indistinguishable from my humbucker-equipped guitar. Kudos for the detailed explanation too!
Finally I have my answer, because I did this job with a not conducting foil and it went all wrong. Thanx for this.
Continuity is the word.
I thank you for the best explanation yet!!!!
Hey thanks so much for this tutorial; I just finished doing this to my Jazzmaster. After I installed '65 re-issue pickups, it buzzed like crazy until I touched the strings or metal. I'd play it with a wire from one of the tuners tucked into my sock to bleed off the buzz. But that was getting inconvenient.
This Jazzmaster had conductive paint already, and foil under the pickguard. I may have broken the continuity when I opened it up the first time, or maybe the new pickups were just susceptible to interference. Either way, I decided to shield it and see what happens.
Well the results were fantastic. It wasn't easy, but I made sure to preserve the continuity as much as possible. I used heavy duty foil for most of it, with contact cement instead of spray glue. This way I was able to leave areas overlapping with no glue, so I didn't have to fold over edges. I also used aluminum foil tape from 3M to patch the overlapping spots and do the sides.
I had some problems getting it all back together but finally got it done, and the buzz is completely gone. I can hear the 60 cycle hum at each pickup and none in the center position, as it should be. It's quiet as it can be and tone and response is better. THANKS!
Thank you for the lesson! You've answered a bunch of questions I've had for a long time
Seriously man i just nearly bought a £110 hum cancelling pedal until i watched this. Turned off my dimmer light, turned on my lamp, bye bye hum.
Thanks, you got my sub
You can lower the electromagnetic noise in your home, but when you go to play somewhere else it can be horrendously noisy. It's still a good idea to shield your single coil guitar.
Thank you for a very informative, straight forward video. I really appreciate that you bust some myths in your videos, this saves so much time because there are far too many people making videos that are, lets say less than qualified to be doing so. Therefore your facts about many of these false statements make life less stressful. My most sincere thank you
Great tip, thanks. It would have been nice to hear the difference between the shielded and unshielded to see how well aluminum foil works.
This is exactly the video I needed as my jazzmaster build needs shielding badly! Thanks!
Be cool to hear a before and after.
Nah, you'd likely be rather dissapointed...shielding helps a bit on some guitars, but it's far from a hands-down solution.
@@chrisscott2498 ok
@@frostmusicofficial Works perfect on two guitars I have done , difference is really noticable (just sayin).
Said the same thing 🤦🏻♂️
@@chrisscott2498 The improvement is most noticeable on single coils and split humbuckers, which are essentially single coils too.
Good tutorial and advice, thank you. Did this to my first bass, witch is a very old one, but i also have had to change his old volume and tone pots, and everything works, except that the volume dosen't fully cuts off the sound when i go to zero. Reading about the issue, some say, maybe, its because three things: A bad pot, a bad grounded soldering in the volume connection, or that the pot has some contact with the shielding in the electronics cavity. So, the last is the one related to this video and i have to check all the thing again, be aware of that issue when do the shielding👍
Loved the video, very informative! And honestly, I don't give a dang what RF is, exactly. All I know is that I don't want it coming through my amp.
One thing I'd like to share here in the comments was the first time I modded a bass. I carefully shielded all of the cavities and bridge but somehow when I did not touch the strings/bridge it would start humming. Internet suggested a crappy bridge ground but that was not the case. What WAS the case is not giving my cavities a COMMON ground connection. Aka, the cavities were shielded but not connected. Sincr I didn't have a Pickguard on my bass I solved this by running a wiring through my bass and soldering it to both cavities. This solved all my hum problems. Something worth sharing with you guys
I did this shielding job on my cheap strat and it worked really well! No more hum, no more noise gate abuse! :D
You are a fantastic communicator, Dan. Thanks for what you do. I just subscribed.
what a great channel. taking inexpensive guitars and making them a work of art with a good amount of know how and some elbow grease. keep it up!
Thanks!
I was going to ask a question about the paint-on RF barrier. I had heard it was a great thing to use but that’s all. You answered all of the remaining questions I had. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Very informative,I actually have used the Alluminium adhesive tape for a DIY solid state amp I made I stuck it to the transformer plates,and there was a very noticeable difference
Went through a few videos about the hum, but none of the videos had a demo of the hum before and after...adding that would paint a better picture. :) Good vid BTW!
Copper tape with conductive adhesive is just as cheap, and much simpler to deal with than foil.
HVAC foil tape is sold in most hardware stores, Home Depot/Lowe's/Menards and similar tape is sold in most auto parts stores and is just as effective as copper tape.
@Bob
Just shielded a Jackson PS 4 after installing SD Pegasus/Sentient combo. I did use copper shielding tape.
In a previous project (Charvel) used the aluminum tape.
Haven't noticed a difference between the two. Perhaps I got lucky? Maybe it's because, as a contractor, I didn't have the cheapest crap on the shelf in my kit at the time. Dunno. To my ear I hear no difference.
Maybe if I had single coils I'd notice a difference. Closest I come to single coils in any of my guitars is a stacked humbucker.
@@igorkevorkian16 For the full effect I would want my Faraday Cage to have DC continuity across all points, but if you overlap the Aluminum tape edges enough, the capacitive coupling ought to give decent results at AM radio frequencies and above. I've seen at least one guitar builder claim that it works well enough without DC continuity across the layers. You can poke through the layers with an exacto knife to make the layers touch, or solder them at their edged in a few places. Mathematically, a spherical Faraday cage doesn't need to be grounded to work. The voltage at any interior point is cancelled out by spherical symmetry. For other shapes, I don't know if it still holds. I look at it as if the wave travels on the outside of the cage down to the skin depth until it gets to the other side, where it leaps back into space and continues on.
Very good info thank you for sharing. If I may add something, when I'm laying down aluminium or copper tape I fold the edge back on to adhesive cutting little notches so you get the edges sticking as well as complete continuity
Couple of really easy ways to ensure continuity if you're using adhesive-backed tape: 1) Fold over a corner or cut a 1/4" strip lengthwise at the end of a strip and fold it over so it's face-to-face with the piece underneath it.
2) If you've got the body thickness available (i.e. not the back of a pickguard), push in a thumbtack.
Yooooo!! This is easily the best upgrade I’ve done to my sub-$200 Tagima Strat. Just did the work tonight and it is whisper quiet. I actually lowered the threshold on my Boss NS-2 and can actually enjoy playing gain and clean tones. Thanks so much, the most expensive part other than my time was the spray adhesive and I had to buy a multi meter (was gonna get one soon anyway). Thanks a million.
Wow! Im from Brazil and I didn't knew there were Tagimas in the US. Are they common, usual? Are there any Brazilian made ones or only those made in Asia? I once talked to mr. Seizi Tagima, he is a cool guy.
I really appreciate your videos man! Keep on rocking! In one week of listening to your videos I've become closer to my guitar. It's funny, I feel like I play better knowing all this info. I know it has no relationship with the playing. But it's how I feel. Thanks again!
Great information,thanks for taking the time to share this.
Dan as always another great video thank you for the knowledge! I have never been able to get the wiring right when I have tried to rewire my guitar, you have a great teaching method I would love to see a video that you go step by step on the wiring process! Looking forward to seeing your next video!
I’ll be doing a more in depth video on wiring coming up
Thanks for the vid, helped me a ton.
FYI: Radio frequencies aren't sound waves. They're electromagnetic waves (the same weird thing that light is).
It's not that we can't *hear* radio frequencies because they're outside the *audible* spectrum; rather, we can't *see* them because they're outside the *visual* spectrum.
EXCELLENT VIDEO, DAN! Thank-You!
Thanks for the great idea...just a suggestion - laying the pick guard on the foil and cutting around with a sharp craft blade might be easier.
Thank you very much, this a little refresher for me since I usually work on Acoustic Guitars. I pieced together a remake of a 63 Strat with some modern parts. Sometimes less is more ! Many Thanks !
Excellent tutorial, explanation. Thank you!
I found this video being complete and well explained. Thanks.
Flawless video. Great info.Thanks!!!
Great and helpful video as always Dan!!! Thank you so much!!! :3
Instead of making a cutout for the pickups, just cover the shielding with something like painters tape. this won't interupt the cage
Still a good idea to leave a little room around the screw holes so the screw threads don't touch the shielding.
been working on shielding, so i've watched this several times, and I just now noticed that I have the same drum canvas you have in the background! have one with guitar too! never seen another one like it
Yeah! I got mine at hobby lobby!
Cool. Mine were a gift, so I guess that explains where they came from.
Use 2" wide aluminum HVAC tape from Lowes or any other home improvement store instead. No spray glue required and makes for a much neater and faster installation.
Excellent presentation and tutorial! I'll be doing some shielding on the HSS SuperStrat I am building. I did buy some conductive paint for it, though.
Might use some foil on a Dean Evo I am repairing and customizing. Like your Gun Stuff, too, and am an active target shooter/collector/hunter.
Conductive paint is quicker and easier to apply than foil tape, but paint requires several layers and a long time to dry between layers. There is no way to solder wire to paint, so a wood screw will be needed to hold the ground wire against the paint. A ground wire should be used to connect the cavities together. Sometimes you can depend on the mounting hardware of switches and pots to provide this grounding, but it doesn't hurt to run a dedicated wire from each cavity back to the control cavity. The pick guard or control cavity cover shielding should make contact with the paint/foil shield at as many places as possible for best shielding efficiency. The fewer and smaller the holes in the shielding, the less noise ingress.
I shielded my Squier CV Strat. The difference was like Friday and Monday.
I used copper tape with conductive adhesive. I did the main and input jack cavities. I soldered a jumper between the two.
Id recommend it on any sc guitar.
Hi this video was one of the best shielding tutorial for me. Thanks a ton.
That’s why I occasionally pick up the local oldies station! Thanks!
Your videos are a wealth of information man. Thank you.
My god, i love this channel. Im a huge gun lover and i also 'try' to play guitar when i get a chance. Either way, I love guns and guitars!
Heck yeah, welcome Loren!
Thank you so much for this, my guitar is a cheap chinese brand so the pickups aren't even connected to the shield by a screw, it works wonders.
Also I used stick glue and it did alright, just be careful of not tearing apart the fragile thinfoil.
As far as I can tell, when you overlap adhesive coated foil in this way conductive continuity occurs simply though points on the surfaces of separate pieces of foil touching each other through the adhesive. I don't know if you can rely on this long term. Particularly with aluminium which develops a layer of surface oxide. Rather than use the expensive tape with 'conductive' adhesive (how would you know its conductive?) I usually use self adhesive copper tape that you can buy cheaply from garden supply companies as slug repellent tape, and then place a number of solder joints between the strips of tape to ensure continuity.
Great informative video once again....thanks!!
Thank you guys! I've spent a lot. No. A LOT of time figuring out why I have weird sounds coming from my perfectly grounded guitar. I have a metal pickguard, and yes - it mixes interference to my hot signal.
THE BEST explanation of guitar racket, I've ever heard. But they were actually named, "humbucking." VERY good job, young Sir, very good. Except I wasn't too clear on grounding each electronic component to the shielding material -- seemed like you glossed over that ... I will go back and check that again. Thanks very much for putting this up!
That’s good advice. I have that roll of foil tape I was going to use, but I’ll have to get me some spray adhesive and go this route instead.
Going to try this when I put a guitar I am working on back together.
The portion you mentioned that is not negated is what’s called common mode noise and that’s the noise in the domain of the mains wiring. It’s not inductively coupled through the pickups that your aluminum foil treatment addresses. The expensive gizmo you mentioned that plugs into the wall addresses the common mode noise. My explanation is simplistic and not 100% accurate, but for this space I hope it’s adequate.
That guitar / bass double-neck looks sweet!
Yea.... if that was a build, I would really like to see a vid on it....
Excellent video. I'm thinking of changing out the cheap ceramic pickups in my old 91 Peavey Predator strat and will probably shield it the same way.
Hi. Great video. Aluminum tape can be used and it's even simpler maybe. Overlap the strips of tape and as you glue the tape down just fold a little bit of the corner to touch the previous one. It works great. I saw this tip on willseasyguitar. Cheers
Great video. Thanks for posting.
Great Video Dan! Keep it up
Also your humility and willingness to learn and remain open minded are great qualities for a successful future.
That's super strat was really lovely. I am assuming that you built it, and would love to see a video about it, particularly that beautiful finish.
Great video. They do make copper foil tape with conductive adhesive. It works well. Ive used it on several guitars.
The conductive adhesive is the good advantage. Like I discribed my way of work upper in comments, I use aluminium tape for exhaust pipes, but I need to create continuity between each part...
Just spray the back of the pickguard with the 77 and press the foil onto it. Then use an exacto to cutout the holes and some sandpaper to cleanup the edges. Smooth it out with the back of a screwdriver. Much easier than templates and cutting into strips.
The channel name speaks volumes with me....*Subscribed*
very helpful👍 Thanks man😊🎸
Thanks for this really helped a lot!
Nice video as usual, well done bud.
I have this problem at a local church I play in sometimes. They have fluorescent lights all around, I'll definitely check this out!
Fluorescent lights can be the biggest culprit...
Great how-to video!
Great video definitely want to try this.
Oh great man!!! This is what i need to shut up my humming pickups. Thank you!!!!
Your Guns and Guitars logo is extremely cool.
Guns and guitars my two favorite hobbies. I really enjoy the how to and hack videos. Keep up the excellent work
It would be interesting to hear the use of the natural humming incorporated into a live set.
You can get copper foil with conductive adhesive, it’s not too hard to find on amazon, you just have to check the description to make sure
hhmmmmm , i smell that jazzmaster upgrade video, cant wait!!! again your a legend
That RF explination explains why sometimes during band practice we can hear a spanish radio station playing mariachi music out of my amp xD Good shit tho I love the content!
Using a Tripp Lite Isobar - noise suppressing surge protector power strip, can help eliminate noise as well.
Awesome stuff man! I need to get a shirt! So for active pickups shielding doesn't matter ?
Thanks for the tips bro
Superb video!
Great vídeo, thanks a Ton, Brazil here.
Not sure if it really matters but while aluminum is not ferromagnetic it does interact with magnets. You can induce a current in aluminum using magnets and it does create an electromagnetic field when you run a current through it.
One solution I never hear about when it comes to reducing or eliminating RF is the option of plugging all your gear, pedal board, amp, etc...into a power conditioner. They come with their own RF filters and provide consistent clean power at a constant voltage.
Amen Dan!!!
Excellent content. I wish I would've seen this video before now.
Thank you anyway.
Thank you. Very useful
Glad I came across this video as I just got a DIY bass from Fretwire
awesome advice mate.
I do have a question tho, hypothetically, if one had to create a bridge out of a non conductive material, a super dense plastic as an example. would that not break the ground loop from the guitar?
Heyhey Dan, I know you're working on the Mosrite atm, but I would love to see you reviewing and modding an explorer or a thunderbird kit in the future :)
I don't know, when I touch strings hum is really low because you become grounded and you sit behind guitar so the back of it is shielded. I talk about splited but really hot Humbacker coils.
Hi Dan, great videos, I love the attention to detail. Would noiseless pickups completely avoid the need for shielding? Can you make a noiseless humbucker from two noiseless single coil pickups? I'd love to see you make it happen. Maybe try Alan Entwhistle ASN 57's - they are a lot cheaper than FFFender.
I wonder if it would be easier to use foil HVAC tape? I'm not sure if the adhesive on that is conductive or not though.
the HVAC foil adhesive I have is NOT electrically conductive.
In order to get connectivity across layers of HVAC tape, you need to fold over the tape so there's not any insulating adhesive between layers. It's a pain in the butt. Just buy the copper tape with conductive adhesive..
Well done GNG.
I'm ready and psyched! Now where do I pick up my free foil?
I’ve never shielded a guitar 😂 I build t style guitars and never felt the need. I might try it on one though
For copper tape or sheilding paint, instead of a guitar based resource, check electronics distributors. It's always cheaper than guitar based supplier.