This worked great for me. No degradation in tone that I can detect and my strat is now silent. Before this I had a nasty buzz unless I was touching the strings or bridge. One additional thing I did was make a small tube of copper foil running through the hole connecting the output jack area and the control area to shield the output wires. I don't know if this mattered but was easy enough to do. I sliced the ends of the tube that extended into the two areas lengthwise and then pressed it out like the petals of a flower on both ends to ensure the tube had continuity with the rest of the shielding.
I've build my own guitars from scratch and never had as many problems like I spent the last 3 days on this kid's guitar trying to get the buzz out until I learned that it's just something that strat builds and their pickups just have naturally. I used shielding paint, foil on the pickup guard, wax potted the pickups, new wires and wiring configurations,... even made sure it wasn't pots or pickup screws touching the foil. I love strats, but fuck my life, great learning experience if I want to be a luthier someday
Grounding hum is an extremely technical subject and is caused by more than just unshielded electronic components. Sometimes it's caused by connections to multiple units that have different ground conditions. It's worth checking out because in some set-ups the hum can be overwhelming. I get several radio and short-wave stations some days when I touch the strings of my Strat. They're so loud that I'm able to record them with a mic.
Guitar repair dude here. When you started cutting the foil by the bridge with the xacto knife, I audibly gasped. I'm sure you used a soft touch, but the idea of the blade cutting into the finish almost gave me a heart attack lol.
In corona times I have done some diy work to a P-bass (fretless now), a Yamaha Pacifica (removed paint and oiled the body) and an old cheap Spanish guitar (body is now 2.5" and it has both coils and piëzo). What I've learned, is that small mistakes (making a scratch or sanding a hair too deep) can take weeks to repair. Waiting for some varnish to dry thoroughly might really slow you down. Try doing creative things involving tubes of oil paint, and plan half a year ahead.... For my bass, I decided learning to play it, is more important than a great shiny finish. Now it is okay, I could simply polish and varnish it, or sand all the paint away, expose the wood and oil it. Yep, when things go wrong, it is sometimes loads of work to reverse the mistake in a decent way.
Good video, to the point no excess talking or repeating the same information over and over again or telling of life story which you get in so many other RUclips videos
Copper with some adhesive on it...buy if from Stew Mac for only 5X the price of regular adhesive backed copper. They also sell guitar screwdrivers, a guitar hammer, and if you spend over $100 (for example if you bought one "guitar screw") you get a free guitar sticker. It's like a regular sticker, but it comes in a packet with a guitar drawn on it, and costs 5X as much
Stew mac is insanely over priced. I saw they were selling a ruler for guitar action measurements for like 23 bucks. I had got it on amazon for 6 bucks.
Here's my not-to-be-believed favorite. Yeh, it's cheap by their standards but can be replaced any small scrap of junk. www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Tools_by_Job/Tools_for_Nuts_and_Saddles/String_Lifter.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-bjyBRCcARIsAFboWg3b6dcTf9e_yeXIlmrKMz3fDPnPlCkULEFrJphpOVvjsZ8rbApqkkEaAk_rEALw_wcB
Twist the OEM single coil pickups and out put jack wires. Shield cavity with aluminum foil tape that works just as well as copper foil tape. Ground the three pots together single wire daisy chain. Install a better treble bleed. Huge improvement! Hum reduced and buzzing gone. Don't sink money in swapping out pickups. A properly single coil strat setup is fun to play. Notice, I said single coil not humbucker !! Cheers!!
Never do soldering/desoldering like that - do not blow at the points/contacts you've just finished (as for to cool them down or to blow away the dust), because, chances are you will scratch the soft surfaces and reduce the quality of soldering along the way. Always cover the scratchable surfaces with some paper or cloth.
I've just bought some copper tape to try and shut my noisy as hell Gibson BFG up, that'll be me this weekend. Thanks Extralife - I thought it'd be what you did, but it's nice to see someone do it first, good tip about the joint soldering.
@@WarrenPostma Absolute sodding nightmare, in the process of removing the electrics, my V old soldering iron melted the interior of the volume pot. Bought a new one, spindle too short (designed for pickguard mount rather than through-body type Gibson), then couldn't get any surface adhesion with the solder, bought a new iron - eventually got it ON AND WORKING (from start to finish about 2 weeks with waiting for deliveries) - by then, I'd lost all interest. If you have any luck, let me know.
You can use aluminum HVAC tape, but to maintain connectivity you just cut the tape with a couple little dog-ears sticking out from the long side. Then when you remove the backing, fold the dog-ear under. You can then overlap the tape over another piece and maintain connectivity. It works fine. I like the good copper tape from Stew Mac too, but have used this in a pinch and it worked just as well.
I did this to my 50th anniversary Strat about 15 years ago too (Squier though, not rich!), but I used aluminium foil and aluminium paint so that there was no magnetic issue with the pickups. I'm running standard issues on neck and middle, but I have a hot rail humbucker on the bridge position and it sounds great. Also, I'm not too bad at setting up guitars and a lot of folk who played my Squier Strat have queried its authenticity as a Chinese build! Anyway, good video and I dig your tunes.
My heart is so happy that I just did my first ever guitar shielding haha! I've watched your video and it really helped me a lot! It was so fun. Thank you for this video🙏✌
Shielding the jack cavity is not recommended, as it increases static noise when your hand gets close to the strings. Try it. In fact Fender does not do it, it does not paint that cavity with conductive paint, it only paints the electronics cavity.
you deserve to have at least 1M views on this mate! literally have scoured youtube for a vid on stopping the buzz/noise with this technique multiple times - as i’d heard of it being done but didn’t know much!
Let me correct something this fellow said at the beginning of the video. The 2 in between positions(2 & 4) are not out of phase. The middle pickup is RWRP(*Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity"). They are in phase with the other pickups but the RWRP creates a hum cancelling configuration. If they were out of phase it would change the tone considerably.
@RDE Lutherie Who is the smug smart ass here? You post a Novel about how much of an electrical genius you are and you call me smug? On the guitar world, not your "I am the Master of all electronics" world, what I said was true. So go to hell you piece of shit.
@RDE Lutherie "..Leo Fender), who also didn't know the difference between Vibrato, and Tremolo! " Yes, Leo got it wrong. But he stuck to it didn't he! I find it strange that you two guys can have an argument when you basically agree on most if not all the major points of the discussion. The bridge and middle PU, and the neck and middle PU, are wound and wired to cancel electronic noise, but in-phase to pickup string vibration. RDE, you do a very good job explaining it. Jim, you correctly pointed out the host of this video at 00:33 misstates that the PUs are out of phase. RDE, you added clarification to that. You guys remind me of me and my ex, just slightly more entertaining.
Also there are separate units that you plug your equipment into that filter the line voltage. Back in the 90s there was a $400 unit in Best Buy with VU meters in the front and they had one big screen TV plugged into it and the other was not and you could definitely notice a difference in the picture quality side-by-side.
This trick works on those tiny screws that are used on tuning machine heads too. You can put a little wood glue in there too, then screw the screw back in while the glue is still wet.
I added a ground from foil to tone knob. It actively makes my tone knob have slightly higher resistance, and gives a darker/sharper decline tone variation
Thanks for posting. I cringed though when you took the exacto knife to the tape to trim near the bridge. Guessing you put a nice mark in your Strat's paint job!
No wonder I automatically gravited to to the out of phase positions. They were the ones with the least EMI noise. It was an unconscious decision. It also gives the Strat a 'Country' sound.
Just used your technique. I got about 75% H um reduction at full volume. Also jus for fun I coated the spring cavity and lid. Pretty happy with it. Thank you.
I had a grounding issue when I put copper in the space where the jackplate goes. Someone online pointed out that the jack plate is already hooked up to the ground and is the point where the electricity is leaving the guitar as well as the entry point.
Thanks for the info, but here's a correction. It's not a Faraday cage that you're building. A Faraday cage would completely encapsulate the pickup as well. This is a receiver that is grounded which bleeds the EMI to the ground. The actual thickness you would need to block the EMI completely, and make it into a Faraday cage which would also need to surround the pickups would be about 10 mm. This is shielding not a Faraday cage.
Flipper Carlin Well yes, but I think out of phase is a fine enough description for the purposes of this video. The result of the coils being in reverse polarity is that the EMI interference is in fact out of phase, which is how this configuration works to cancel hum.
@@chassheppard actually not my friend. The poles are reversed. Instead of all 3 having north on top south on bottom, the middle one's poles are south on top and north on bottom, basically reversed, so when in 2 n 4 with bith pickups on it acts like a humbucker, pickups not joined but separated. Being out of phase has a distinct tonal difference, reverese polarity does not.
I could see someone making pre-made copper shells that you could just pop in and Link together with ground strap you solder to each end. No more time consuming messy wrinkly stuff.
IMHO AS FAR AS I KNOW The 2 in between pos are two pickups on a STRAT are reverse polarity in parallel instead of in series On a Gibson hb guitar the two pickups can be in parallel out of phase because the magnet is flipped 180 degrees yet in the pickup its in-phase in series with itself Gibsons work a little different than Fenders
Never once considered that Fender wouldn't properly shield the interior of their guitars. Pulled apart my daughter's Squire Classic and there is not a bit of shielding anywhere... 😞Guess that explains why that guitar has always been ridiculously noisy.
If the body and neck were both a 1996 Fender Strat and if that was a loaded pickguard that was installed the guitar was actually down-graded with mini pots and a PCB switch.
Thanks, good video. I have a $60 Starcaster that I love to play, but it's so noisy I can't record with it very well. This is exactly the vid I need, I can do this.
Or you can just twist your ground cable around the input cable, wich reduces the « antena lenght » considerably. Nice playin’ at the end of the video👍😀
Does that work as well? Do you extend the ground wire from the tone pot to do this? Sorry just wondering... I figured his shielded input wires on the jack input (instrument side) would have been sufficient for this purpose
Nice! But don't call shielding a Faraday cage, since it is not - pickups are still out, and the signal+grounding cables are also communicating with "external world", so it is shielding, but not a Faraday cage. It is a very common mistake.
Nice job :-) But I can´t help mentioning this: The pickup switch positions 2 and 4 are NOT out of phase. That is a common misconception, but it is not true. It is just 2 PU´s connected in parallel. The only way you can get out of phase on most Strats is when you buy a reverse wound middle pickup. I don´t like the sound much, but that is out of phase in pos. 2 and 4. On few Strat clones there are block magnets, the middle one could be turned, which will give the same result. It should be possible to buy copper tape with conducting adhesive, but I havn´t found it yet, and conductive paint is said to have a low shelf time.
So... neck and centre pickup on position 2 and centre and bridge on position 4 are the ones in parallel ? Meaning.. The winds are both in the same direction? I didnt know the centre pickup doesnt come stock with copper windings that are wound in the opposite direction (reverse wound) for anyone with this same question... I thought that was the whole idea of positions 2 and 4... so the pickups work like a single humbucking picking? Sorry maybe you can clarify for me a bit
@@carlnikolov It is only on special configurations that the middle pickup is reverse wound, a standard guitar comes with pickups wound in the same direction. And the purpose with position 2 and 4 is to get a quackier sound.
You are incorrect. Thee way you get out of phase is to wire one of the pickups to the pots with the hot wire going to ground and the ground wire going to hot. Also, When the middle pickup is RWRP(Reverse wound reverse polarity) you get hum canceling in positions 2 & 4. Parallel and series wiring have nothing to do with the winding of the coils. It has to do with the way the lead wires from the coils are wired. will explain this in a simplified manner. If you take 2 coils and wire the hot from one to the ground from the other. Then wire them up as one pickup, this is a series wiring. It is how humbuckers are wired. You don't see this because in a humbucker, the soldering of the ground and hot together in stuffed in between the two coils. Parallel is the way all strats and teles are wired. each pickup is wired to the pots and switches by themselves. I don't know if I explained this well but if anyone wants to read more about it, there are plenty of sites on the Web to look at.
Sure, it's nothing complicated. The solder just creates a redundant electrical connection between the different pieces of copper. The adhesive on this tape is supposed to be electrically conductive but who knows how true that'll be 10, 20 years from now. Solder is just metal and its chemistry won't change so it's a bit more reliable in that respect.
I have a '91 American Standard with shielding paint from the factory, bathtub routing. They were using that stuff way back in the '80s. However copper tape with conductive adhesive is superior.
Hay I learned a lot from this video, I successfully shielded my guitar using this video as a guide- thanks! hay, did you happen to record an extended version of that song at the end? I believe it's "burning down the house" by talking heads, but, I REALLY REALLY REALLY like this instrumental version..
Awesome, thanks! Very kind of you to say. That piece in the video is all I recorded - just something for the outro. But it is indeed "burning down the house" and there's a fantastic video of Alex Weir, one of my favorite rhythm players of all time, giving a lesson on how to play it and some other Talking Heads riffs in great detail: ruclips.net/video/hr4W23zqXsc/видео.html#t=8m48s (at about 8 min 30s)
Try as we may there is no escaping what real single coils do. It's never diminished my enjoyment of Jimi Hendrix or other great works done with them. Wail away !
1:45 Just put some more soldering wire to the tip of that thing. You want heat transfer, so you need more molten metal there. More power is not always nesseserry. Good video, thank you. Need shielding too. I turned a cheap Spanish guitar into a weird hybrid. I can try extra control knobs, like one for mixing neck and middle pickup volume. I could add a tone knob for each seperate pickup, instead of just that single one. I could get myself a traditional 5 position switch, instead of installing a high quality 3 channel mixer on my guitar. Building it yourself is fun. How to shield a flattened Spanish guitar is a bit of a challenge, heavy duty aluminum is a good idea.
Hmm... not more molten metal, but a properly cleaned and tinned tip would be a better idea. And a bigger iron (higher wattage, larger tip) for such a large thermal mass.
A few questions. 1) Why do people cover the serial number when videoing thier guitars? 2) How woukd it benefit a yone to know your serial number? 3) Knowing what humbucker do. Do they also need to be shielded?
Well the answer to question 1 and 2 are the same. Counterfeiters like to put real serial numbers on their fakes so that when selling, the potential buyer could have the number verified by fender and it would "check out". Your last question has a bit of a debatable answer. However, I tend to lean on the side of caution. Shielding your HB guitar would at the very least protect the wires and pots etc from interference. I also lean to the side of lazy though, that is to say if it ain't broke don't fix it. If you're not experiencing noise problems now, don't bother.
If I may add. If you're servicing someone's guitar professionally, I would absolutely shield it! It's always good to ask though, every now and then you'll come across someone who's ears tell them that the noise is a part of "THE" sound.
For shielding outside interference being picked somewhere in the circuitry as extraneious noise and going to your amp, the benefit of shielding the cavity is the same for HBs and single coils. For noise contribution from the pickups, that is where the HBs are better than the single coils.
This is an interesting topic apparently. I have a 79 strat and I do not believe it has shielding. I am building a Tele thinline and am using copper shielding tape. SOme people say it's needed and other say not. My 79 strat never has any noise.
My loaded pickguard only came with 3 wires to solder: ground to claw in back, ground to output Jack and lead to output Jack. If I want to add copper shielding to my body cavity, how can I connect it to ground without a 4th wire?
The guitar is secondhand but I'm fairly sure it's all original parts, MIM 1996. I think the mexican strats have some relief carved in at the corner of the pocket to give better tolerance for the final fit (necks are probably made an another production line). Thread about it here: www.squier-talk.com/threads/strange-neck-pocket-shape.83472/
Youre wrong. All fender strat neck pockets have extended corners, unlike most tele pockets. It is meant for some extra space for the neck t obe adjusted or replaced. It fits the pocket just like any other strat.
I'm really shaky about tackling this project. Our son plays bass for the church praise songs and maybe we can see about changing where he plays for no hum pick-up. I run the sound system and the guitar is definitely picking up interference on stage.
Yeah, shielding will reduce but not eliminate noise. If you get a lot of interference I would suggest looking at stacked humbucking pickups, DiMarzio makes some that will fit j and p bass cutouts and retain a very clean single coil sound without house noise.
Sure! You might want to do a quick test to see if the adhesive is conductive. You can use continuity mode on a multimeter or do the old tongue on a 9v battery trick to see if 2 pieces taped together conduct electricity.
My guitar is in the shop getting a full foil shield treatment but I’m getting paranoid about it, is the foil removable is I don’t end up liking the results?
It would take quite an effort to remove the foil. Remember, if using the copper tape, it has adhesive on the back so it can stick to the cavity. It can be done but, as I said, it would require an effort.
When i put copper tape inside the jack cable socket, my guitar signal was cut. I thought damaged the wirings in the process. But when i removed the jack out of the socket where there was copper tape, there is a signal. So i decided to remove the copper tape in the jack hole. Anyone can explain this please?
Daniel Forto your jack is touching the copper in the cavity and grounding out. Put some clear masking tape over the copper tape to make sure they don’t touch.
Did you solder the output wires onto the output jack backwards? Then the hot (center conductor) will be on the ground part of the jack. Voila, instant short.
I was wondering the same thing about that little hole! Maybe it's for easier registration on one of their work-holding jigs. I think the MIM strats all have the same "universal" pickup cavity routing, which is convenient if I ever want to put a humbucker in the bridge. I was thinking I might put a noiseless one in the neck position, maybe I'll go full HSS when I make the change.
Why do you have a telecaster neck pocket on this strat , is it because the anniversary model, you can really tell as the strat neck is not sitting snug and flush in the pocket . The obvious gaps in the corner pockets ,is this the original neck by any chance
Lots of theories from other comments about this! Some say it's a fake, some say all Mexican strats are like that, others say it's because of the encinitas plant fire in 94, for a while they were mixing and matching US/MX parts. Your guess is as good as mine!
i see a lot of guitar youtubers who shield there guitars just like this, my question is why fender guitar or other guitar companies don't shield the guitar just like what you did on this video presented, or even using copper shielding tape?
MONEY & TIME! Simply cutting cost. Did you know that Martin guitar company stopped slotting the bridge on their acoustic guitars to save money and time, they now use slotted pins instead.
You have to remove the pickguard to get to the cavity, for sure, but removing the wires on the pickguard, you mean? Nothing else needs to be desoldered, you just have to unscrew the pickup and switch screws and remove the nuts on the potentiometers to get a clean pickguard, all the wiring stays connected then you just drop it back in. think it would be pretty hard to get the shielding in there under all the wiring, and it would probably take me longer to try it than just to unscrew the hardware!
Yes, but aluminum is not as conductive. The physics (or electrical engineering) is called "skin depth", and is the depth that the magnetic field from the EMI radiation (EMI is just photons at a long wavelength with oscillating electric and magnetic fields propagating through space at 90-degree angles to each other) penetrates into the metal shielding.....this depth depends upon the conductivity of the metal....copper is more conductive than aluminum, therefore the skin depth is less, and the thickness of metal material is less. You can use aluminum, but you might have to use thicker material.....also, do not use aluminum foil from Walmart...that has a coating on it from the factory.....it is not easy to get a good soldering connection to this.....to be sure, always buy uncoated metal....copper or aluminum!
does grounding the shielding actually do anything? In my mind the copper wouldn't have anything to need grounded if it shields interference. I'll have to experiment if I get some
Good question. Metal RF shielding is grounded for safety reasons, so that electronics enclosures don't become live circuits if something fails inside. However it may not affect the shielding efficacy. However it is usually a good idea to ground plastic parts as well to prevent static build-up.
Based on many years experience of working on radio systems, I know that if you don’t ground the shielding, it can turn into an antenna. It may end up working anyway (or potentially make the problem worse) but you won’t get the maximum improvement possible.
Yes, they'll form a good electrical connection. Dissimilar metals can cause corrosion but that's generally more of a problem in wet environments and with ferrous metals. Aluminum wire and connectors are used pretty frequently in electrical connection.
@@extralifedisco You were very meticulous with the copper to create a contact surface with the pickguard foil. It would be interesting (if you ever had the time) to try it with having the surfaces well covered up to the plane where the pickguard is attached, but without having those contact surfaces. Whatever electrical gap remained would be very small, and depending on the frequencies involved, you may be sufficiently shielded.
I think I mentioned in the vid but the pickguard is aftermarket and came with aluminum tape on it. You just have to remove all the hardware and tape it up (it's flat so easier than the cavity) and put the hardware back on. Most fenders at least have the control cavity shielded on the pickguard to start.
Oh god on my jackson spectra when i turn up the volume that noise is so bothersum....I need to do some shielding...can I just do this with either Aluminum foil or the aluminum foil tape?
@@extralifedisco Ye I wont be mixing I just wanted to know all my options. I ordered a roll of copper foil adhesive conductive from ebay. So now I have to wait :)
You mean RFI radio frequency interference. The reason that strat is so noisy is becajse single coils suck. Dumpem for humbuckers. They make a whole bunch that fit right in the same hole.
In my opinion, people are overthinking this. ANY shielding you put in place will likely improve (decrease) ground hum caused by single coils). I've shielded lots of guitars with copper. It works. Put away the meter. Move on.
Shielding is based on the Faraday cage electrical concept which is a function of thickness of the conductive material in relation to the EMI wavelength. The longer the wavelength the thicker the cage metal must be. It is possible he installed it wrong, but equally possible the the purity of the tape used or thickness of the metal isn't sufficient for the many electromagnetic waves in his area.
I have to chuckle, -- Brits and French pronounce solder as it is spelled. Americans pronounce it as saw-der. I worked with lady that was not British, but pronounced it sol- der.
![GUITAR SHIELDING 101: A [Relatively] Quick Guide to Working with Foil Tape](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-mLBo4y9t8Y/mqdefault.jpg)
This worked great for me. No degradation in tone that I can detect and my strat is now silent. Before this I had a nasty buzz unless I was touching the strings or bridge. One additional thing I did was make a small tube of copper foil running through the hole connecting the output jack area and the control area to shield the output wires. I don't know if this mattered but was easy enough to do. I sliced the ends of the tube that extended into the two areas lengthwise and then pressed it out like the petals of a flower on both ends to ensure the tube had continuity with the rest of the shielding.
I've build my own guitars from scratch and never had as many problems like I spent the last 3 days on this kid's guitar trying to get the buzz out until I learned that it's just something that strat builds and their pickups just have naturally. I used shielding paint, foil on the pickup guard, wax potted the pickups, new wires and wiring configurations,... even made sure it wasn't pots or pickup screws touching the foil. I love strats, but fuck my life, great learning experience if I want to be a luthier someday
Grounding hum is an extremely technical subject and is caused by more than just unshielded electronic components. Sometimes it's caused by connections to multiple units that have different ground conditions. It's worth checking out because in some set-ups the hum can be overwhelming. I get several radio and short-wave stations some days when I touch the strings of my Strat. They're so loud that I'm able to record them with a mic.
Guitar repair dude here. When you started cutting the foil by the bridge with the xacto knife, I audibly gasped. I'm sure you used a soft touch, but the idea of the blade cutting into the finish almost gave me a heart attack lol.
That area is going to be covered by the pickguard anyway.
Thats the beauty of doing work on your own guitars... Doesn't matter if you "add some character." :)
out of sight out of mind for the average joe haha
In corona times I have done some diy work to a P-bass (fretless now), a Yamaha Pacifica (removed paint and oiled the body) and an old cheap Spanish guitar (body is now 2.5" and it has both coils and piëzo).
What I've learned, is that small mistakes (making a scratch or sanding a hair too deep) can take weeks to repair. Waiting for some varnish to dry thoroughly might really slow you down. Try doing creative things involving tubes of oil paint, and plan half a year ahead.... For my bass, I decided learning to play it, is more important than a great shiny finish. Now it is okay, I could simply polish and varnish it, or sand all the paint away, expose the wood and oil it. Yep, when things go wrong, it is sometimes loads of work to reverse the mistake in a decent way.
a little dramatic
Lord Commander Delores Edd, of the Nights Watch, teaching guitar shielding. Celebrating the victory with some killer funk.
I was trying to figure out all video who this guy reminded me of. It was on the tip of my tongue. Thank you sir xD
Good video, to the point no excess talking or repeating the same information over and over again or telling of life story which you get in so many other RUclips videos
Copper with some adhesive on it...buy if from Stew Mac for only 5X the price of regular adhesive backed copper. They also sell guitar screwdrivers, a guitar hammer, and if you spend over $100 (for example if you bought one "guitar screw") you get a free guitar sticker. It's like a regular sticker, but it comes in a packet with a guitar drawn on it, and costs 5X as much
Stew mac is insanely over priced.
I saw they were selling a ruler for guitar action measurements for like 23 bucks. I had got it on amazon for 6 bucks.
Fuck stewmac, they geh
Here's my not-to-be-believed favorite. Yeh, it's cheap by their standards but can be replaced any small scrap of junk.
www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Tools_by_Job/Tools_for_Nuts_and_Saddles/String_Lifter.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-bjyBRCcARIsAFboWg3b6dcTf9e_yeXIlmrKMz3fDPnPlCkULEFrJphpOVvjsZ8rbApqkkEaAk_rEALw_wcB
It really is a killer deal, I bought 3.
of everything.
Never use a power drill for pick guard screws. Just a matter of time until you strip the wooden screw holes in the body.
For real I don't really use a power drill on anything in a guitar or bass... I respect the wood way too much
Twist the OEM single coil pickups and out put jack wires. Shield cavity with aluminum foil tape that works just as well as copper foil tape. Ground the three pots together single wire daisy chain. Install a better treble bleed. Huge improvement! Hum reduced and buzzing gone. Don't sink money in swapping out pickups. A properly single coil strat setup is fun to play. Notice, I said single coil not humbucker !! Cheers!!
So awesome and the ending with you playing is simply great. Thanks for the video! Nice playing btw!
Agree. I was just exploring vids about shielding and suddenly got brutally grabbed by the balls with the groove. Well done!
Never do soldering/desoldering like that - do not blow at the points/contacts you've just finished (as for to cool them down or to blow away the dust), because, chances are you will scratch the soft surfaces and reduce the quality of soldering along the way. Always cover the scratchable surfaces with some paper or cloth.
I've just bought some copper tape to try and shut my noisy as hell Gibson BFG up, that'll be me this weekend. Thanks Extralife - I thought it'd be what you did, but it's nice to see someone do it first, good tip about the joint soldering.
So did it work?
@@WarrenPostma Absolute sodding nightmare, in the process of removing the electrics, my V old soldering iron melted the interior of the volume pot. Bought a new one, spindle too short (designed for pickguard mount rather than through-body type Gibson), then couldn't get any surface adhesion with the solder, bought a new iron - eventually got it ON AND WORKING (from start to finish about 2 weeks with waiting for deliveries) - by then, I'd lost all interest. If you have any luck, let me know.
You can use aluminum HVAC tape, but to maintain connectivity you just cut the tape with a couple little dog-ears sticking out from the long side. Then when you remove the backing, fold the dog-ear under. You can then overlap the tape over another piece and maintain connectivity. It works fine. I like the good copper tape from Stew Mac too, but have used this in a pinch and it worked just as well.
Using HVAC tape is a great idea! Thanks!
@@michaelkiese7794 You're welcome Michael! Just be sure to do the dog-ear thing, and ground it to one of the pots and it works fine.
I did this to my 50th anniversary Strat about 15 years ago too (Squier though, not rich!), but I used aluminium foil and aluminium paint so that there was no magnetic issue with the pickups.
I'm running standard issues on neck and middle, but I have a hot rail humbucker on the bridge position and it sounds great. Also, I'm not too bad at setting up guitars and a lot of folk who played my Squier Strat have queried its authenticity as a Chinese build!
Anyway, good video and I dig your tunes.
My heart is so happy that I just did my first ever guitar shielding haha! I've watched your video and it really helped me a lot! It was so fun. Thank you for this video🙏✌
Burnin Down da House Great job sounded fantastic...
Shielding the jack cavity is not recommended, as it increases static noise when your hand gets close to the strings. Try it. In fact Fender does not do it, it does not paint that cavity with conductive paint, it only paints the electronics cavity.
you deserve to have at least 1M views on this mate! literally have scoured youtube for a vid on stopping the buzz/noise with this technique multiple times - as i’d heard of it being done but didn’t know much!
Nice drum sound with a lot of room in it! And nice work too!
Let me correct something this fellow said at the beginning of the video. The 2 in between positions(2 & 4) are not out of phase. The middle pickup is RWRP(*Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity"). They are in phase with the other pickups but the RWRP creates a hum cancelling configuration. If they were out of phase it would change the tone considerably.
correct. one of the least understood and hardest to explain concepts in guitar pickup technology.
@RDE Lutherie Tell us more MR. Science!!!
@RDE Lutherie Who is the smug smart ass here? You post a Novel about how much of an electrical genius you are and you call me smug? On the guitar world, not your "I am the Master of all electronics" world, what I said was true. So go to hell you piece of shit.
@RDE Lutherie "..Leo Fender), who also didn't know the difference between Vibrato, and Tremolo! " Yes, Leo got it wrong. But he stuck to it didn't he! I find it strange that you two guys can have an argument when you basically agree on most if not all the major points of the discussion. The bridge and middle PU, and the neck and middle PU, are wound and wired to cancel electronic noise, but in-phase to pickup string vibration. RDE, you do a very good job explaining it. Jim, you correctly pointed out the host of this video at 00:33 misstates that the PUs are out of phase. RDE, you added clarification to that. You guys remind me of me and my ex, just slightly more entertaining.
@RDE Lutherie a novel?!! I read a concise but detailed explanation and appreciate such clarifications.
Great video!! I have 2 of these to do... ty for your time making it for all of us!! Damn great jam at the end !! Melted my face!! LOved it!!
Also there are separate units that you plug your equipment into that filter the line voltage. Back in the 90s there was a $400 unit in Best Buy with VU meters in the front and they had one big screen TV plugged into it and the other was not and you could definitely notice a difference in the picture quality side-by-side.
Jam a toothpick in the hole the screw wasn't backing out of and break it off flush with the top of the guitar. Then reinsert the screw.
This trick works on those tiny screws that are used on tuning machine heads too. You can put a little wood glue in there too, then screw the screw back in while the glue is still wet.
I added a ground from foil to tone knob. It actively makes my tone knob have slightly higher resistance, and gives a darker/sharper decline tone variation
Thanks for posting. I cringed though when you took the exacto knife to the tape to trim near the bridge. Guessing you put a nice mark in your Strat's paint job!
Just did my Epi Les Paul Custom deluxe and worked beautifully. Thanks!!!
Did you connect that grounding wire from the cavity of the instrument with the foil...to the volume pot on the back of the pick guard?
No wonder I automatically gravited to to the out of phase positions. They were the ones with the least EMI noise. It was an unconscious decision. It also gives the Strat a 'Country' sound.
Just used your technique. I got about 75% H um reduction at full volume. Also jus for fun I coated the
spring cavity and lid. Pretty happy with it. Thank you.
I had a grounding issue when I put copper in the space where the jackplate goes. Someone online pointed out that the jack plate is already hooked up to the ground and is the point where the electricity is leaving the guitar as well as the entry point.
That’s a cracker jam at the end mate!❤
Thanks for the info, but here's a correction. It's not a Faraday cage that you're building. A Faraday cage would completely encapsulate the pickup as well. This is a receiver that is grounded which bleeds the EMI to the ground. The actual thickness you would need to block the EMI completely, and make it into a Faraday cage which would also need to surround the pickups would be about 10 mm. This is shielding not a Faraday cage.
Thickness of 10mm??? That's a full centimetre, which would reduce your space to reinstall any of your electrics!
Can you make more videos of you playing your Stratocaster 🙏🏾🎸
I can hear the difference. Good job man. You should get the mustang micro headphone and blueray
Very neat job... il be doing this to mine
Switch Pos 2 n 4 are NOT out of phase, but they are wound reverse polarity.
Flipper Carlin Well yes, but I think out of phase is a fine enough description for the purposes of this video.
The result of the coils being in reverse polarity is that the EMI interference is in fact out of phase, which is how this configuration works to cancel hum.
@@chassheppard actually not my friend. The poles are reversed. Instead of all 3 having north on top south on bottom, the middle one's poles are south on top and north on bottom, basically reversed, so when in 2 n 4 with bith pickups on it acts like a humbucker, pickups not joined but separated. Being out of phase has a distinct tonal difference, reverese polarity does not.
I could see someone making pre-made copper shells that you could just pop in and Link together with ground strap you solder to each end. No more time consuming messy wrinkly stuff.
The two inbetween are not out of phase but you will learn all that later on
Peter Green was king of out of phase tone
IMHO AS FAR AS I KNOW
The 2 in between pos are two pickups on a STRAT are reverse polarity in parallel instead of in series
On a Gibson hb guitar the two pickups can be in parallel out of phase because the magnet is flipped 180 degrees yet in the pickup its in-phase in series with itself
Gibsons work a little different than Fenders
"Today is tomorrow " -extralife
"Today was tomorrow yesterday" - Ozzy Osbourne ... lol
Never once considered that Fender wouldn't properly shield the interior of their guitars. Pulled apart my daughter's Squire Classic and there is not a bit of shielding anywhere... 😞Guess that explains why that guitar has always been ridiculously noisy.
If the body and neck were both a 1996 Fender Strat and if that was a loaded pickguard that was installed the guitar was actually down-graded with mini pots and a PCB switch.
Thanks, good video. I have a $60 Starcaster that I love to play, but it's so noisy I can't record with it very well. This is exactly the vid I need, I can do this.
Burning down the house 🤘🤘🤘
Or you can just twist your ground cable around the input cable, wich reduces the « antena lenght » considerably. Nice playin’ at the end of the video👍😀
Does that work as well? Do you extend the ground wire from the tone pot to do this? Sorry just wondering... I figured his shielded input wires on the jack input (instrument side) would have been sufficient for this purpose
@@carlnikolov My cheap squier has the twisted pair thing, and it reduces hum but adhesive tinfoil did even more to reduce it.
Nice! But don't call shielding a Faraday cage, since it is not - pickups are still out, and the signal+grounding cables are also communicating with "external world", so it is shielding, but not a Faraday cage. It is a very common mistake.
Nice job :-) But I can´t help mentioning this: The pickup switch positions 2 and 4 are NOT out of phase. That is a common misconception, but it is not true. It is just 2 PU´s connected
in parallel. The only way you can get out of phase on most Strats is when you buy a reverse wound middle pickup. I don´t like the sound much, but that is out of phase in pos. 2 and 4.
On few Strat clones there are block magnets, the middle one could be turned, which will give the same result. It should be possible to buy copper tape with conducting adhesive, but
I havn´t found it yet, and conductive paint is said to have a low shelf time.
So... neck and centre pickup on position 2 and centre and bridge on position 4 are the ones in parallel ? Meaning.. The winds are both in the same direction? I didnt know the centre pickup doesnt come stock with copper windings that are wound in the opposite direction (reverse wound) for anyone with this same question... I thought that was the whole idea of positions 2 and 4... so the pickups work like a single humbucking picking? Sorry maybe you can clarify for me a bit
@@carlnikolov It is only on special configurations that the middle pickup is reverse wound, a standard guitar comes with pickups wound in the same direction. And the purpose with position 2 and 4 is to get a quackier sound.
You are incorrect. Thee way you get out of phase is to wire one of the pickups to the pots with the hot wire going to ground and the ground wire going to hot. Also, When the middle pickup is RWRP(Reverse wound reverse polarity) you get hum canceling in positions 2 & 4. Parallel and series wiring have nothing to do with the winding of the coils. It has to do with the way the lead wires from the coils are wired. will explain this in a simplified manner. If you take 2 coils and wire the hot from one to the ground from the other. Then wire them up as one pickup, this is a series wiring. It is how humbuckers are wired. You don't see this because in a humbucker, the soldering of the ground and hot together in stuffed in between the two coils. Parallel is the way all strats and teles are wired. each pickup is wired to the pots and switches by themselves.
I don't know if I explained this well but if anyone wants to read more about it, there are plenty of sites on the Web to look at.
Great vid! I just didn't see or understand what you did with the solder inside the cavity on the tape in different places. Can you explain?
Sure, it's nothing complicated. The solder just creates a redundant electrical connection between the different pieces of copper. The adhesive on this tape is supposed to be electrically conductive but who knows how true that'll be 10, 20 years from now. Solder is just metal and its chemistry won't change so it's a bit more reliable in that respect.
I have a '91 American Standard with shielding paint from the factory, bathtub routing. They were using that stuff way back in the '80s. However copper tape with conductive adhesive is superior.
Hay I learned a lot from this video, I successfully shielded my guitar using this video as a guide- thanks! hay, did you happen to record an extended version of that song at the end? I believe it's "burning down the house" by talking heads, but, I REALLY REALLY REALLY like this instrumental version..
Awesome, thanks! Very kind of you to say. That piece in the video is all I recorded - just something for the outro. But it is indeed "burning down the house" and there's a fantastic video of Alex Weir, one of my favorite rhythm players of all time, giving a lesson on how to play it and some other Talking Heads riffs in great detail: ruclips.net/video/hr4W23zqXsc/видео.html#t=8m48s (at about 8 min 30s)
@@extralifedisco hey thanks, that's super helpful, i'll check it out!
Try as we may there is no escaping what real single coils do. It's never diminished my enjoyment of Jimi Hendrix or other great works done with them. Wail away !
Agreed. If anything, shielding paint has the best shielding but nothing will beat better insulated wires, noiseless single coils or humbuckers
Nice work and good video and great playing btw!
1:45 Just put some more soldering wire to the tip of that thing. You want heat transfer, so you need more molten metal there. More power is not always nesseserry. Good video, thank you. Need shielding too.
I turned a cheap Spanish guitar into a weird hybrid. I can try extra control knobs, like one for mixing neck and middle pickup volume. I could add a tone knob for each seperate pickup, instead of just that single one. I could get myself a traditional 5 position switch, instead of installing a high quality 3 channel mixer on my guitar. Building it yourself is fun. How to shield a flattened Spanish guitar is a bit of a challenge, heavy duty aluminum is a good idea.
Hmm... not more molten metal, but a properly cleaned and tinned tip would be a better idea. And a bigger iron (higher wattage, larger tip) for such a large thermal mass.
The copper tape i recently purchased said it had a conductive adhesive backing so there should be no need to do that extra soldering...
You are correct.
Why didn't you intertwine the wires from the sensors?
A few questions. 1) Why do people cover the serial number when videoing thier guitars? 2) How woukd it benefit a yone to know your serial number? 3) Knowing what humbucker do. Do they also need to be shielded?
Well the answer to question 1 and 2 are the same. Counterfeiters like to put real serial numbers on their fakes so that when selling, the potential buyer could have the number verified by fender and it would "check out".
Your last question has a bit of a debatable answer. However, I tend to lean on the side of caution. Shielding your HB guitar would at the very least protect the wires and pots etc from interference. I also lean to the side of lazy though, that is to say if it ain't broke don't fix it. If you're not experiencing noise problems now, don't bother.
If I may add. If you're servicing someone's guitar professionally, I would absolutely shield it! It's always good to ask though, every now and then you'll come across someone who's ears tell them that the noise is a part of "THE" sound.
@@algio3041 Ah very good a swer. I hadn't thought of that.
For shielding outside interference being picked somewhere in the circuitry as extraneious noise and going to your amp, the benefit of shielding the cavity is the same for HBs and single coils. For noise contribution from the pickups, that is where the HBs are better than the single coils.
This is an interesting topic apparently. I have a 79 strat and I do not believe it has shielding. I am building a Tele thinline and am using copper shielding tape. SOme people say it's needed and other say not. My 79 strat never has any noise.
Haha you shred! What a vibe. Nice video, thanks for sharing.
Funky Burning Down The House. Nice...
Hi, did you connect all the shielding to the wire that goes to the jack's ground ?
Can i make this on guitar without pickguard
My loaded pickguard only came with 3 wires to solder: ground to claw in back, ground to output Jack and lead to output Jack. If I want to add copper shielding to my body cavity, how can I connect it to ground without a 4th wire?
Connect it to either ground point. If the pick guard is shielded on the back, it should make that connection when you screw it on.
@@extralifedisco Thank you!
Did anybody else notice that that neck doesn't fit the pocket!!?
The guitar is secondhand but I'm fairly sure it's all original parts, MIM 1996. I think the mexican strats have some relief carved in at the corner of the pocket to give better tolerance for the final fit (necks are probably made an another production line). Thread about it here: www.squier-talk.com/threads/strange-neck-pocket-shape.83472/
It works pretty well but the problems will still be there when using high gain.
Youre wrong. All fender strat neck pockets have extended corners, unlike most tele pockets. It is meant for some extra space for the neck t obe adjusted or replaced. It fits the pocket just like any other strat.
You tube critics u gotta love’em....
hello good Sir! Do you agree that shielding has any effect on tone quality?
I'm really shaky about tackling this project. Our son plays bass for the church praise songs and maybe we can see about changing where he plays for no hum pick-up. I run the sound system and the guitar is definitely picking up interference on stage.
Yeah, shielding will reduce but not eliminate noise. If you get a lot of interference I would suggest looking at stacked humbucking pickups, DiMarzio makes some that will fit j and p bass cutouts and retain a very clean single coil sound without house noise.
Nice TH at the end
For copper tape; could I use the kind of tape used to keep slugs away in the garden?
Sure! You might want to do a quick test to see if the adhesive is conductive. You can use continuity mode on a multimeter or do the old tongue on a 9v battery trick to see if 2 pieces taped together conduct electricity.
My guitar is in the shop getting a full foil shield treatment but I’m getting paranoid about it, is the foil removable is I don’t end up liking the results?
It would take quite an effort to remove the foil. Remember, if using the copper tape, it has adhesive on the back so it can stick to the cavity. It can be done but, as I said, it would require an effort.
good shit man you know what your doing
When i put copper tape inside the jack cable socket, my guitar signal was cut. I thought damaged the wirings in the process. But when i removed the jack out of the socket where there was copper tape, there is a signal. So i decided to remove the copper tape in the jack hole. Anyone can explain this please?
Daniel Forto your jack is touching the copper in the cavity and grounding out. Put some clear masking tape over the copper tape to make sure they don’t touch.
@@AgressiveElevatorMusic thank you!
Did you solder the output wires onto the output jack backwards? Then the hot (center conductor) will be on the ground part of the jack. Voila, instant short.
that is a curious guitar, it has an SSH body but i've never seen that hole to the right of the first pickup, what is it for??
I was wondering the same thing about that little hole! Maybe it's for easier registration on one of their work-holding jigs. I think the MIM strats all have the same "universal" pickup cavity routing, which is convenient if I ever want to put a humbucker in the bridge. I was thinking I might put a noiseless one in the neck position, maybe I'll go full HSS when I make the change.
@@extralifedisco Yes, it is for alignment on the jigs.
Why do you have a telecaster neck pocket on this strat , is it because the anniversary model, you can really tell as the strat neck is not sitting snug and flush in the pocket . The obvious gaps in the corner pockets ,is this the original neck by any chance
Lots of theories from other comments about this! Some say it's a fake, some say all Mexican strats are like that, others say it's because of the encinitas plant fire in 94, for a while they were mixing and matching US/MX parts. Your guess is as good as mine!
Burnin down the house allright
Great video, very informative! Thank-you:)
i see a lot of guitar youtubers who shield there guitars just like this, my question is why fender guitar or other guitar companies don't shield the guitar just like what you did on this video presented, or even using copper shielding tape?
MONEY & TIME! Simply cutting cost. Did you know that Martin guitar company stopped slotting the bridge on their acoustic guitars to save money and time, they now use slotted pins instead.
don't I need to do the same in the back cavity? thanks
No. There are people that think so but there are no electronics in that cavity except the ground wire.
Whats up with the neck pocket and the ceramic pots and indonesian type elctronic? But other than that thumbs up :)
Do you HAVE to remove the pickups and the cables? Can you not just widge it and cover what you can?
You have to remove the pickguard to get to the cavity, for sure, but removing the wires on the pickguard, you mean? Nothing else needs to be desoldered, you just have to unscrew the pickup and switch screws and remove the nuts on the potentiometers to get a clean pickguard, all the wiring stays connected then you just drop it back in. think it would be pretty hard to get the shielding in there under all the wiring, and it would probably take me longer to try it than just to unscrew the hardware!
does it work with aluminum?
Yes, but aluminum is not as conductive. The physics (or electrical engineering) is called "skin depth", and is the depth that the magnetic field from the EMI radiation (EMI is just photons at a long wavelength with oscillating electric and magnetic fields propagating through space at 90-degree angles to each other) penetrates into the metal shielding.....this depth depends upon the conductivity of the metal....copper is more conductive than aluminum, therefore the skin depth is less, and the thickness of metal material is less. You can use aluminum, but you might have to use thicker material.....also, do not use aluminum foil from Walmart...that has a coating on it from the factory.....it is not easy to get a good soldering connection to this.....to be sure, always buy uncoated metal....copper or aluminum!
does grounding the shielding actually do anything? In my mind the copper wouldn't have anything to need grounded if it shields interference. I'll have to experiment if I get some
Good question. Metal RF shielding is grounded for safety reasons, so that electronics enclosures don't become live circuits if something fails inside. However it may not affect the shielding efficacy. However it is usually a good idea to ground plastic parts as well to prevent static build-up.
Neonone it does very little if anything at all. Waste of time and money. Get a noise gate pedal is my recommendation
Based on many years experience of working on radio systems, I know that if you don’t ground the shielding, it can turn into an antenna. It may end up working anyway (or potentially make the problem worse) but you won’t get the maximum improvement possible.
can this aluminium on the pickguard touch copper?
Yes, they'll form a good electrical connection. Dissimilar metals can cause corrosion but that's generally more of a problem in wet environments and with ferrous metals. Aluminum wire and connectors are used pretty frequently in electrical connection.
@@extralifedisco You were very meticulous with the copper to create a contact surface with the pickguard foil. It would be interesting (if you ever had the time) to try it with having the surfaces well covered up to the plane where the pickguard is attached, but without having those contact surfaces. Whatever electrical gap remained would be very small, and depending on the frequencies involved, you may be sufficiently shielded.
Could someone send drop a link to something like he used for the output wire?
You didn't show how you taped the back of the pick guard. :(
I think I mentioned in the vid but the pickguard is aftermarket and came with aluminum tape on it. You just have to remove all the hardware and tape it up (it's flat so easier than the cavity) and put the hardware back on. Most fenders at least have the control cavity shielded on the pickguard to start.
Extralife So you put copper on top of the shielding that was already there?
He left the pickguard alone, already done.
lol I untightend the strings and just screw of the neck instead of ruining the strings, is that bad?
Play em til they break! I just wanted to change strings as well so why not get in quicklike
sounds good thanks
Thank you brother
Oh god on my jackson spectra when i turn up the volume that noise is so bothersum....I need to do some shielding...can I just do this with either Aluminum foil or the aluminum foil tape?
Yeah sure, aluminum will work fine. I think you're not supposed to mix the two because the dissimilar metals can react.
@@extralifedisco Ye I wont be mixing I just wanted to know all my options. I ordered a roll of copper foil adhesive conductive from ebay. So now I have to wait :)
Nice work dude.
You mean RFI radio frequency interference. The reason that strat is so noisy is becajse single coils suck. Dumpem for humbuckers. They make a whole bunch that fit right in the same hole.
why this guy remind me of Adam Cole
Im goin to try this,thnx man…
In my opinion, people are overthinking this. ANY shielding you put in place will likely improve (decrease) ground hum caused by single coils).
I've shielded lots of guitars with copper. It works. Put away the meter. Move on.
Cool !!😁👍
When I did the copper shielding on my Telecaster, it was dead quiet using single coil pickups. You've done something wrong if yours is not dead quiet.
Shielding is based on the Faraday cage electrical concept which is a function of thickness of the conductive material in relation to the EMI wavelength. The longer the wavelength the thicker the cage metal must be. It is possible he installed it wrong, but equally possible the the purity of the tape used or thickness of the metal isn't sufficient for the many electromagnetic waves in his area.
Funking my man....
Vox Wah?
fucking awesome rift man. Air rocked in my computer chair... for real.
I have to chuckle, -- Brits and French pronounce solder as it is spelled. Americans pronounce it as saw-der. I worked with lady that was not British, but pronounced it sol- der.
Nice!
Thanks
Is tis shot on film lol?