60 cycle hum, RFI and Shielding is useless Noisy electric guitars SCIENCE EXPERIMENT
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- A short video on guitar noise identification and shielding is useless.
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This should really be one of those million+ view videos. Thank you!!!
Haha! I appreciate that! However, probably not happening with 88 subscribers 😆. I appreciate the view and comment! 🤘
I'm a brand new guitarist and had Epiphone Les Paul gifted to me through the mail. When it came in a whole coil was dead so I ended up going through a nightmare with GC for the warranty repair. When I finally got it back I got to play for more than a couple of minutes and immediately noticed the massive amounts of 60 Hz hum and grounding buzz. I ended up spending a couple days bouncing back and forth between my local shop and guitar center while these issues appeared and disappeared seemingly at random. No one could figure out what was going on. Turns out having the volume knob on the guitar turned way down, and everything else turned way up was practically extracting those hums and making them super loud. Now I'll be honest I wasnt convinced there still wasnt an issue that was going to appear later just cause of all the bs up to this point but seeing this video really put me at ease that its completely normal. It seems TH-cam finally recommended something good; I really appreciate this
That kind of sounds like the ground lug on the volume pot isnt getting a solid connection.
Cheap volume control...change it to better quality, it'll do wonders
Shielding will never make a guitar completely silent. It just increases the signal to noise ratio.
Exactly shielding is a myth
No more like it does take away noise so you hear more of your signal ;)
No shielding is not a myth try going up to a mic with a hot guitar and see how your lips feel after the shock zaps you back 3 feet;)
Exactly. I think people also forget to consider that their guitar is basically 6 3ft radio antennas, so background noise may be inevitable. But those antennas are visibly unidirectional so it’s much easier to deal with outside noise when it is predictable
Great video. Every guitarist that is frustrated with hums/buzzes needs to watch this. So many guitarists coat their pickup cavities with foil, only to find out...that it did nothing.
Yea, I get a little ticked that some guitar techs push these do nothing fixes. This is one of those things that is so useless it’s like the car mechanic selling you services you don’t need. I lost count of all the guitars I’ve had come through that had copper tape inside that caused a short and they couldn’t figure out why it was shorting out. It was the copper tape every time.
Yep, did it,lol...
This video should be way bigger, I’m honestly mad I haven’t found this sooner it should be one of the first videos that pop up when looking up emi or buzzing issues. Thanks for the insight and love that strat, sounds fat and looks beautiful.
Shanx! Yea man, that’s my #1.
Thanks for dropping by and commenting! 🤘
I’d come the same conclusion on shielding, when I did it myself. After being told I was probably doing something wrong by so many people, it’s nice to hear an agreeing voice!
Great video, thanks!
I never understood why people can’t see the fact that the pup face is uncovered and is the open door to all things that enter a circuit.
Thanks for dropping by and commenting. Stay tuned, l I’ll be doing an in depth experiment to finally put this topic to rest. Just gonna have to find some time to do it and video it.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks You'd be surprised that you can get some EMI reduction just by placing a 1/10" thick Aluminum pie tin behind the pickup. Two sheets of Al foil will barely make a difference. Cu is more effective than Al in very thin layers. BTW, I believe the noise from that lamp qualifies as EMI. RFI is well above human hearing.
@@GCKelloch pie tin wouldn’t do anything either. Yes you would be correct that the light would be considered emi. However, emi and rfi are used interchangeably and emi can be used to describe all of these noises where rfi is a specific subset. A quick intertube search and read can clear that up for you.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks do you have a link to that please? Thank you!
@@MathewsGuitarWorks I've tried it with a thick reusable pie tin. It does make a considerable difference.
needed to see this. added a humbucker to my strat and heard the loud buzz. thought i did something wrong so i went and shielded everything in a faraday cage making sure everything was linked and grounded. helped a good amount but still buzzed. this made me realize its probably my room, which has a lot of electronics turned on and connected to the same few power strips
Most likely the reduction in buzz was from an improved ground connection. Shielding does zero to reduce 60 cycle hum of non-humbucking pups and does very little to stop RFI because the face of the pups are still exposed to the outside world. Controls are passive components so shielding them also does nothing. If you have a lot of stuff plugged into the same outlet as your amp, that’s probably the most likely culprit.
Thanks for the comment 🤘.
This video is pure Gold, I am so tired of "guitar experts" saying that you must shield your strat, do paint, do this, do the other, etc, etc. Learning to live with those noises is part of the deal, of course a proper wiring is a must, but if everything is as it should, then have fun and Play! Thanks for the video
Us guitar players are some finicky, voodoo believing, cynical, superstitious, know nothings some times. I agree with you 100%. Most people chase a fix for a thing they don’t even know what it is. This video was a down and dirty on what you are hearing.
Thanks for the comment 🤘
Use a guitar cable that is shielded only one end. This will cut out a lot of the ground hum. Plug the shielded end into your guitar, so the cable is shielded all the way to the amp. The copper braid shield on a guitar cable is only there to shield the signal wire down the length of the signal wire. When the ground from you touching the strings, is connected to the chassis ground of your amp, it creates a ground loop to the A.C. power supply.
interesting. any suggestions on cable companies that offer a pre fabricated cable like this?
@@NeuroplasticityReprogram D'Addario Planet Waves, I have a couple, one end is marked shielded end.
So glad I found this. I almost bought into all that shielding mess, but had wondered about interference in front of the pickups. You just answered that perfectly. Thanks!!
@@jdaniel0907 Yea, shielding doesn’t do what it’s advertised to do in electric guitars. Something I didn’t cover that shielding may do in certain cases is increase the signal to noise ratio. Honestly, if you have a properly grounded circuit, it still doesn’t help with that though. It’s a proper waste of time and resources if you ask me. Stay tuned, I’m going to make a more in depth video covering just the topic of shielding with some good ol redneck science experimentfunctations. Thanks for the watch and comment 🤘.
I am so glad I found this video. It definitely clears up some suspicions I had about the hum I am experienceing. I never had a problem until I moved. I have spent a lot of time trouble shooting. Unplugging items, turning off breakers, trying efi/emi filters, quality cables, disconnecting LED lights etc. I took my setup to my next door neighbors and the hum was gone. I am almost positive it is a grounding issue with the main breaker panel to ground(earth).
Yep. I’m going to have my house wiring grounded better too in the coming months. It should help.
Thanks for commenting and being here!
I hammer a copper ground rod about 1 meter long into the earth and run a ground wire from this copper grounding rod to the ground terminal of the power socket and problem solved.
What's left is only a steady 60 cycle hum which is acceptable for me. Recently I plugged my Fender Champion Amp into another power socket in another room which was not grounded and it was noisy again. Then I read somebody' s comment saying that by using wireless transmitter instead of cable between the guitar and the Amp the grounding noise will go away so I tried and it worked!
Also I found out that when connecting my guitar to my Positive Grid Spark 40 Amp with cable even when the power socket has no ground, there was no ground noise. I mean some Amps are less prone to this problem. May be because the Spark Amp uses AC to DC Adapter .
By the way, in my country we use 220V 50/60 Hz AC.
In the early 90's I read a Guitar Magazine article about shielding with alu foil and then everybody followed suit. There are so many videos explaining how to do this. I think they are missing the real cause of the probem 90% of the people are facing and that's poor grounding in their house electrical system. Only a few videos explain this like yours.
I agree that shielding is a waste of time and money.
@@SwingEzzZZ I finally found the cause of my problem. It was a neutral to ground fault in the house wiring. This causes high levels of EMF or what some people refer to as dirty electricity.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks check for a neutral to ground fault in your house wiring. There are a few videos on YT on how to trouble shoot for this problem. A neutral to ground fault causes EMF. Huge magnetic fields are created because a dual return path is created on the ground and neutral wire. An EMF meter will definitely confirm if that is the problem.
@@solkinar Thanks for the info! I will check that out.
If you use a wireless, the grounding issue goes away. And it's actually safer, you're less likely to get an electronic shock with a wireless system. I remember back in the 80's spending a vacation at a house way out in the countryside. Was astonished that I could play single coils with no noise in that location. Nice video, you really know what you are doing!
Preesh! Thanks for stopping by.
Wow I didn't know this.
@@slimturnpike Yes, absolutely true. Use a wireless and you won't get a potentially lethal shock.
@@MichaelSorensen-bl3ec and no ground hum?
@@slimturnpike No ground hum. If you use a cable and take your hands off the strings, you get hum, but not with a wireless.
Shielding does in fact work because when done correctly, it yields a net effect of dumping a lot of the residual noise artifacts to ground. The other factors involved, such as the quality to of the home (or venue) wiring (old homes and club venues are infamous for exacerbating this issue) or circuit anomalies in general will introduce variables that will negate some of the positive effects we seek.
The best way to create a more controlled and objective experiment would’ve been to have two similar instruments, one with shielding and the other without to show the comparative results on camera.
Shielding does nothing to reduce the noise of a passive guitar circuit. Passive controls produce nor amplify any frequencies. Passive circuits/guitar controls take away. Because of that, no noise is introduced into the circuit via the controls. All emi/rfi enters through the pups. The pup face is still exposed to the outside world collecting emi/rfi. If shielding reduces noise, it was because the circuit wasn’t grounded properly and has nothing to do with reducing emi/rfi and shielding does nothing to change noisy home wiring or amps either.
Thanks for commenting 🤘
The bulk of RFI is actually reflected. Some of it does cause currents in the screen (and so to "ground") and a small amount passed through the screen.
Screening does work - but obviously not completely with an electromagnetic pickup. He is getting a bit extreme with waving an rfi source right in front of the pickups. And passive controls can be a cause of noise as nose currents can be induced in them by EM fields. And since passive pots in guitars are high values then the resulting voltage noise can be quite large.
Also it's true that fundamental mains frequency hum is not attenuated by non-ferrous screening . Because it's mainly Magnetic field rather than Electrical field.
@@MathewsGuitarWorksnot true. EM fields can induce noise currents into conductors. This will cause a noise voltage due to the pot impedance. This noise varies with the wiper position.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks I operate a commercial recording studio. I’ve heard the before and after in a controlled setting which can be heard on playback. Guitar shielding yields audible results guaranteed. However, a negative aspect of shielding pickup cavities with copper is that it does alter the sonic quality of the pickups themselves. Those results I’ve discovered during these before and after experiments as well.
Thank you so much for proving what I thought was correct. Several of my strats are noisy, and I thought if i copper shielded the cavity it would eliminate the hum. you just saved me time and money!
Don’t waste your time.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. 🤘
Nice and comprehensive! Helped me confirm what I knew.. I got 60 cycle hum not a grounding issue and its from a USB interface so am guessing the culprit is my old power supply unit in the PC
*So, you're not exactly right but you're not exactly wrong and yes, I am actually a formally educated electrical/electronics engineer and the cliche heavy metal and instrumentalist guitarist that shreds a the "godly" level.*
These circuits aren't actually shielding the pickups when they provide some dB reduction in the signal dropping across your inductors, *they're providing a path of less resistance for the 50/60 and other signals getting into your pickups.* I've heard systems that most definitely drastically reduce it, but it's not actually shielding or "bucking" the RF. It's also not a straight forward mod where you just install the materials, ground it out and you have great results. It's a lot of time, work and constantly testing it to see how much reduction you have achieved, and then there's still the issue that it may be picked up by another circuit within your gain cascades from guitar to processors to amp.
*There is, however, a guaranteed way to eliminate it and that is through a 90° active bandpass filter of incredibly high dB magnitude.* I built one a couple months ago, went to 32 dB and while it made a tremendous reduction in rising my signal well above the noise, it was still there and even 64 dB wouldn't have gotten rid of it entirely. *My bet is a reduction of 96 dB is necessary, but I've read documentation from others that have built them and plenty go over 100 dB!*
It's in itself, a simple circuit, but you're going somewhere just above 60 Hz for your high pass, I went with 72 and didn't have noticeable signal loss, and your low-pass portion is going to be best at right around 10 Khz for guitar. One resistor = 3 dB and 1 capacitor = 3 dB, so it's 70 RC networks to achieve 105 dB lower and 105 dB upper filtering! lol
*It absolutely works, but I haven't gotten around to actually building one so very extreme. I would also test it to see if a high-pass of around 72 Hz would be enough and there wouldn't be any harmonic content of the RF or other sources sneaking in somewhere in the upper range of bandwidth.*
In the end, there are still other ways of doing it which I've used for 15 years now.
That's simply low passing your signal steeply with 10 tons of gain and when you bring highs back into the signal as harmonics rather than direct production from your guitar and pickups, 90% of the noise is long gone, the highs *seem* intact, but if I crank up the treble on this distortion pedal I designed and built, the noise comes flooding back in and you realize just how much of the highs and portion of mids have been gutted.
*Ultimately, I tend to agree with your sentiments and rant though, it's not likely to work if you just buy the materials and install them as instructed, and when it works, it's not actually a Faraday cage, it's an antenna of greater conductivity and less resistance ABSORBING the problematic RF and bypassing it to ground.* It's a lot of trial and error as well as using test equipment to truly get a significant amount of bypass, but I've both seen and heard people do it where they got lucky, or they did all the trial and error. Lastly, even with that ultra steep filter in the gain cascade just after your guitar, the risk of another piece of equipment introducing it is still a significant risk. *At some point in the near future though, I will build an elaborate series of networks and be 100% rid of RF interference without brutalizing my upper bandwidth like I currently do.*
Don’t know anything about the circuit you built. This video was simply to ID what the sounds you may be hearing and also to show people shielding in a guitar doesn’t work because the entry gate for rfi is still exposed to the outside would in the form of the pup face.
Passive components don’t amplify the signal so they don’t have to be shielded either. Short of a giant lead box, shielding in a guitar does nothing. I’ve said pretty much everything you’ve said to others, just in a lot fewer words.
Thanks for commenting.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks passive components are the primary source for noise in the case of the guitar. Your amplification devices increase it's magnitude, but they are entering the signal chain directly through your pickups. Pickups are passive, potentiometers, capacitors etc. Sensitivity and frequency response determines the most likely sources, but even potentiometers can pickup noise.
I explained you cannot shield a guitar, but you can reduce the amount of RF voltage dropping across the passive components of your guitar by installing another circuit that provides a path of less resistance for the RF. *This is why in some examples, people can achieve a significant reduction in noise with a circuit they regard as "shielding", but it's actually just a more effective antenna than the induction coils in their pickups. It is reducing noise, but not by shielding aka bucking it away.* There will be less voltage drop of RF across the coils, and a greater voltage drop across the "shielding" in those circuits that achieve it.
@@JonDeth RFI cannot be introduced into a passive guitar circuit via the volume or tone controls without the pups.
@@JonDeth I don’t care about installing another circuit into the guitar. I wasn’t talking about any of that in the video. I appreciate the input about your experience with making something to add, that’s really interesting. No part of anything about what I made the video about or have discussed in conversation is about anything more than ID’n the sound people may hear and shielding in a guitar with non active components does not work.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks you're way outside your depth is the problem lol. Adding and grounding shielding *is adding another circuit.*
If it's done properly, it adds a lower path of resistance for the voltage of the RF to drop across, and it will conduct more through what is being called "shielding" than it will through your pickups, and reduce noise.
*It doesn't work in the simple process of just installing shielding, grounding it and "wah-la!", the noise is gone, but with the right process you can add a "shielding" circuit and greatly reduce the RF noise.
Playing in a bar band for many years, It was amazing how badly most of these dives were wired.
I ran my amp through a UPS battery backup and I switched to EMGs in all my guitars I used live. It helped a lot.
I find most of the noise in my rig is from my house wiring also. It seems it gets worse when the air gets really dry also. I mean if I didn’t ever tell you about it and was playing at normal gig volume, you probably wouldn’t think anything about it. It doesn’t really bother me. It’s a small price to pay for being able to play electric guitar. 🤘
@@MathewsGuitarWorks I only play through headphones these days using Neural DSP. Gets me good sounds with out upsetting the family with my pentatonic wankery. It's a fair trade. Noise is no longer an issue with any kind of pickup, but I do miss my tube amp. I'll have a better setup when I move next year. New place has a really nice shop that I'm going to deck out in boomer man-cave/recording studio greatness.
@@srogers500 🤘🦅
Love the wood finish.
Thanks! That’s my #1
Actually in my case the foil does help to reduce the EMI considerably, and shielding helps a lot, tested separately
You’re lucky, shielding only makes marginal differences in RFI/EMI because the most sensitive part of the whole equation is the pups which aren’t shielded. Shielding a control cavity does absolutely nothing because pots and caps are passive components and do not add anything to the signal. Active components are a different story. Thanks for dropping by!🤘
@@MathewsGuitarWorks Shielding a control cavity does a HUGE difference! I just re-checked again! See, the problem is that there are different types of sources for noises. I'll have to make a video, because it is a long story to tell, but shortly - our body is also an antenna and the types of the buzz (nut hum) I have is drastically increased when I put my hand near unshilded cavity, and putting unshielded guitar against my body increase the buzzing noise drastically. If cavity is shielded and shielding is grounded, then buzzing noise decreases significantly and it is no longer sensitive to hand movements and to the proximity of the body. I'll try to make a video. But even putting just a piece of foil between my body and a guitar body makes a huge effect if I connect this foil to any ground on a guitar, but has zero effect if it is not grounded. So shielding is a huge thing in many cases, you can find a lot of videos where people got rid of the EMI in their places just by shielding.
@@SergeiVlassov What kind if guitar?
@@MathewsGuitarWorks any unshielded, no matter single coils, humbuckers, noisless, passive or active, tele or HH superstrat. If unshielded, then there will be huge buzzing noise.
@@SergeiVlassov You obviously didn’t pay attention to the video because I completely debunked that in the video. If shielding reduced noise in your guitar(any guitar for that matter), you have one of few problems 1- your guitar was poorly grounded and the shielding helped ground the circuit, 2- you have an inordinate amount of RFI in your area or 3- the noise source doesn’t not come from the guitar. I literally went over this in the video and through simple demonstrations proved it. I’ve been winding pups and making custom harnesses for a long time bro. I’m not guessing about this. I’m 100% certain.
I have a Yamaha Pacifica with an annoying buzz that goes away when I grasp the cable connector at the guitar jack; it’s noticeably worse than my Epiphone Les Paul into the same amplifier, a Boss Katana 50 Mk II. Your video had the information I was looking for; thank-you!
Glad it helped!🤘
Nice video. I have the same noises. At the beginning I thought that my Strat guitar was damaged or the amp but after doing several things, I understood that those noises are kind of normal with strats when the home wiring is not properly made (mixing phases) and definitely the problem is not the guitar. And you are right that some pickups get the noise higher than others and it doesn’t mean they are bad or cheap. It is just how they are and its “personality”.
Exactly. Some people throw the baby out with the bath water because they don’t understand what’s going on. Just trying to give some clear info to help people understand. Personally I’ll deal with 60 cycle hum to have real strat pickups. Noiseless pups have their place but I prefer real single coils myself. Thanks for stopping by and commenting! 🤘
For the ground problems I use a direct box, solves the problem and I don't need to open the guitar and do aaaaallll that shielding job, it's been working for a while for me
3:50 Discussion of 60 cycle hum begins
5:00 Example of 60 cycle hum sound
Preshate that. Maybe I should go through and add time markers for each topic. I actually plan on doing a remake of this video and focusing on the shielding aspect of it with some basic experiments.
You’re most welcome! I came across a mention of 60 cycle hum and 50 cycle hum in an old rockstar interview that resurfaced a couple weeks ago, and as a non-guitarist I had no idea what that meant. It’s nice to see and hear a good explanation of it!
@@MathewsGuitarWorksThanks for the content. If you do plan on remaking this, try tying a sock around the fretboard to stop the string noise
@@superflysoulbrother next video won’t include a whole guitar or strings. We are going to isolate the pups and controls and use a proper faraday cage setup.
I started guitar in the 70's with a Strat. Through a Fender amp. Tube amp. There was always NOISE. Where I learned the teach had a L P deluxe through a Ampeg V 4 stack. I used his Ric 360 through a silver face super reverb. When we stopped playing to get ready for next song everything was noisy. Guess lot people didn't play 70's equipment Real equipment not digital not even analog. Stuff now is so nice. Even my board of used modded 90's pedals is so far ahead of what I had back then. Still use Strats , in fact my current Strat I had since 96. My Boogie is from 85. I only owned it since 2012. So much quieter, still 60/100w of tube pwr. Keep your digital processor quiet noise. Never feels real to me. If you never had to control 100 watts of tube pwr while singer talks to audiences. That's real.
I like it all. If I had to have only one it will be my handwired deluxe reverb and a few pedals.
This video is very informative. Thank you!
I am kind of new to all of these sounds. My first guitar was a PRS Torero with active pickups and those are really quiet! I never heard any noise or hum with that guitar, but a couple years ago I got a Fender with a P90 on the neck and a humbucker on the bridge. God, it is noisy!! Even with the humbucker, it is VERY noisy, but maybe I feel it that way because I was used to the quiet pickups on my PRS. My Fender also had one problem: from factory the bridge wasn't wired to the ground, so it was way noisier, but later I got that fixed. I still feel that there's something wrong with the wiring, but maybe it is also me having a hard time getting used to these pickups and finding out that the wiring in my house is worse than I thought.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting! 🤘.
Yes, when you have really quiet active pups and go to a single coil or other passive pups and play with high gain, the noise level is very different. Honestly I just deal with it. I prefer the dynamics of passive pups over active.
You are full of guitar knowledge! Thank you so much for the help!!
Thanks!
Thanks I thought the ground noise was an issue started trying to fix
Excellent presentation. I sometimes experience very bad hum/noise/interference when playing a gig somewhere. I mostly use a Stratocaster. Typically it's because of something at the venue, lights or other electronics. I say this because I will play a venue one night and have a big issue with nasty noise coming from my amp, then the following night I will use the exact same rig and have no real issue at all with noise.
I researched the issue as much as I could. I've watched many video's about shielding, not shielding, noise gates, hum reducers, power conditioners, etc..... I don't know that I have seen anyone point this out, but I will tell you something that works great for me, and that is using a wireless guitar signal.
I have tested the theory several times. I plug my guitar in with a good cable and have noise, then change nothing else except remove the cord and use my Shure wireless system and the noise drops to almost nothing and stays that way all night.
I do not ever recall having a noise issue while using my wireless system. I'm not a guitar tech or electronics expert but I just wanted to throw that out there because it has sure helped me.
I also enjoyed your video on "50's Strat wiring". I recently installed Fender Fat 50's in my #1 Strat and I absolutely love them. Thanks for all the solid info you put out there. I subbed.
What you've said is truth. I live in Taiwan, and there's lots of RFI here for which there is no remedy except processing after recording.
Unless there is somewhere you yourself can go to shield yourself and your guitar is impossible to escape RFI. I’m sure with the amount of people and all the things going on in a big city like Taiwan it would be difficult to escape RFI.
You saved me a lot of work when I rewired my cheap Les Paul. Thanks for making this video.
🤘
Thank you for telling us what we already knew! Seriously. You verified and explained why this is happening. I'm sure in the 70s there was MUCH less RFI in the air and hence way less noise. Even then, I'm sure there was enough noise to be annoying in many situations. I've switched out cables, guitars, amps, pedals and even turned off or unplugged WiFi, lights, monitors, computers etc and there is still noise. Stratocaters are just noisy. I'm looking into a dummy coil solution....thx
Absolutely, totally agree about the fact there is so much RFI in the air. That’s something I was going to touch on my next video. As far as Strats go, I don’t have enough noise to even consider doing anything about it. Any noiseless or dummy coil I’ve tried always took away part of the special character of what I love about single coils. I just deal with it. I play with a pretty good amount of gain sometimes and still don’t have issues. Any noise I get is via bad house wiring and RFI.
Thanks for stopping by 🤘.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks Agree 100%
Whatever type of HB system has to have nearly equal the noise of each pickup. It's not really the DCR of dummy coils that affect the tone, but the inductance. Any coil added in series will have some inductance, which will lower the resonant freq of each pickup, and reduce the Q, which reduces the peak level and the high-end. Using a lower capacitance cable can raise the resonate freq back up, but the Q will be even lower. Something like the lIlitch system is a good low inductance compromise, but you can get a set of completely silent Wilde NF series pickups for less than that. I have a few Wilde sets. The L280/290 set is the mid 60s style. At 4.2H, the L290SL is a bit higher inductance than typical ~2.8H, but has good highs with a low (~200pF) capacitance cable, and the lower Q reduces harshness. The Wilde "Q-filter" offers some very useful tonal variation via lowering the inductance above the low frequency range to create a mid-dip with a variable peak freq.
I sincerely thank you Mathews for this info, could not figure out that ground on my guitar humming, no matter what you do, it's there. Joe.
I’ve recently gone back to playing a Strat exclusively. I don’t care about any noise they make because I only play at home and record. I’m not playing on stage or anything. At my house I don’t really hear anything and what I do hear is negligible. I’ve gotten bored of humbuckers. They don’t have any character to me anymore. I like being able to hear the tonal differences between single coil positions. Humbuckers just seem like the same sound with just more or less treble and bass. Single coils seem to have more distinct character and it’s inspiring to me. The little noise they make is a small inconvenience. Good video.
I like humbuckers too but definitely agree with everything you said about single coils. Definitely get yourself some P90’s if you want a thick sound and don’t prefer humbuckers.
You are right on in your experiment. One of the worst offenders for RFI are your typical spotlights on a stage. Not only do many of them produce RFI, they can transmit 60 cycle if you are close to them.
You are correct sir. I sometimes play with my cellphone in my pocket and it makes all kinds of noise.
Thanks for the comment 🤘
In my experience, barroom neon beer signs seem to be the usual perpetrators.
@@FoulOwl2112 yup! I also see a lot of cellphone in the pocket issues.
Hang on...with the foil test, it's not grounded into the circuit...that's why it's not worked. I have the entire cavity shielded, a plate behind the pickup and then the cavity has a soldered ground going from the cavity to back of the pot. Admittedly it's not a full faraday cage as I'm not shielding the pickup covers etc but it has 100% helped. I'd be keen to see you redo this but fully shield the cavity, pickguard and then connect to ground. I'm not saying it's going to cancel all of it but I'm willing to bet it reduces it.
It was grounded into the circuit. I was touching it and the strings and another time it was touching the strings. No change either way.
All my pro shielding/I believe this helped reduce hum/noise friends all tend to forget a few very important details. 1- shielding passive components like the pots and wires do absolutely nothing. 2- the pup face is still exposed to the outside world which is the source of like 99% of all RFI 3- if shielding reduced any noise at all it’s an indicator that you had a grounding problem prior to adding the shielding. Shielding is intended to reduce RFI in a guitar, not “hum or buzzing”.
And yes, I’m making another video about this. Thanks for watching and commenting.
I used to build computers cases with boards and we used to have a anti static wrist strap connected to the board and to our wrists whilst putting it together. To reduce that noise there's a way to ground that bridge and earth it to you using a metal wire with metal button or maybe make up a effective passive noise filter in the guitar just a thought thanks
When you touch the strings that grounds you to the circuit already. No need for all that.
As far as computer boards vs guitar circuits, pc circuits are most likely a series of active and passive circuits which can amplify certain noises where passive guitar controls do not amplify anything.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Can you say "noise-gate"? also turning volume and gain down when not in Actual use also vary-ing proximity (changing angle of pickups to amp/speakers can reduce "SOME" noise......If you add up all the little things you can do to make the problem better....things will get quieter....NOT PERFECTLY SO....but it WILL help
This was merely a demonstration. Calm ye tits. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
I got a used Yamaha spinet piano two years ago and it magically solved all of my guitar problems.
😆 right on.
This is SO important. Retired luthier here. Thank you for this. The way I described this to clients was... The 'antenna' analogy. Now... All radios have antennas a few feet long to receive signals. Now... Imagine you have a radio antenna 5000 feet long. That is your pickup. It has many thousands of turns of copper (or silver? SD Zephyr lol) wire around the magnets. One wacking great big antenna. So yes... They're pretty sensitive. Also... The amp's filtering has EVERYTHING to do with RFI.
Back when I was a kid, I had an old ibanez pf200>Danelectro fab tone distortion>Crate GX65R that would pickup some kind of foreign radio station regularly.
Thanks for the comment🤘
Dude l gave up trying to convince my customers otherwise. Now l just bite my tongue. Put in the stupid useless tape and write out the invoice....
@@FoulOwl2112 Fortunately this is not my day job and if someone wants something that is a waste of time I can say no or refer them to someone who will entertain their nonsense. Most of my customers are excellent, open minded folks that trust my opinions and work. Something is going right, they all keep coming back and bring their friends back with them.
This is the BEST video on the internet. Not just on TH-cam.
@@smollande haha I’ll have to disagree with you on that but I appreciate the comment.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks nobody likes their own videos. I get it.
I have exactly the same click sound in my strat hum. At least for me it comes from the electric fence for the horses. The voltage pulse is exactly at this frequency.
The click in the video is coming from my amp. It stays the same with all guitars.
I would have to hear yours to see.
This is such an important video for beginners! Great video cuz it’s so educational
Thanks for stopping by.
I've shielded my Strat with copper foil, checked and double-checked for continuity, made sure everything was grounded properly, with no ground loops, but I haven't noticed a major difference in noise reduction. On clean the guitar is dead silent, but it's still relatively noisy on overdrive, in positions 1, 3 5, and almost quiet in positions 2, 4. Maybe shielding can help in certain cases that I haven't been able to test for at home, but in general I wouldn't get one's hopes up with shielding.
I did find one great thing about shielding the pickguard though - I managed to ditch some of the ground wires, since the components have become grounded via the shield. I like how neat my wiring looks now.
Good assessment. This is my take on the issue also.
As far as grounding with the shielding on the pg, I’d always take a soldered connection over a mechanical connection personally. It’s more consistent over time and more reliable.
Thanks for stopping by.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks Sure. Thanks for making the vid. The thought that contact with the pg may degrade over time did cross my mind, but I'm too exhausted after all that shielding work to pick up my soldering iron again )) I guess I'll have to wait and see how far this pg grounding thing takes me.
@@RichardPFranklin copper shielding tape generally breaks down connection faster as copper oxidizes faster. I’m sure it will be fine for a while.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks No biggie. It's my experimental Strat that I'm planning to upgrade some time in the future. But before I invest time and money, I decided to try a few things and see what works and what doesn't. Thanks again for putting your perspective out there. People need to see alternative info on shielding.
Great work! I really don't understand why many guitarists simply ignore the physics...
By the way, the humbuckers and hum-bucking pickup configurations assume that the EMIs picked up by the coils are same, which is not true in a strict sense. In most of real cases, this assumption is approximately true since the winding turns of two pickups are close enough and the noise sources are sufficiently far from both pickups.
🤘 preshate you stopping by and commenting.
it was a 14min long video I was not gonna watch but it just kept getting more interesting. This guy is amazing
Did you make it to the end?
@@MathewsGuitarWorks yes haha. Just bought an old ‘65 twin reverb. I’ve been testing it and it sounds good to me so far but there’s this constant hum noise in background that increases when cranking up the vol knob. I believe the video helped covering this when talking about the ground noise.
@@josevalbuena9423 Thanks for watching.
With this video my search for getting rid of this hum endeth here ! Thank you ! ive bought expensive power conditioners, Morley Hum Eliminators Shielding, noise supressors, (all they do is suck out the tone) and this is the video i have needed all along well done sir well done indeed, ill just learn to live with it as it only happens in my home.
I’ve learned to live with it too. Especially with single coils. I’ve found I prefer the sound and feel of single coils to noiseless pups trying to be single coils. I like all different types of pups, single coil and noiseless alike. I don’t play high gain stuff so when I play at normal folk-stage volume and gain I barely notice it. Noise gates and anything in the guitar signal path to stop noise definitely suck tone which I know are useful for some folks but I don’t really care for it. Shielding does nothing on passive guitar controls because they don’t produce anything and when pup faces are still exposed to the outside world, shielding the back of a pup is useless because very few RFI waves make it through the back or sides of a guitar.
This video should have a million views and save many guitarists tons of money !@@MathewsGuitarWorks
This is the first video of yours that I've seen, but let me say PREACH IT, BROTHER! I learned long ago that if hum stops when I touch the strings or metal, my guitar is wired right and that's as good as it gets.
🤘
I would be curious to see this video with many different new tests :
-Use only you amp, no pedal in between.
-Pack fresh cable.
-Never change your EQ or Amp settings between two tests. Leave everything at 12 o clock.
-Stay 2m away from your camera and cell phone.
Test 1 : unshielded guitar : plug your guitar with absolutely EVERY other electrical equipment unplugged or with the circuit breakers opened except the one you're using for your amp. Other equipments put noises back in the ground wires,
Test 2 : Test 1 + power conditioner (like a Furman) in order to filter your electrical signal and regulate it as your electricity provider may not deliver stable electricity.
Test 3 : Test 2 + fixed ground wiring to be absolutely sure your guitar is well grounded. Must be properly tested to be entirely sure the grounding does work.
Test 4 : Test 3 + fully shielded guitar that is actually grounded to your guitar jack, with each cavity connected to one another.
I would be surprised to see what noises you still have left with each of those tests.
Between each test, try touching / not touching the guitar grounded metallic parts, and try changing from a pick up to another.
I would also try powering everything back on after the last test and see what noises come back.
Your video was fun since you clearly suffer from most possible noises guitars can have. Now I would like to see you fixing them one by one so that it helps associating a noise to a specific issues, and then to a specific solution.
I ll subscribe and wait for part 2 !
Haha! I don’t know if I have the time to do all that but I do have a shielding test on the books to work on and post. Probably be sometime in the first quarter of the year before I get to it. I have a bunch of pedals and pickups I have to finish and get out before I move on to anything else.
Some of the noises absolutely can’t be cured. 60cycle hum won’t ever go away and the ground noise when not touching the metal parts won’t ever go away.
Thanks for watching and commenting.🤘
@@MathewsGuitarWorks If touching the strings makes the noise go away, it means the grounding of the equipment is naturally faulty (instrument electronic, cable, amp, socket, house wiring ...). I have this exact same issue at the moment. I am starting to troubleshoot it. I ll let you know if I find anything that solved my case, even though the noise is clearly manageable.
@@Romain_Chafore The noise that goes away when you touch the strings is normal. Some guitars do it worse than others but all guitars do it and you can’t do anything to get rid if it.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks Now I have spent quite some time shielding my Bass, you CAN get rid of it. I shiedled every cavity with copper tape. I ensured there was a continuity of the signal between each cavity and that it was grounded with the knob plate. The result is astounding. The problem was mostly my body acting as an antenna emitting and reflecting interferences. When I hold the bass, noticeable hum. When I put it back on the stand away from me : light hum. Now with the shielding : ZERO hum whatsoever. And no, I am not talking about line hum (50/60 cycle hum) which I don't have since my PU are noiseless, in other words humbuckers stacked on top of one another. Man, stop the clumsy explanations. Get yourself humbuckers, improve your home grounding, use filtered power plus or power regulator, shield your instrument .. 99% of your troubles will be gone.
I get some pretty cool sounds by holding a tv remote control in front of the pickups. I get all those noises.
I just wanna know how to get rid of them!
@@ericskinner7355 Don’t use the TV remote near the guitar. 🤷
Okay, so now atleast I know my guitars are making ground noise, and it's NOT the 60 cycle hum. Loved this video for telling me that
That’s exactly the main purpose of the video and then second to troll people who think shielding works 😆. Glad it gave you the info you needed 🤘.
I've always noticed that if I play an electric guitar in front of a computer monitor it will make more noise. I guess it makes sense when you know how the pickups work.
@@SomeCanine Exactly! Preshate you picking up what I’m putting down. When I get customers that play in bars or clubs around a lot of neon lights, they complain about the noise their guitars pickup. They think they can shield that away and I keep telling folks it doesn’t help because the face of the pup is still exposed to the outside world.
Thanks for watching.🤘
@@SomeCanine Exactly! Preshate you picking up what I’m putting down. When I get customers that play in bars or clubs around a lot of neon lights, they complain about the noise their guitars pickup. They think they can shield that away and I keep telling folks it doesn’t help because the face of the pup is still exposed to the outside world.
Thanks for watching.🤘
"Shielding is useless". "All guitars do this". "All Pickups are microphonic"
I call BS.
When the shielding is grounded to the output, all my single coil guitars (shielded with Stewmac copper tape) are completely noiseless, even leaned in front of the speaker, and my hand wound pickups are not microphonic. This is my personal experience.
You are saying that copper shielding tape makes 60 cycle him go away?
@@MathewsGuitarWorks My country has 230v over 50hz, but the effect is much the same. Shielding alone does very little, it needs to be earthed (grounded), so therefore 3 wires going to the pickup pocket, the 3rd being the shielding ground. The ground wire needs to go to the output ground. With a careful hand, the wire can be soldered directly to the copper (shielding) tape. On Strats I also shield the spring cavity.
@@Jesse-B answer my question.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks I already answered it relevant to 50hz. To be clear, grounded shielding makes 50 cycle hum go away.
@@Jesse-B grounded shielding does not make cycle hums go away. It comes from the single coil pup. The only way to get rid of cycle hum is having a humbucker by introducing another coil that is reverse wound and reverse polarity. You have no idea what you are talking about but I appreciate you commenting because it drives my video to be seen more.🤘
I would have really loved to see you plug into an 'expensive power conditioner' and repeat the demo. We all experience the frustration of noisy guitars/amps and if I could solve it with a noise conditioner I'd buy one. Not found any demos yet.
What I can't understand is the thousand TH-cam guitarists I watch that don't appear to suffer this. problem.
A power conditioner will only get rid of noise that is caused by the bad electrical from your house.
It’s definitely not bad enough for me to spend lots of money for a conditioner at my house. In the video it’s exaggerated because my amp was dimed. At reasonable levels, you can barely hear it most of the time.
Thanks for dropping by🤘.
I made a video on shielding my Telecaster - only to find out exactly this! Why didn’t your video pop up earlier when i was researching shielding? 😀 Great video
Wait till you see the experiment I’m putting together. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for trying to save people time, effort and worry. A lot of people are confused and so was I when I first got single coils. What I’ve learned is that there are different types of noise, but the better the pickups are at picking up higher frequencies from the strings through the air, the more noise you’re going to get through the air. The pickups are always going to be exposed, so there’s never going to be any kind of isolation. A layer of shielding is pointless because it would need to be at least like a foot thick to have any discernible effect. Yeah, the energy goes right through. It varies with the environment. When it comes to normal noise, I think the best thing to do is move to a different spot and rotate yourself and the guitar.
You bring up a good point about the thickness of shielding and pups that have a wider range of frequency pickup and how that translates into the reproduction of noises captured from the environment.
Thanks for the comment 🤘.
I’ve been thinking about it a few days. I’m not an expert and I haven’t done any experiments. I’m trying to think of a way that shielding could seem to reduce noise. Now, I don’t think shielding blocks any audible frequencies and the video shows it, but maybe several shielded cavities could behave like a capacitor or affect the pickups somehow or in some way have the same effect as turning the tone knob down. So, you’d be doing all this work to get the same effect as just turning down the tone knob, as well as giving yourself pickups with less high end. I don’t know, I’m just guessing and trying to give some credit to all the folks who swear by shielding. However, I still think that there’s also a chance shielding has no effect at all and something is changing in the environment or they’re just convincing themselves. An experiment with a control sounds like a good idea for a video, but it’s not going to be me.
@@daroldfuapse6178 I’m working on a video to put this to rest for good.
@@daroldfuapse6178 I think you may be on to something with the capacitance of certain guitars/wood/bodies in general. I would agree that idk the answer either. I wouldn’t even know exactly how you would test that theory reliably enough to even make it worth trying to know.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks I think it would have to be two identical guitars, close to each other, unmoved on the bench, one shielded, one unshielded. They’d have to be recorded not only unplayed but also played to hear if there is any difference in the sound or frequency range before and after the test.
In any case, I think it’s good enough just to let beginners know that the noise they are hearing is not a defect in their equipment and they don’t need to freak out. There’s probably a reason that the most expensive Fender and Gibson custom shop guitars have ZERO shielding.
great video. Could you help me, I have a noise in my guitars, an annoying high-pitched sound, I have discovered that it is due to the proximity to the elevators of the building where I live. It only sounds when they are active. How can I solve it...mogami cables? Copper shielding? thank you. great job
@@ubeimar123 this noise is going to be coming from your amp and not the guitar most likely. Maybe some type of power conditioner the smooths the power before it hits the amp? With my limited knowledge it n your exact issue, I’m afraid I don’t have anything better to offer.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks
A small detail is that moving the guitar in its orientation or placing it flat or horizontal greatly reduces the noise. Thank you, I will follow your recommendation!
Do you have the Book "Guitar Electronics for Musicians by Donald Bronsac" although it is copyrighted 1983 it's a great source of information and pick up circuit diagrams; an interesting section on shielding (although does conflict with your video i admit we have more gadgets now that can cause unwanted noise) also it covers removing the bridge wire or string ground to prevent electric shock (not on single coil pickups) . I was once baffled by a noise when practicing turned out it was my smart phone in my pocket .NOT that smart me and the phone then.
You are absolutely right. There are lots of things that can cause RFI being blasted through the atmosphere. I wouldn’t advise removing the bridge wire of any guitar. That will cause a lot of unwanted noise.
Wait, but grounding the AC outlet all the way to the guitar wouldn't solve the problem? I mean as long as you don't make any other ground loop.
Good grounding always helps increase signal to noise ratio. It won’t eliminate all noises though because some noises aren’t caused by grounding issues. Shielding is useless in electric guitar circuits.
With respect to the poster for his effort in putting this video together, I politely disagree.
The home environment is very noisy electrically. Between appliances, PC's, cell phones, digital toys, and messy 110VAC, you have a nasty environment, just like some older venues with old dimmers and corroded electrical connections. It's hard to determine "cause and effect" when the noise level is so high.
One miss in this exercise: failure to unplug the cable from the amp and crank the amp volume to determine how much noise the amp was introducing. When I'm experimenting, I use a solid-state battery-powered headphone amp that plugs into the guitar. Those gadgets hiss; it's the nature of some semiconductors, usually far in the background, and has a sound complete different than hum and RFI. This approach eliminates cable and amp noise.
As someone who's been involved in radio and TV broadcast engineering since 1969, I can assure you electric guitar pickups ARE NOT microphones. Your voice modulates the strings and the guitar's body, the pickups "hear" those moving strings, and that's what your amp hears. Don't believe me? Yell at your guitar with strings, then take the strings off and yell again. You don't even have to go that far: yell with your hand off the strings and then press down the strings over the pickups before yelling again. Repurposing a quote from James Carville: "It's the strings, stupid!". Still don't believe it? Put a bare-nekkid pickup on your bench, connect it to your amp, and yell.
I'm trying to think of one song where the lead vocalist has sung through a guitar pickup. After 60 years and 5,000 albums, I can't come up with one.
Pickups don't "hear". They're electromagnetic devices: the magnet in a pickup sets up a magnetic field, a moving (plucked) metal guitar string interrupts the magnetic field, and the changed magentic field induces voltage in the coil(s) which is then amplified. Same principle as a generator, actually. Dual-coil pickups are physically identical and connected backwards to the output and this cancels a lot of noise (the signals are "out of phase").
When you yell at your guitar, and I do it all the time (well, I yell at my fingers, actually), the sound you make is air moving over your vocal chords. The mechanisms for electric guitar signals and the human voice are _completely_ unrelated. No, Scott Weiland did not yell into Robert DeLeo's neck pickup: he yelled into DeLeo's strings.
Let's be absolutely clear: a properly-strung electric guitar _will_ act as a very primitive microphone for the reasons described above and an electric guitar pickup by itself is not a microphone.
There are dozens of videos demonstrating the effectiveness of _properly-installed_ cavity shielding and a blanket statement claiming shielding is "useless" is one man's opinion. But a properly-shielded guitar may be noisy for other reasons, like cold solder joints and broken ground wires (which, strictly speaking, are not "shielding" issues). Good shielding technique entails using copper tape with conductive adhesive, careful application in every cavity, ensuring the switch assembly isn't touching any grounding material, covering the back of the pick guard in copper, and confirmation with a volt-ohmmeter that all shielding is properly bonded to the output jack's ground. Stuffing Mama's aluminum foil into one cavity and calling it good won't work.
I'm not saying it's perfect but the consensus opinion is that it does make a difference.
The solutions: good copper shielding, good pickups (my Ric 340, Steinberger Spirit, and LP Standard with P90's are silent; the 1998 Tele, 2023 Squire Tele, 1992 American Standard Strat, and 2023 Squite Strat make a Metallica concert sound quiet); high-quality signal cables; a clean pedal board (lots of opportunities for nose here), clean power to and inside the amp, and a clean performing environment.
I shielded my stratocaster and take care of all the ground contacts, I have no any buzz, hum or other noise. But don't forget your amplifier, it needs also to be grounded well. The fact that if you touch any metal part of your guitar the noise disappeared show very clearly that you have a serious problem with grounding. And that you can talk over the pickups is logic because the pickup in combination with the strings are the basic of a microphone, the moment you talk the strings will resonate and bring over the frequency of your voice. Next, keep allways some distance from your amplifier, at least 1.5 meter.
Yep, I covered all of that in the video. This was more of a demonstration to assist people with properly identifying different noises than asking what noises I’m making and hearing. I’m fully aware of what they are hence why I made the video replicating the noises. If your strat has real single coils, you still have 60cycle hum. It’s impossible to get rid of in true single coils. Thanks for commenting and watching!✌️
@@MathewsGuitarWorks My strat has real single coils and is completely silent, before shielding I got hum but after it was totally gone. Of course if your net is full with bad signals then you will need a good netfilter.
@@nedstar7378 If you have true single coils, you have hum. It’s impossible to not have hum with true single coils as they naturally have 60 cycle hum. You just don’t play loud enough with enough gain to hear it. As a general, when I play my amp loud clean, I’d describe the sound as having little to no noise too but the fact is, there is 60 cycle hum.
The noise disappearing when a metal part is touched actually indicates that the electrical "grounding" is good.
Thank you so much, this is really helpful!
🤘
My Squier strat (SSS) was completely silent at the guitar store, but at home it has buzzing and a crackling sound when I'm playing single notes. What could it be? I tried plugging it directly into the wall, changing the cable, plugging it in another room, turning off all lights and electronic/electric devices and appliances but it didn't make a difference. The crackling noises are in all 5 positions
It’s most likely the wiring in your house. My house wiring does the exact same thing.
Sometimes shielding is the placebo effect, ive tested a lot of pickup cavities that have been "shield painted" and in most of them there is ZERO conductivity in the paint and 99% of the times the shielding is not even grounded ... manufacturers "shield paint" guitars because consumers expect to see that black paint in the pickup cavities and see it a quality reassurance not realizing it does nothing.
Exactly! Thanks for dropping by.
I can totally agree
That all pickups are susceptible to radio frequency interference
From lights , electrical
Other Equipment..
But as far as shielding
For grounding purposes
Ill have to disagree..
Shielding the cavities, pickguard and the pickups themselves
Takes an unwieldy single coil strat
And transforms it to something playable.
Obviously no one can ever have 100 percent
Silence from there amp
When not being played.
Shielding passive component controls does nothing. Passive controls add nothing to a signal, it only takes away therefore it creates no noise of any kind.
Shielding pups/pg/cavaties is marginal at best. It shields everything but the face of the pup. That’s like a house with no front door. The face of the pup is exposed still.
If shielding reduces noise in a guitar circuit, it’s not reducing 60 cycle hum because only humbuckers do that. If it reduces ground noise, it’s because there was a problem with the grounding of the circuit. IF by a slim margin a faraday cage actually worked for a guitar circuit, it only reduces lateral and rear RFI as the pup face is still exposed to the outside world where 99% of the noise enters the circuit anyway.
Thanks for the comment 🤘
I love that pickguard on that guitar. Maybe I should just get a wood strat.
Thanks! This is actually a loose replica of a guitar I used to have. The original guitar was a Samick SSM1, strat-ish copy that my dad bought me for a graduation present. Same color scheme. I loved that guitar and I literally played it to death. Before I knew anything about fixing guitars I sold it for parts on eBay. I swore I would resurrect the guitar but using quality parts and this guitar is the outcome. It’s the only parts guitar that literally went together perfectly without any need for adjustment or fitting of parts. It’s my number #1. Thanks for stopping by and commenting🤘.
I have what I guess is a weird situation that I've been trying to deal with forever. A little ground hum, no big deal. Very little 60 cycle hum. But I have a lot of what sounds like RFI. However if I switch to the 2 or 4 positions, it reduces by like 95 percent. I don't usually like playing in those positions unfortunately. Humbuckers are quiet. Also if I move the strat around, it decreases a lot. I still can't find the source. I have three computer monitors but the noise persists even if I turn them off. Shielding did help a little, but not nearly as much as I'd like. Thinking about getting noiseless pickups even though I don't really like the sound. I did have a guitar with noiseless pickups and similar to humbuckers, no RFI problems.
If the noise goes away when it’s in 2 & 4 and it doesn’t happen with humbuckers then it’s probably not RFI. RFI is from outside the pup. 60 cycle is generated in the pup.
I’d have to hear it to see what you were talking about. It very likely could be your home wiring. I know mine creates a lot of noise in my amps.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks It's a higher pitch than the 60 cycle hum that you demonstrate. If I roll off the tone, it gradually decreases.
I don't know. I'll try to make a video sometime this week if you'd like to hear it.
@@saddestchord7622 find me on Instagram and send the vid to me there.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks I don't use instagram, but I'll put it on youtube and hopefully you'll still look at it.
@@saddestchord7622 send it to my email. kalebmgw@gmail
If I’m understanding you correctly. I need to try triple shielding
No, only double quadruple shielding will do.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks 🤣🤣🤣✌️
Sometimes I hear a radio broadcast coming through my amps, sometimes I don't. Why is that? Same guitar, same cables, it's just not always there. I don't get it.
@@jsullivan2112 because different pups have different frequency responses. Think of it like you are changing the channel on your radio when changing pups. Good question, thanks for the comment.🤘
@@MathewsGuitarWorks No I only have one guitar, I think you missed that.
@@jsullivan2112 I have the same thing occasionally. In your case, it’s simply a case of the broadcast signal from the source reaches you easier and your guitar picks it up easier. Weather can suppress radio signals. So if the weather is clear between you and the signal source and your gain stages of your rig are set right it would be easier to pickup a distant signal source. American Meteorological Society published an article about this topic.
In my experience shielding does help with RFI and EMI.
Not with passive components and especially not with passive pups that the face of the pup is exposed to the outside world.
thanks that was really interesting . Just can't figure out why it gets better when I touch it.
All guitars do it to a degree. When you touch the strings or any metal part grounded to the circuit, it completes the circuit and reduces the ground noises you hear. If it is really bad, then you may need to check the harness to see if there is a loose ground. If it sounds like light intermittent random static, then there’s not much you can do to fix that. When it’s really dry outside mine gets worse but not intolerable. There’s also a relationship between your guitar’s wiring, the amp and you when you touch the strings. Most likely, I’d say it’s not an issue to worry about.
Thanks for stopping by!
Great info. Good to know. Thanks. Please, break and down and get a video camera, Hey, about cavity shielding. Is that why I pick up Mexican radio stations on my fillings?
I got a video camera. Thanks for watching.🤘
I realized all along that shielding was NOT necessary.
You need to connect ground wires CORRECTLY and PROPERLY.
Precisely
Great video. I wonder what you would find out on Piezo pick ups.
Piezo should be immune to most RFI I would imagine. Piezo pups work on vibrations and not electromagnetic induction. That would be an interesting experiment.
The reason I bought a power conditioner for my amps and a good noise cancel noise power filter like the Strymon Zuma for my effects pedal. They're the best and Shielding does nothing, especially to the 60-cycle hum. The reason I'm always inclined to humbuckers.
I have Tosin Abasi humbucker signatures and have no noise at all until i go to position 4 which is neck single coil voicing and then i get 60 cycle hum. Based on this video I know it's not from grounding and the fact that it only happens on that one position. So with it being just 60 cycle hum and my gates can't stop it (well they stop it until the string starts ringing then it hums while the string resonates of course) what can be done anything? Only solution I know of at the moment is to scoop it out inside of a DAW with a frequency noise canceller addon. Anything besides that anybody?
Nothing you can do for 60 cycle hum unfortunately. The more you attempt to take a single coil and reduce the hum, the less it is a single coil and more a humbucker if that makes since.
this is such a good video
@@hoollehoop9299 🤘
I heard from someone that cavity shielding works a bit like a extra capacitor which cut some of fq from signal, thats why its looks like we deal with 50/60hz hum. But same thing we should get when we turn down master tone a little bit. Anyways... i will be always hum more or less depends of place where you playing and how good electric instalation is, grounding etc... And shielding can change overall guitar tone so... 🙄 Its better to buy noise gate.
Never had the need for a noise gate. I’ll deal with the noise first before I do that.
Thanks for stopping by 🤘.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks now i didnt play on stage but when i was active and play with band i used cheapest behringer noise gate for 20$ (boss clone) and this works well.
Feel like I should go bye a tractor now
Haha… why is that?
My sg and stratoblaster pick up some strange radio stations with my rig.😂
I haven’t heard any in a long time but a few guitars I had when I was a kid coupled with a specific distortion pedal and amp would pickup some strange radio stations. Haha🤘.
thanks for this, i am now buying a noise gate pedal lol
I just deal with the noise. The noise I have in my right at stage volume is negligible at best. Noise gate can be a dynamic tone sucker. If you play a lot of heavy rock or metal it might be ok. Rock on 🤘
seems like it got louder when you removed the foil...just sayn
I listened to it again several times and don’t hear much difference to be honest but… let’s just assume that were true in this case. There is an easy explanation for that. Anytime you place something in between the source of rfi and the magnetic pups, naturally that reduces the effect on the magnetic field. Less magnetic effect on the pups = less noise amplified. No different than raising or lowering pups from the strings, Simple. Before you play the gotcha game, What you seem to be missing is, pups don’t get shielded, especially the tops where the strings are at which is the source at which 99% of all rfi noise enters the guitar. Only control and pickup cavities are shielded. As shown in the demonstration, passive controls do not amplify anything so shielding is a waste of time there. Shielding behind the pickups is marginal at best simply because the likelihood of rfi making it through the back of the guitar body and into the pickups is slim to none. The other possibility of why it may be perceived as louder could be how far away I’m holding the light from the pups. Once again shielding does nothing to stop noise in a guitar circuit, just sayn🤘.
i watched a guy put a ground from the outlet at the plug to the input cable, game over for any noise. kind of stupid the way he did it, but you could do it properly.
Haha. No thanks, I’ll deal with the noise.
This means that we should try to ground the pickup poles???
Wouldn’t change a thing. Grounding doesn’t stop RFI.
Do you have a power transformer in your neighborhood? I saw a video that showed a guy that called power company and they fixed the humming by working on the transformer. He had that clicking noise just like yours. The metal parts of the guitar might be acting as an antenna. I f you have a portable amp, you could walk the neighborhood to see if the interference gets stronger near power co. equipment outside.
The wiring in my house is crap. I painted my noisiest telecaster with shielding paint that uses actual nickel, noth the graphite stuff. Then I did a variation on star wiring I found on an electronics discussion forum. Then I twisted all the wiring inside that guitar. It's about 95% quieter, and makes almost no noise, unless the guitar is in front of a computer monitor a few feet away. So you can kill alot of noise guitars produce. I wonder how much of it is your amp. My Rivera (twenty-three years old) makes more noise than my Mesa Mk V, which is only ten years old.
Probably more the solid ground you made than the shielding. Shielding passive components does nothing to stop noise because passive components take away from a circuit, they don’t add anything.
The noise in my video might partially be coming from the amp but 95% of what I was demonstrating was guitar noises.
Thanks for stopping by.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks You might be right. But using the shielding paint (nickel) then grounding it to the existing wiring basically makes it a faraday cage. Hard to imagine that didn't improve things. Twisting wiring? Maybe. I was trying everything because the guitar was almost unusable in a recording environment. The star ground variation did eliminate any unnecessary points of contact, i.e. further sources of ground noise. On the other hand, I have a G&L with nothing but shielding paint, and everything else is stock wiring (replaced the pickups with Cavalier tele pickups and Rob's pickups are quieter than most). it's almost dead silent. But as you mentioned, it varies with guitars. Not sure why, but it does. I watched the entire video and didn't see any solutions for noise. Did I miss something, or was the video just to clear up misconceptions and misunderstandings about noise?
@@augustusbetucius2931 The video wasn’t about offering solutions. It was about identifying the noise properly and showing why shielding doesn’t work as everyone thinks.
When the gateway of RFI is the pups and the face of the pups are exposed to the outside world, no amount of shielding or grounding will eliminate or reduce the RFI.
90% of all shielding is surrounding the control cavity which DOES NOT AMPLIFY SOUND. This fact seems to be escaping the most sound and logically intelligent people I’ve discussed this topic with.
If you experienced a reduction in noise as the result of twisting wires, shielding and star grounding, I am pretty confident when I say there was something else going on and the improvements where not as a result of shielding and twisting wires.
RFI is very specific. It’s radio frequency interference. It’s not ground noise and it’s not 60 cycle hum. Not even talking about amp noise, I’m talking guitars.
There is no basically a faraday cage. You either have one or you don’t. When we are discussing mostly passive guitar circuits, the voltage is so minuscule that twisting wires is likely useless also. Then the fact that the face of the pups are still exposed, this argument is null before it starts.
I’ve run a guitar repair/mod business for 13 years. I’ve replicated this topic over and over and over again. Most of this stuff is placebo at best.
@@augustusbetucius2931 I would probably be willing to concede that some pieces of wood have different capacitances that effect how the guitar sheds noises or holds on to it than shielding paint changes. I mean that was literally pulled outta my ass there but that’s more of an unknown than the fact I know shielding does nothing to reduce rfi in guitar circuits.
Need to use a RFI gasket, which is a metal mesh material.
I’ll have to look into that. I’ve never heard of that.
Thanks for commenting.
The first example of a single coil hum that i have seen. Been trying to find out what it sounds like since i am about to buy my first electric guitar. I read there are no hum single coils one can get so i guess i will have to go down that road.
Unless you are playing with massive amounts of gain(distortion) you don’t need noiseless single coils. They don’t sound like true single coils. I play with classic rock (ZZ Top) level amounts of gain and still don’t hear the 60 cycle hum bad enough to lose the sound of real single coils. I’ve had some noiseless single coils in the past. There are some good sounds that can be had but they still don’t sound as good to me over a real single coil.
If you want to play with lots of gain ( hard rock, heavy metal kinda stuff), you need something with humbuckers.
Honestly I wouldn’t worry about it. If you are after a guitar that has single coils don’t cheat yourself, get single coils. If you need something else, get what fits your needs.
Remember guitars are like golf clubs. You can putt with a driver and drive with a putter but they aren’t always the most effective. Each one has a sound that may get you to where you want to go and all guitars can do multiple genres.
Thanks for watching and commenting.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks I bought a fender squire mustang today. Short scale. I was dithering on short scale and reg scale for about a week. Read up about either. There is a rabid anti-short scale feel on the internet. I came across one comment that suggested that people ignore all that crap and go by feeling. Does this guitar feel like it belongs in your hands? Does it FEEL good and ok? I have small hands and a broken fretting pinky that is bent at an angle. I always struggled to put the pinky down. Reg scale string tension is higher so req more force to put down the string in its place. I tried this short scale second. It fit like a glove. I knew right away that this was the guitar. So i bought it. It has two humbuckers so i guess my problem is silved. Good luck on your journey mate. Mine is just beginning, again.
Excellent video, I think one of the few on TH-cam that focuses on the real problem, congratulations. I'm playing in a bar full of fluorescent light bulbs and I need to find a solution to eliminate the noise, I thought of changing the pickups of my stratocaster for fender noiseless or seymor duncan stk s4 or s9. Do you think that will help solve my problem?? Sorry my english isn't good...by the way you gained a subscriber..
Noiseless pups may reduce some of the noise in your rig but not the noise from the lights in the bar. Personally my favorite noiseless setup is Dimarzio injector neck, Dimarzio area 61 middle and Dimarzio injector bridge. If you are looking for a more vintage tone the ones you listed are excellent too. Good luck on your tone journey. Thanks for stopping by.🤘
@@MathewsGuitarWorks 👍🏿🙏🏾
Throw a dummy coil in, No more hum!
@@mojorisen74 yea not the point. I was simply making a video to ID the sounds you may hear.
Well- you do remember that for any shielding to do ANYTHING except look expensive..it needs to be GROUNDED. Only then it can work as intended. In other cases it actually make things worse!!!! So if the electrical outlets are really noisy etc- there's only one thing to do. Based on how the house is built, you could have a ground post installed, and a ground belt made. You know, a big ol' iron flat band connected to a three feet rod, planted firmly in the yard... the band goes in the house and the ground points for all things go to it somehow. If you achieve this, there will be no more noise- once the shielding is connected to the ground. Otherwise, yes, the noisy things will induce stray currents in the shield...and without a ground, they will have nowhere to go, so they will further induce other stray fields in the guitar electronics. Pots and wiring and passive pickups are not active, of course- but they are susceptible to noise just as any plain ol' wire passing a small signal is. So just shielding -WITHOUT grounding will do at best nothing, and at worst- much worse. But have those things grounded and!!! miracle. SO- get a clean ground point- make sure the amp has a grounded case- put all audio equipment in well grounded outlets- don't put obvious noise sources next to an unshielded - or shielded and ungrounded guitar. Once the shielding is correctly in place, it will do its job and that light and other many noise sources would do nothing to your signal!
That’s a lot of typing. Unfortunately you are wrong here when it comes to guitar signals and shielding. If what you say is true, that the light would not effect the pups if it were properly shielded like you say, then the strings wouldn’t effect the pups either thus making no sound. The reason that is, is because the light is a source of emi and so are the strings. Rfi is a subset of emi but both terms are used interchangeably.
Thanks for the comment.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks hey!,glad you read throug anyhow! The strings induce current by reluctance variation,i.e. magnetically changing the magnetic resistance of the circuit.EMI ...electro-magnetic interference are caused by currents induced electrically.Copper and aluminum are not magnetic,so they would not stop the strings from working,as a thick steel plate would- but will ground all electrically cupled noise,again,if properly grounded.Please note I worked in the field of small signal electronics for more than 20 years and this is basic knowledge in the trade...
@@axelmorisson pups are inductors. I’m aware that theres a difference between mechanical vibrations of the strings vs the inductance caused by emi. Either way it causes an inductance producing a voltage. I think that’s kinda irrelevant.
I am not an electrical engineer. But I'm 56 years old and have been dickin' around with electronic since l was 8 years old. Me n Granddad used to scour garage sales for old tube radios and the like. Back when you could get em for $2. Or just ' You want it? Take it"...
Im a musician. I am not a luthier. But l AM one heck of a decent repair guy. Everyone brings me their broken crap. (I never seem to get the broken GOOD stuff. Lol)
When this whole Mass Psychosis Effect Shielding Cult reared up some years back, it just didn't resonate with me. Im like "Where is all this bullshit suddenly coming from? Get a fukin grip on reality man"!
Instead, why dont you just have the bar owner turn off that life sized neon St Paulie Girl sign behind the drum riser instead".
I dont know how some of this stuff gets such a foothold in the music community.
Everything you just outlined. I have verbalized to customers till I'm blue in the face. I give up. I just keep my mouth shut. Put the stupid, useless tape in. Close it up. Write out an invoice for my bench fee and an hour's labor. The customers leave ecstatic.
I die a little bit inside each time....
I feel your pain brother.
Thanks for the comment🤘.
Thank you! I thought it was just my $25 dollar guitar that was humming... Any way to minimize the ground hum?
What if i hear very quiet hum when no touching anything and loud hum when i touch the humbuckers? Also no hum while touching humbuckers and bridge at the same time.
Not sure without hearing it and seeing it in person.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks Here is a short record of the buzz. It's totally quiet, then when i hit the string i can hear slight buzz in the background and then when i touch the pickup it's getting worse. th-cam.com/video/lusKboIG6N0/w-d-xo.html
@@basicpl15 what amp set up are you using?
@@MathewsGuitarWorks I don't use any amp right now. Haven't bought anything yet, although i'm connecting guitar with the PC to use it with neuralDSP plugin and checked it with basic speaker with jack input and it's all the same.
Sometimes I get really confused.
I have a static noise in my guitar whenever my hand touches the scratch plate (pickguard).
I have no idea what cause that.
Static electricity.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks oh, ty
Is it really dry where you are? Running the heat or have a fireplace drying stuff out? Sometimes you have to put something to jump the control plate/pickguard to ground to bleed off the static. Sometimes it’s just hard to get it to go away on some pickguards and it requires a new guard to get it to stop.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks oh thanks much.
I may just get a new pickguard. I live in Maryland.
It's a perloid pickguard. I think you are right, that's the problem.
@Jeff Luna yup, it helps temporarily.
So what's the outcome?
Brian, the outcome is you understanding the difference between 60 cycle hum, RFI (radio frequency interference) and shielding.
Only just stumbled onto this video and basically reinforced what I've always thought , silly thing is I still always line the cavities with copper foil , habit , looks pretty and an excuse to waste more money. Lol. Anyway practising at home I've totally cured the problem , I play my acoustic guitar instead , no amp and saves electric
Hello Matthew, I'm looking for advice. Ever since I moved into my new studio I've had horrible noise issues. This is a specific type of noise that sounds like some kind of electrical communications... it was audible in my studio monitors (changed to a different pair and no more noise) and in several microphones (not in others, though), but it's still very apparent in my single coil equipped guitars. The humbucker equipped guitars exhibit maybe 2-3% of that noise, and the 2 and 4 positions on a Strat as well, almost inaudible even with lots of gain. It's not 60 cycle hum, it's not RFI and it's not ground noise. I'm not sure if it's EMI or something like that, but it's very specific, piercing at times, and inconsistent. The noise is almost as if it's in two layers, one constant hum/buzz and another that comes in and out intermittently, with a piercing 4 kHz and 8 kHz digital kind of buzz. Do you have any idea what this could be and how to work around it? There is a train very nearby, if that accounts for anything...
computer harddrives
Don't you get a nice ground path through a good cord?
Edifying! How’d you learn all this?
Trial and error my friend. While other people were talking about doing it I was doing it, breaking it, messing it up, figuring out how to fix it, figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
Preshate you stopping by and commenting.
@@MathewsGuitarWorks absolutely. Not in TH-cam much lately but I always watch your vids when they pop up.
To me looks like its your amp chassis is not grounded properly or your power cord or house wireing cause of how it reacted same with 2 dif type of guitars for ground noise doing same zap cycle