Thank you so much guys for all the helpful info, I stand corrected! Electromagnetic frequencies and sound frequencies are not the same thing. My bad! I’m so glad that people smarter than me watch my videos, I love learning! At any rate, this hack really does work well, despite my ignorant understanding of the subject. Thanks again guys!
Not to make less of the video but wouldn't it be easier to use HVAC tape? Same price as the can of glue and it already comes with adhesive. Also is 3 mils thick. I've been using it forever on single coiled guitars. Just a thought.
I love your videos, first of all cause they are free and well presented and also fun. You rock, bro. You teach me, and I teach me (Pokémon!)... So, I still gave you a thumb up. But let me clarify once again that while shielding will mostly make electricity noise disappear, if you are in a place with the presence of a heavy RF noise, shielding will do nothing, only humbucking (split coil or dual-coil jobl) will. :)
Also one minor correction, Copper shielding tape does have conductive adhesive. The metal duct tape (3m) however does not. Using that, which is real cheap, you need to fold it so that metal touches metal. The copper tape can just be laid in any old way as long as there are no gaps. I always use the metal duct tape on my pickguards with the copper in the cavities and a super light gauge wire to connect to the grounding system. This has been verified with a multimeter. ;) Hope that helps a bit
It is a good idea to shield your guitar. One night years ago, I was playing an unshielded cheap guitar and my amp/ guitar/ pedal set up actually picked up a shortwave radio broadcast! I could hear a guy speaking french through the amp! When I grounded the strings with my hand, it stopped. Freaked me out at first...thought I was hearing voices! Lol😂
Dr. Phill I think it does help! Anymore I use shielded wiring in my builds where ever possible too! It's a wire with a braided series of wires around it...similat to tv cable. I just did a cigar box guitar. It has a single coil and piezo pickups. I used all shielded cables and it works well. No hum or noise!
74dart man well my pickups are 12k PAF clones with standard 4 wire with the rubber coating on them do most I can do is replace ground wires plus I have a phase switch which makes yet more noise
When you mentioned the metal cage it reminded me of an episode of Metalocalypse where the guitarist was trying to record a song but no matter what he did his guitar was buzzing uncontrollably, but only when he touched it. So he found out if he wasn't standing on the ground while recording the buzz went away, and the natural conclusion was that he had to record the solo while parachuting!
RF is not high frequency sound. Sound is compression waves propagated through air, water, or some other fluid. (Yes, air is a fluid in this context.) Radio frequency waves are electromagnetic waves. They do not require any medium. They propagate well in the vacuum of space. Light and radio are both different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. Sound is a completely different phenomenon. Aluminum foil is good at blocking the electrical portion of the electromagnetic wave but isn't the best shielding material. It works better at blocking higher frequencies. Most of the electromagnetic interference that a musical instrument needs to block is the 60 Hz from the electrical system (50 Hz for people in Europe). Copper foil is better for that. Mu metal is probably the best, because it's formulated specifically for this purpose, but is a bit expensive.
Liberty4Ever boy am I glad somebody corrected this statement too. The explanation he gave about what rf is should’ve triggered some self doubt because even people who are far away from science know sound can’t travel in vacuum and space tech is very dependent on radio frequencies ergo RF isn’t sound.
Also, RF can be at frequencies between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. This said, once they arrive in your strings and/or pickups, no shielding can do anything to them. Only a humbucker-made pickup can make them "silent". Shielding is meant to aim electricity noise/dirt to the ground wire. So you could both get RF-based HUM coming to your pickup because they are electromagnetic waves, and also electricity-based HUM coming to your instrument output signal throught wires. The RF-based HUM cannot be solve with shielding at all. Only a split-coil or dual-coil humbucking pickups can.
For example, I'm lucky enough to live in a place where my electricity is very clean, and also with nearly no RF reaching my house. So I'm both happy while playing single coils that aren't splitted and humbucking pickups. But recentyly I had to live near an airport. Not only the electricity of the house was noisy as hell and I couldn't afford a power conditionner. But even playing on batteries (then, not affected by the dirtyness of the house electrical installation), the radio emitters transmitters of the airport gave me such a strong HUM that on my passive Jazz bass, it would be impossible to play on one pickup without getting a headache... back to my home, all that hell ended.
Great video, really useful and some good tips. Just a little extra tip for people.... The inside of a guitar is usually quite dusty. Whether that’s small wood clippings from where is was cut, micro-fibers if it’s a cast body or just general dust and crap from been sat around your home for years. It’s a good idea to use just some general everyday tape to ensure you get all this dust and stuff up before you start shielding. An extra step is to use some form of compressed air to blow out any bits that aren’t visible to the naked eye or in difficult to reach places. 👍🏻
Thank you for your tips. What I don't understand is why electric instrument manufacturers don't incorporate these, seemingly, simple fixes in all their instruments before they are sent to market. According to my research, the first commercially available electric guitar was sold in the U.S. back in 1931. This means that the industry has had 88 years to develop effective means to completely cure the cursed 60-cycle hum problem. I have seen many videos describing various ways to fix this problem but, I fail to understand why I, as a purchaser, should be forced to spend many hours and/or many dollars to make my instrument playable. That or buy the $4000 custom shop guitar.
It's a cost factor. Each one may only cost pennies but it adds up over time and thousands of instruments. Even though it's only a matter of pennies the companies who don't provide it aren't willing to pay. Sucks
Loved the video, very informative! And honestly, I don't give a dang what RF is, exactly. All I know is that I don't want it coming through my amp. One thing I'd like to share here in the comments was the first time I modded a bass. I carefully shielded all of the cavities and bridge but somehow when I did not touch the strings/bridge it would start humming. Internet suggested a crappy bridge ground but that was not the case. What WAS the case is not giving my cavities a COMMON ground connection. Aka, the cavities were shielded but not connected. Sincr I didn't have a Pickguard on my bass I solved this by running a wiring through my bass and soldering it to both cavities. This solved all my hum problems. Something worth sharing with you guys
So here's a little background on the topic: PIckups pick up changes in the electromagnetic field around them using induction. Because the movement of the strings changes the electromagnetic field, the movement is picked up. The keywords here being "change" and "movement". If pickups just detected the strength of the electromagnetic field surrounding them, you'd always get the sound of the field, not its change. That is also the reason why shielding doesn't affect tone, even if you did it with a magnetizable (not magnetic) material like steel. If you chose a material that is magnetic itself, i.e. non-magnets made out of magnetizable material stick to it, it might be a different story, I'm not sure. Regarding the hum: When current flows through a wire, it generates and electromagnetic field. As the current in the household is alternating, the electromagnetic field emitted from it reverses its direction 50 times a second or 60 times a second, depending on where you live. If the electromagnetic field is close enough to your guitar, it affects the electromagnetic field detected by your pickups. These changes get transformed into sound, and if your power grid has 50 hz, the sound will have a frequency of 50 hz and if you have 60 hz, the sound's frequency will have 60 hz. And this is the hum.
Yooooo!! This is easily the best upgrade I’ve done to my sub-$200 Tagima Strat. Just did the work tonight and it is whisper quiet. I actually lowered the threshold on my Boss NS-2 and can actually enjoy playing gain and clean tones. Thanks so much, the most expensive part other than my time was the spray adhesive and I had to buy a multi meter (was gonna get one soon anyway). Thanks a million.
Wow! Im from Brazil and I didn't knew there were Tagimas in the US. Are they common, usual? Are there any Brazilian made ones or only those made in Asia? I once talked to mr. Seizi Tagima, he is a cool guy.
Hey thanks so much for this tutorial; I just finished doing this to my Jazzmaster. After I installed '65 re-issue pickups, it buzzed like crazy until I touched the strings or metal. I'd play it with a wire from one of the tuners tucked into my sock to bleed off the buzz. But that was getting inconvenient. This Jazzmaster had conductive paint already, and foil under the pickguard. I may have broken the continuity when I opened it up the first time, or maybe the new pickups were just susceptible to interference. Either way, I decided to shield it and see what happens. Well the results were fantastic. It wasn't easy, but I made sure to preserve the continuity as much as possible. I used heavy duty foil for most of it, with contact cement instead of spray glue. This way I was able to leave areas overlapping with no glue, so I didn't have to fold over edges. I also used aluminum foil tape from 3M to patch the overlapping spots and do the sides. I had some problems getting it all back together but finally got it done, and the buzz is completely gone. I can hear the 60 cycle hum at each pickup and none in the center position, as it should be. It's quiet as it can be and tone and response is better. THANKS!
Couple of really easy ways to ensure continuity if you're using adhesive-backed tape: 1) Fold over a corner or cut a 1/4" strip lengthwise at the end of a strip and fold it over so it's face-to-face with the piece underneath it. 2) If you've got the body thickness available (i.e. not the back of a pickguard), push in a thumbtack.
HVAC foil tape is sold in most hardware stores, Home Depot/Lowe's/Menards and similar tape is sold in most auto parts stores and is just as effective as copper tape.
@Bob Just shielded a Jackson PS 4 after installing SD Pegasus/Sentient combo. I did use copper shielding tape. In a previous project (Charvel) used the aluminum tape. Haven't noticed a difference between the two. Perhaps I got lucky? Maybe it's because, as a contractor, I didn't have the cheapest crap on the shelf in my kit at the time. Dunno. To my ear I hear no difference. Maybe if I had single coils I'd notice a difference. Closest I come to single coils in any of my guitars is a stacked humbucker.
@@igorkevorkian16 For the full effect I would want my Faraday Cage to have DC continuity across all points, but if you overlap the Aluminum tape edges enough, the capacitive coupling ought to give decent results at AM radio frequencies and above. I've seen at least one guitar builder claim that it works well enough without DC continuity across the layers. You can poke through the layers with an exacto knife to make the layers touch, or solder them at their edged in a few places. Mathematically, a spherical Faraday cage doesn't need to be grounded to work. The voltage at any interior point is cancelled out by spherical symmetry. For other shapes, I don't know if it still holds. I look at it as if the wave travels on the outside of the cage down to the skin depth until it gets to the other side, where it leaps back into space and continues on.
Good tutorial and advice, thank you. Did this to my first bass, witch is a very old one, but i also have had to change his old volume and tone pots, and everything works, except that the volume dosen't fully cuts off the sound when i go to zero. Reading about the issue, some say, maybe, its because three things: A bad pot, a bad grounded soldering in the volume connection, or that the pot has some contact with the shielding in the electronics cavity. So, the last is the one related to this video and i have to check all the thing again, be aware of that issue when do the shielding👍
Seriously man i just nearly bought a £110 hum cancelling pedal until i watched this. Turned off my dimmer light, turned on my lamp, bye bye hum. Thanks, you got my sub
You can lower the electromagnetic noise in your home, but when you go to play somewhere else it can be horrendously noisy. It's still a good idea to shield your single coil guitar.
Thanks for the vid, helped me a ton. FYI: Radio frequencies aren't sound waves. They're electromagnetic waves (the same weird thing that light is). It's not that we can't *hear* radio frequencies because they're outside the *audible* spectrum; rather, we can't *see* them because they're outside the *visual* spectrum.
Use 2" wide aluminum HVAC tape from Lowes or any other home improvement store instead. No spray glue required and makes for a much neater and faster installation.
Thank you so much for this, my guitar is a cheap chinese brand so the pickups aren't even connected to the shield by a screw, it works wonders. Also I used stick glue and it did alright, just be careful of not tearing apart the fragile thinfoil.
Thank you for a very informative, straight forward video. I really appreciate that you bust some myths in your videos, this saves so much time because there are far too many people making videos that are, lets say less than qualified to be doing so. Therefore your facts about many of these false statements make life less stressful. My most sincere thank you
Just spray the back of the pickguard with the 77 and press the foil onto it. Then use an exacto to cutout the holes and some sandpaper to cleanup the edges. Smooth it out with the back of a screwdriver. Much easier than templates and cutting into strips.
This was the perfect solution to the bit of noise I got off my new Squier Affinity Jazzmaster. They had a tiny bit of foil under the pots from the factory, but fully lining the pickguard and cavities like you showed really quieted it down. Now it's almost indistinguishable from my humbucker-equipped guitar. Kudos for the detailed explanation too!
As far as I can tell, when you overlap adhesive coated foil in this way conductive continuity occurs simply though points on the surfaces of separate pieces of foil touching each other through the adhesive. I don't know if you can rely on this long term. Particularly with aluminium which develops a layer of surface oxide. Rather than use the expensive tape with 'conductive' adhesive (how would you know its conductive?) I usually use self adhesive copper tape that you can buy cheaply from garden supply companies as slug repellent tape, and then place a number of solder joints between the strips of tape to ensure continuity.
been working on shielding, so i've watched this several times, and I just now noticed that I have the same drum canvas you have in the background! have one with guitar too! never seen another one like it
I shielded my Squier CV Strat. The difference was like Friday and Monday. I used copper tape with conductive adhesive. I did the main and input jack cavities. I soldered a jumper between the two. Id recommend it on any sc guitar.
Went through a few videos about the hum, but none of the videos had a demo of the hum before and after...adding that would paint a better picture. :) Good vid BTW!
The portion you mentioned that is not negated is what’s called common mode noise and that’s the noise in the domain of the mains wiring. It’s not inductively coupled through the pickups that your aluminum foil treatment addresses. The expensive gizmo you mentioned that plugs into the wall addresses the common mode noise. My explanation is simplistic and not 100% accurate, but for this space I hope it’s adequate.
THE BEST explanation of guitar racket, I've ever heard. But they were actually named, "humbucking." VERY good job, young Sir, very good. Except I wasn't too clear on grounding each electronic component to the shielding material -- seemed like you glossed over that ... I will go back and check that again. Thanks very much for putting this up!
Not sure if it really matters but while aluminum is not ferromagnetic it does interact with magnets. You can induce a current in aluminum using magnets and it does create an electromagnetic field when you run a current through it.
Dude, Its Aluminum foil. Its not thick. Stop cutting it. Just crush it into poistion. If the thickness doubles or triples its not going to take any space in your cavity. When you do the back of your pick guard, just spray your pickguard, stick on one piece of foil then cut it once its stuck on. Youll save save yourself a lot of hassle. Thanks for making your videos. Its inspirational.
The conductive adhesive is the good advantage. Like I discribed my way of work upper in comments, I use aluminium tape for exhaust pipes, but I need to create continuity between each part...
I was going to ask a question about the paint-on RF barrier. I had heard it was a great thing to use but that’s all. You answered all of the remaining questions I had. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
You might want to search online for "ground loop" and I think you'll be surprised at the answer to your question about why shouldn't you run two ground wires. Twice as many isn't always twice as good. However, in this application, it's probably not a big deal and should be OK.
Liberty4Ever I thought ground loop occured when both the source an the amplifier use the same power source but a different ground. But I could be wrong
Best practice is to have a central grounding point and connect all grounds to it, typically called a star configuration, with only one path to ground from any grounded component. In other words, the cases of the potentiometers would all be wired together and only one end would be connected to the central grounding point. In practice, ground loops are most problematic when there is a fair amount of power flowing in conductors and significant noise currents can be induced in adjacent ground conductors. The ambient 60 Hz electrical noise can't induce currents that would be problematic with ground loops, so the redundant ground is OK. Another good noise canceling technique is twisting pairs of wire. If the signal wire is twisted with a ground wire, the electrical noise tends to appear equally on the ground and signal wires and is canceled.
If there are two paths to get to the central ground at the output jack, that's a ground loop, but it's probably not a problem in reality, given the small currents.
Very informative,I actually have used the Alluminium adhesive tape for a DIY solid state amp I made I stuck it to the transformer plates,and there was a very noticeable difference
I realigned the antimatter injectors and balanced the flow regulators on my five string bass and it plays much better. I cleaned the plasma conduits and the pre-warp buffeting I was experiencing on the B string has completely disappeared.
Thank you guys! I've spent a lot. No. A LOT of time figuring out why I have weird sounds coming from my perfectly grounded guitar. I have a metal pickguard, and yes - it mixes interference to my hot signal.
Dan as always another great video thank you for the knowledge! I have never been able to get the wiring right when I have tried to rewire my guitar, you have a great teaching method I would love to see a video that you go step by step on the wiring process! Looking forward to seeing your next video!
This is extremely quick fix your body carries electrical current one thing I've learned to do for rehearsals and performances once you set up your tone and volume for your bass amp take your head and turn it at a 90° angle so it is not facing towards your body which will eliminate almost all of the hum coming from your amplification especially with high-powered amps
This is my recipe for a good conductive paint: Use shellac (you can find it at craft stores) Mix the shellac with graphite powder until you get a mixture with the consistency of ketchup. Apply 2 to 3 coats inside the guitar's cavities. Remember to apply a piece of copper foil inside the cavity and solder the ground wire, this copper foil must be underneath the conductive paint.
Very good info thank you for sharing. If I may add something, when I'm laying down aluminium or copper tape I fold the edge back on to adhesive cutting little notches so you get the edges sticking as well as complete continuity
Thank you very much, this a little refresher for me since I usually work on Acoustic Guitars. I pieced together a remake of a 63 Strat with some modern parts. Sometimes less is more ! Many Thanks !
I really appreciate your videos man! Keep on rocking! In one week of listening to your videos I've become closer to my guitar. It's funny, I feel like I play better knowing all this info. I know it has no relationship with the playing. But it's how I feel. Thanks again!
If you use shielded cable inside the guitar, and use a proper grounding scheme, you will have no noise pickup at all from the wiring. You don't need to glue foil to the guitar.
You live near an AM radio transmitter, don't you. I once toured KGO, a 50 kilowatt station, and I could listen to the audio thanks to the eddy currents induced in the solid copper transmission line!
You're never fully getting rid of 60 cycle hum on true single coil pickup instruments. But if it is loud or noticeable enough to bother you, there is probably room for improvement. If you have your amp volume and gain cranked the hum is gonna be loud no matter what ( the solution is humbuckers or a noise gate).
Like others said, RF is a high-frequency phenomenon, not audio frequency. HOWEVER, any sort of small passive device like a diode at the front end of a signal chain can demodulate AM signals (cue the Spinal Tap Air Force base clip). So guitar , pedal, and amp shielding/grounding are indeed mitigating RF. I know this for a fact, as I work for a large manufacturer of musical equipment. The obvious other reason for shielding is for AC hum, which is at 60Hz and its harmonics (180Hz is a particularly nasty harmonic many times).
For copper tape or sheilding paint, instead of a guitar based resource, check electronics distributors. It's always cheaper than guitar based supplier.
I know this is an older video, but I feel I must push back on your explanation for the (lack of) effect on tone. Pickups work by electromagnetic induction; the strings vibrate, producing variance in the magnetic field since the pole pieces are drawn to the string, which by induction creates an electric current in the pickups. This works both ways, though; electric currents also produce magnetic fields, even if the current is flowing through a conductor that isn't magnetic. That's how an electromagnet works, running current through many loops of copper wire, and it can turn off the magnetism because copper isn't a magnet. The changing magnetic field can (and likely does) create a current in your Faraday cage, which in turn creates an opposing magnetic field. To get an idea of how this could dampen the sound, look up a demonstration of a magnet dropping through a copper or aluminum tube. The induced currents create a magnetic field which opposes the changes in the original field, creating a frictional effect. This is basically the mechanism that the shielding uses to block radio waves, but in principle it would also apply to any applied electromagnetic wave, even from your pickups. That said, I suspect it doesn't noticeably affect your tone. The shielding is farther from your pickups than the copper wires which carries the hot signal, meaning the field that it "reacts" to is weaker in strength, thus giving a weaker response. The only way to really test this I think would be to perform side-by-side spectral analysis of the same open notes with the noise frequencies known and accounted for.
You are correct about the shielding around the magnetic pickups causing eddy currents. You are also correct that the eddy currents diminish very rapidly with distance from the pickups. This is also why covered pickups use a relatively thick but higher resistance metal, so the tone is less effected by the metal cover.
HalfBredReviews I revised a 1998 squier bass for my high school and it was completely unshielded and it hummed pretty badly, like a regular single coil instrument does. After a good shielding job it is what we call 'fluisterstil' or roughly translated, whisper quiet. Really barely any hum, you'll have to focus on it at loud volumes to hear it.
First of all I'll keep it simple down to two sorry 1 instead of 2 because I hate typing I'm in it and of my computer's too much so you won't see periods or dots or comments even though you just might have cuz I said it . But great video very thorough and fast explaining and dumbfounded dumb down I should say but he knows these things to go into depth and talk about the first radio transmitted signal was a guy whose brother went on the other side of a hill we could get into all kinds of crazy things you don't know that story what did I make you feel dumb come on dude I'm not commenting on on the harshness that's all I got to say. Anyways the common I just read is kind of funny because if you listen to it again and listen to your question it's beyond the concept of any hearing it all but also this gets me thinking even to deeper conversation of real news and fake news what if he's been trained his experience that he's been told this but all of its Ally and that's deep right. But I do take The Good the Bad and the Ugly from every episode and I appreciate your hard work and what to do cool move to the shed that you listen to people there's something else I can't quite put my finger on 00 k. Then lighting design look up and search three point you don't want to go to crazy cuz then it makes you look like you're on the QVC network but three-point lighting and basically gives the third dimension to a 2D image and also it would highly your guitars without going overboard experiment with lighting I am a lighting professional life fantasee lighting and Belleville Michigan and I repair like all of our concert Halls auditoriums anything you could think of college wise in Michigan if one of those things goes bad and ends up on my desk I don't even go to the site they deliver it to me and I make it happen and I get it back to him now even Cornerstone Church I'm working with right now but that's a pretty cool feeling it's like you're helping somebody out that's what you're doing for me and thank you. Because it is been a disaster and a whole nother story we'll talk about one day but I have great freaking photo documentaries of it and I'mma put a slide together and have a professional narrative over it because men you could get off I hope you go on the other things man. Cheers, Mark Anthony Porter of red-eye raccoon started in 2010 and Nashville moved back home to Detroit to reform the band getting ready for knee. Lease. I got a plug to you right! Can't wait to get one of those shirts though oh hey? What about incorporating a city thing where it says Detroit in the smoke but s*** I don't want you to feel like you're copying something but that could get you thinking defensive only person to ever be from Detroit Jack White everyone else lived in the public schools guns are big part of life out there you just got to my house to avoid it. that's why I jakatia I haven't even watch one of yours but I guarantee you it's educated conscious and fairness. Again I'm driving sorry for the misspellings. By the way doing an oil base to get to that green sending the hell out of it then I'm doing in arcrylic stained to really deep in the light part of the wood until then it's going to be a water-based coat instead of the tongue sorry bud. like I said taking The Good The Bad and The Ugly. Again thank you for helping us all skip several several steps you're doing the leg work for us. Koster
HalfBredReviews,,, I just read your comment again it's so funny it's like trying to listen to that close Galaxy fart , I'm just commenting on my comment so there's not too but that was mean that was meant to be just for laughs have a great week and y'all
That RF explination explains why sometimes during band practice we can hear a spanish radio station playing mariachi music out of my amp xD Good shit tho I love the content!
Ok this works but is a bit of effort. I did this on a MIM HSS Strat just like the video shows. However in the cavity where the guitar output jack goes I found that the foil (ground) could touch the hot (signal) end of the jack when when jack plate is inserted and screwed in. I fixed this by using some electricians tape on the foil side where the jack end could touch and also added a bit of this tape around the jack tip area. I posted this just to let others know what may be the problem when there is no sound when plugged into an amp.
I had the same issue on a boutique Strat shaped object. The tip of the output jack touched the shielding, shorting the output to ground. Same fix was applied, just put some electrical tape on the bottom of the output jack cavity.
Hi. Great video. Aluminum tape can be used and it's even simpler maybe. Overlap the strips of tape and as you glue the tape down just fold a little bit of the corner to touch the previous one. It works great. I saw this tip on willseasyguitar. Cheers
In order to get connectivity across layers of HVAC tape, you need to fold over the tape so there's not any insulating adhesive between layers. It's a pain in the butt. Just buy the copper tape with conductive adhesive..
water based low sheen sample pot from hardware store in black/dark grey etc and sum graphite powder, mix it up and test on offcut while mixing, when yr happy with mix paint away, easy as and cheap as chips, a couple of bucks and you have 500mls+ of shielding paint, plenty of info online about this with conductive tests using different mediums and the acrylic low sheen or flat paint with graphite powder worked the best.and the price is just right, cheap as chips n prob already have it around the house as well
It doesn't matter that aluminium is not ferromagnetic. It is a conductor and will produce eddy currents and produce back EMF. A magnetic field in opposition to the applied magnetic field. The windings in the pickups are copper, which are also not ferro magnetic just like the aluminum, but yet they are still effected by the magnetic field from the magnets.
Finally I have my answer, because I did this job with a not conducting foil and it went all wrong. Thanx for this. Continuity is the word. I thank you for the best explanation yet!!!!
Non ferrous metals do affect magnetic fields, drop a strong magnet down a copper or aluminium tube and the magnet will drop slowly due to the magnet inducing currents in the copper/aluminium which in turn generates an opposing magnetic field. And motors,transformers, generators etc. (even pickups) use copper windings to interact with magnetic fields I'd say it's possible that the shielding could affect the pickup, but how much some thin copper or aluminium foil could affect it by I don't know, probably not very much.
I still get noise even with a humbucker pickup, at least when high gain is used. So some kind of shielding or EMI absorbtion is probably a good idea. I wish manufacturers would do this from the factory, however.
Just like the movement in your magnetic pickup induces an electrical current, the opposite is also true. Aluminum is non-magnetic-- until you give it an alternating electrical current- at which point it becomes an electromagnet.
i was setting here watching this video ,eating rolos mmmmm watched the video , looked down and saw the gold and silver foil and decided to put some over the cover of my springs and found out it gave my guitar a little more sustain! wow like i said on my guitar so thank you
Excellent presentation and tutorial! I'll be doing some shielding on the HSS SuperStrat I am building. I did buy some conductive paint for it, though. Might use some foil on a Dean Evo I am repairing and customizing. Like your Gun Stuff, too, and am an active target shooter/collector/hunter.
Conductive paint is quicker and easier to apply than foil tape, but paint requires several layers and a long time to dry between layers. There is no way to solder wire to paint, so a wood screw will be needed to hold the ground wire against the paint. A ground wire should be used to connect the cavities together. Sometimes you can depend on the mounting hardware of switches and pots to provide this grounding, but it doesn't hurt to run a dedicated wire from each cavity back to the control cavity. The pick guard or control cavity cover shielding should make contact with the paint/foil shield at as many places as possible for best shielding efficiency. The fewer and smaller the holes in the shielding, the less noise ingress.
Spray adhesive has no electrical continentality. But, there is something that might. Copper Coat gasket adhesive. I haven't tried it. But, it might be advisable.
I was getting a "slight" hum for ages , My geetar was shielded etc . It was doing my head in even though it was a "very slight" kinda hum, Eventually I sat one day and thought what if I lower the pic ups . Bang!! problem solved with 2 turns of a screwdriver,,, Worth a try guys , jist sayin'.
I've got a small can of Stu Mac shielding paint and I've done many guitars with it and I still have some left. You can get shielding paint cheap from Guitar Fetish, 9 bucks and they give you a brush.
@@blakejones6648 Copper foil is more conductive and accepts solder. But if you use several layers of conductive paint it works fine as well. You will need wood screws and ground lugs to wire the cavities together, preferably one wire from the control cavity to each cavity that is not connected via the foil/paint.
Actually, non-magnetic materials become magnetic under electromagnetic or oscillating magnetic fields. The vibrating strings produce oscillating magnetic fields and in turn, they can actually magnetize the non-magnetic foil. It can cancel some of the hummings but it can take some of the sustain and brightness of the sound. This gives me an idea. What if we take a normal single-coil pickup and rewind it with non-metallic sleeves covering the poles. I should build a single coil noise-canceling pickup this way.
![GUITAR SHIELDING 101: A [Relatively] Quick Guide to Working with Foil Tape](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-mLBo4y9t8Y/mqdefault.jpg)
![GUITAR SHIELDING 101: A [Relatively] Quick Guide to Working with Foil Tape](/img/tr.png)
Thank you so much guys for all the helpful info, I stand corrected! Electromagnetic frequencies and sound frequencies are not the same thing. My bad! I’m so glad that people smarter than me watch my videos, I love learning! At any rate, this hack really does work well, despite my ignorant understanding of the subject. Thanks again guys!
Not to make less of the video but wouldn't it be easier to use HVAC tape? Same price as the can of glue and it already comes with adhesive. Also is 3 mils thick. I've been using it forever on single coiled guitars. Just a thought.
I love your videos, first of all cause they are free and well presented and also fun. You rock, bro. You teach me, and I teach me (Pokémon!)... So, I still gave you a thumb up. But let me clarify once again that while shielding will mostly make electricity noise disappear, if you are in a place with the presence of a heavy RF noise, shielding will do nothing, only humbucking (split coil or dual-coil jobl) will. :)
Guns and Guitars LES PAUL OR 50s STYLE TELE
Also one minor correction, Copper shielding tape does have conductive adhesive. The metal duct tape (3m) however does not. Using that, which is real cheap, you need to fold it so that metal touches metal. The copper tape can just be laid in any old way as long as there are no gaps. I always use the metal duct tape on my pickguards with the copper in the cavities and a super light gauge wire to connect to the grounding system.
This has been verified with a multimeter. ;) Hope that helps a bit
The adhesive on this is not conductive. See my comment below.
It is a good idea to shield your guitar. One night years ago, I was playing an unshielded cheap guitar and my amp/ guitar/ pedal set up actually picked up a shortwave radio broadcast! I could hear a guy speaking french through the amp! When I grounded the strings with my hand, it stopped. Freaked me out at first...thought I was hearing voices! Lol😂
You don't ground the strings by touching them. You actually provided the shield.
RCbeastly if your touching a solid ground yourself, you will be grounding them. If your not grounded, then it's as you say.
Happens to me too. Would shielding help stop the noise even when my hands are off the strings?
Dr. Phill I think it does help! Anymore I use shielded wiring in my builds where ever possible too! It's a wire with a braided series of wires around it...similat to tv cable. I just did a cigar box guitar. It has a single coil and piezo pickups. I used all shielded cables and it works well. No hum or noise!
74dart man well my pickups are 12k PAF clones with standard 4 wire with the rubber coating on them do most I can do is replace ground wires plus I have a phase switch which makes yet more noise
When you mentioned the metal cage it reminded me of an episode of Metalocalypse where the guitarist was trying to record a song but no matter what he did his guitar was buzzing uncontrollably, but only when he touched it. So he found out if he wasn't standing on the ground while recording the buzz went away, and the natural conclusion was that he had to record the solo while parachuting!
Aluminum foil + spray adhesive + me = strips of foil stuck on everything. I would become my own faraday cage.
😂😂😂
@Vinnie Provolone 🤣🤣🤣
🤣
😂
RF is not high frequency sound. Sound is compression waves propagated through air, water, or some other fluid. (Yes, air is a fluid in this context.) Radio frequency waves are electromagnetic waves. They do not require any medium. They propagate well in the vacuum of space. Light and radio are both different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. Sound is a completely different phenomenon.
Aluminum foil is good at blocking the electrical portion of the electromagnetic wave but isn't the best shielding material. It works better at blocking higher frequencies. Most of the electromagnetic interference that a musical instrument needs to block is the 60 Hz from the electrical system (50 Hz for people in Europe). Copper foil is better for that. Mu metal is probably the best, because it's formulated specifically for this purpose, but is a bit expensive.
Liberty4Ever boy am I glad somebody corrected this statement too. The explanation he gave about what rf is should’ve triggered some self doubt because even people who are far away from science know sound can’t travel in vacuum and space tech is very dependent on radio frequencies ergo RF isn’t sound.
Also, RF can be at frequencies between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. This said, once they arrive in your strings and/or pickups, no shielding can do anything to them. Only a humbucker-made pickup can make them "silent". Shielding is meant to aim electricity noise/dirt to the ground wire. So you could both get RF-based HUM coming to your pickup because they are electromagnetic waves, and also electricity-based HUM coming to your instrument output signal throught wires. The RF-based HUM cannot be solve with shielding at all. Only a split-coil or dual-coil humbucking pickups can.
For example, I'm lucky enough to live in a place where my electricity is very clean, and also with nearly no RF reaching my house. So I'm both happy while playing single coils that aren't splitted and humbucking pickups. But recentyly I had to live near an airport. Not only the electricity of the house was noisy as hell and I couldn't afford a power conditionner. But even playing on batteries (then, not affected by the dirtyness of the house electrical installation), the radio emitters transmitters of the airport gave me such a strong HUM that on my passive Jazz bass, it would be impossible to play on one pickup without getting a headache... back to my home, all that hell ended.
air is a fluid not just in this context, air is a fluid, period. Fluid is not sinonimous with liquid
Thanks for all the info guys, I stand corrected! I’m glad people smarter than me watch my videos. Either way, this hack really does work if you try it
Great video, really useful and some good tips. Just a little extra tip for people....
The inside of a guitar is usually quite dusty. Whether that’s small wood clippings from where is was cut, micro-fibers if it’s a cast body or just general dust and crap from been sat around your home for years. It’s a good idea to use just some general everyday tape to ensure you get all this dust and stuff up before you start shielding. An extra step is to use some form of compressed air to blow out any bits that aren’t visible to the naked eye or in difficult to reach places. 👍🏻
Thank you for your tips. What I don't understand is why electric instrument manufacturers don't incorporate these, seemingly, simple fixes in all their instruments before they are sent to market. According to my research, the first commercially available electric guitar was sold in the U.S. back in 1931. This means that the industry has had 88 years to develop effective means to completely cure the cursed 60-cycle hum problem. I have seen many videos describing various ways to fix this problem but, I fail to understand why I, as a purchaser, should be forced to spend many hours and/or many dollars to make my instrument playable. That or buy the $4000 custom shop guitar.
It's a cost factor. Each one may only cost pennies but it adds up over time and thousands of instruments. Even though it's only a matter of pennies the companies who don't provide it aren't willing to pay. Sucks
Loved the video, very informative! And honestly, I don't give a dang what RF is, exactly. All I know is that I don't want it coming through my amp.
One thing I'd like to share here in the comments was the first time I modded a bass. I carefully shielded all of the cavities and bridge but somehow when I did not touch the strings/bridge it would start humming. Internet suggested a crappy bridge ground but that was not the case. What WAS the case is not giving my cavities a COMMON ground connection. Aka, the cavities were shielded but not connected. Sincr I didn't have a Pickguard on my bass I solved this by running a wiring through my bass and soldering it to both cavities. This solved all my hum problems. Something worth sharing with you guys
So here's a little background on the topic: PIckups pick up changes in the electromagnetic field around them using induction. Because the movement of the strings changes the electromagnetic field, the movement is picked up. The keywords here being "change" and "movement". If pickups just detected the strength of the electromagnetic field surrounding them, you'd always get the sound of the field, not its change. That is also the reason why shielding doesn't affect tone, even if you did it with a magnetizable (not magnetic) material like steel. If you chose a material that is magnetic itself, i.e. non-magnets made out of magnetizable material stick to it, it might be a different story, I'm not sure.
Regarding the hum: When current flows through a wire, it generates and electromagnetic field. As the current in the household is alternating, the electromagnetic field emitted from it reverses its direction 50 times a second or 60 times a second, depending on where you live. If the electromagnetic field is close enough to your guitar, it affects the electromagnetic field detected by your pickups. These changes get transformed into sound, and if your power grid has 50 hz, the sound will have a frequency of 50 hz and if you have 60 hz, the sound's frequency will have 60 hz. And this is the hum.
Yooooo!! This is easily the best upgrade I’ve done to my sub-$200 Tagima Strat. Just did the work tonight and it is whisper quiet. I actually lowered the threshold on my Boss NS-2 and can actually enjoy playing gain and clean tones. Thanks so much, the most expensive part other than my time was the spray adhesive and I had to buy a multi meter (was gonna get one soon anyway). Thanks a million.
Wow! Im from Brazil and I didn't knew there were Tagimas in the US. Are they common, usual? Are there any Brazilian made ones or only those made in Asia? I once talked to mr. Seizi Tagima, he is a cool guy.
Hey thanks so much for this tutorial; I just finished doing this to my Jazzmaster. After I installed '65 re-issue pickups, it buzzed like crazy until I touched the strings or metal. I'd play it with a wire from one of the tuners tucked into my sock to bleed off the buzz. But that was getting inconvenient.
This Jazzmaster had conductive paint already, and foil under the pickguard. I may have broken the continuity when I opened it up the first time, or maybe the new pickups were just susceptible to interference. Either way, I decided to shield it and see what happens.
Well the results were fantastic. It wasn't easy, but I made sure to preserve the continuity as much as possible. I used heavy duty foil for most of it, with contact cement instead of spray glue. This way I was able to leave areas overlapping with no glue, so I didn't have to fold over edges. I also used aluminum foil tape from 3M to patch the overlapping spots and do the sides.
I had some problems getting it all back together but finally got it done, and the buzz is completely gone. I can hear the 60 cycle hum at each pickup and none in the center position, as it should be. It's quiet as it can be and tone and response is better. THANKS!
Great tip, thanks. It would have been nice to hear the difference between the shielded and unshielded to see how well aluminum foil works.
This is exactly the video I needed as my jazzmaster build needs shielding badly! Thanks!
Drink every time he says “continuity.”
he said it like 100 times
Constantnudity
i did, now i'm drunk.
I can hardly walk.
Another drink every time he says cavity and you’re done for sure
I did this shielding job on my cheap strat and it worked really well! No more hum, no more noise gate abuse! :D
Be cool to hear a before and after.
Nah, you'd likely be rather dissapointed...shielding helps a bit on some guitars, but it's far from a hands-down solution.
@@chrisscott2498 ok
@@frostmusicofficial Works perfect on two guitars I have done , difference is really noticable (just sayin).
Said the same thing 🤦🏻♂️
@@chrisscott2498 The improvement is most noticeable on single coils and split humbuckers, which are essentially single coils too.
Couple of really easy ways to ensure continuity if you're using adhesive-backed tape: 1) Fold over a corner or cut a 1/4" strip lengthwise at the end of a strip and fold it over so it's face-to-face with the piece underneath it.
2) If you've got the body thickness available (i.e. not the back of a pickguard), push in a thumbtack.
Copper tape with conductive adhesive is just as cheap, and much simpler to deal with than foil.
HVAC foil tape is sold in most hardware stores, Home Depot/Lowe's/Menards and similar tape is sold in most auto parts stores and is just as effective as copper tape.
@Bob
Just shielded a Jackson PS 4 after installing SD Pegasus/Sentient combo. I did use copper shielding tape.
In a previous project (Charvel) used the aluminum tape.
Haven't noticed a difference between the two. Perhaps I got lucky? Maybe it's because, as a contractor, I didn't have the cheapest crap on the shelf in my kit at the time. Dunno. To my ear I hear no difference.
Maybe if I had single coils I'd notice a difference. Closest I come to single coils in any of my guitars is a stacked humbucker.
@@igorkevorkian16 For the full effect I would want my Faraday Cage to have DC continuity across all points, but if you overlap the Aluminum tape edges enough, the capacitive coupling ought to give decent results at AM radio frequencies and above. I've seen at least one guitar builder claim that it works well enough without DC continuity across the layers. You can poke through the layers with an exacto knife to make the layers touch, or solder them at their edged in a few places. Mathematically, a spherical Faraday cage doesn't need to be grounded to work. The voltage at any interior point is cancelled out by spherical symmetry. For other shapes, I don't know if it still holds. I look at it as if the wave travels on the outside of the cage down to the skin depth until it gets to the other side, where it leaps back into space and continues on.
Good tutorial and advice, thank you. Did this to my first bass, witch is a very old one, but i also have had to change his old volume and tone pots, and everything works, except that the volume dosen't fully cuts off the sound when i go to zero. Reading about the issue, some say, maybe, its because three things: A bad pot, a bad grounded soldering in the volume connection, or that the pot has some contact with the shielding in the electronics cavity. So, the last is the one related to this video and i have to check all the thing again, be aware of that issue when do the shielding👍
Seriously man i just nearly bought a £110 hum cancelling pedal until i watched this. Turned off my dimmer light, turned on my lamp, bye bye hum.
Thanks, you got my sub
You can lower the electromagnetic noise in your home, but when you go to play somewhere else it can be horrendously noisy. It's still a good idea to shield your single coil guitar.
Instead of making a cutout for the pickups, just cover the shielding with something like painters tape. this won't interupt the cage
Still a good idea to leave a little room around the screw holes so the screw threads don't touch the shielding.
what a great channel. taking inexpensive guitars and making them a work of art with a good amount of know how and some elbow grease. keep it up!
Thanks!
Thanks for the vid, helped me a ton.
FYI: Radio frequencies aren't sound waves. They're electromagnetic waves (the same weird thing that light is).
It's not that we can't *hear* radio frequencies because they're outside the *audible* spectrum; rather, we can't *see* them because they're outside the *visual* spectrum.
Use 2" wide aluminum HVAC tape from Lowes or any other home improvement store instead. No spray glue required and makes for a much neater and faster installation.
Thank you so much for this, my guitar is a cheap chinese brand so the pickups aren't even connected to the shield by a screw, it works wonders.
Also I used stick glue and it did alright, just be careful of not tearing apart the fragile thinfoil.
Thank you for a very informative, straight forward video. I really appreciate that you bust some myths in your videos, this saves so much time because there are far too many people making videos that are, lets say less than qualified to be doing so. Therefore your facts about many of these false statements make life less stressful. My most sincere thank you
Just spray the back of the pickguard with the 77 and press the foil onto it. Then use an exacto to cutout the holes and some sandpaper to cleanup the edges. Smooth it out with the back of a screwdriver. Much easier than templates and cutting into strips.
This was the perfect solution to the bit of noise I got off my new Squier Affinity Jazzmaster. They had a tiny bit of foil under the pots from the factory, but fully lining the pickguard and cavities like you showed really quieted it down. Now it's almost indistinguishable from my humbucker-equipped guitar. Kudos for the detailed explanation too!
Guns and guitars my two favorite hobbies. I really enjoy the how to and hack videos. Keep up the excellent work
That guitar / bass double-neck looks sweet!
Yea.... if that was a build, I would really like to see a vid on it....
As far as I can tell, when you overlap adhesive coated foil in this way conductive continuity occurs simply though points on the surfaces of separate pieces of foil touching each other through the adhesive. I don't know if you can rely on this long term. Particularly with aluminium which develops a layer of surface oxide. Rather than use the expensive tape with 'conductive' adhesive (how would you know its conductive?) I usually use self adhesive copper tape that you can buy cheaply from garden supply companies as slug repellent tape, and then place a number of solder joints between the strips of tape to ensure continuity.
been working on shielding, so i've watched this several times, and I just now noticed that I have the same drum canvas you have in the background! have one with guitar too! never seen another one like it
Yeah! I got mine at hobby lobby!
Cool. Mine were a gift, so I guess that explains where they came from.
I shielded my Squier CV Strat. The difference was like Friday and Monday.
I used copper tape with conductive adhesive. I did the main and input jack cavities. I soldered a jumper between the two.
Id recommend it on any sc guitar.
Went through a few videos about the hum, but none of the videos had a demo of the hum before and after...adding that would paint a better picture. :) Good vid BTW!
The portion you mentioned that is not negated is what’s called common mode noise and that’s the noise in the domain of the mains wiring. It’s not inductively coupled through the pickups that your aluminum foil treatment addresses. The expensive gizmo you mentioned that plugs into the wall addresses the common mode noise. My explanation is simplistic and not 100% accurate, but for this space I hope it’s adequate.
That’s why I occasionally pick up the local oldies station! Thanks!
Thanks for the great idea...just a suggestion - laying the pick guard on the foil and cutting around with a sharp craft blade might be easier.
THE BEST explanation of guitar racket, I've ever heard. But they were actually named, "humbucking." VERY good job, young Sir, very good. Except I wasn't too clear on grounding each electronic component to the shielding material -- seemed like you glossed over that ... I will go back and check that again. Thanks very much for putting this up!
Thank you for the lesson! You've answered a bunch of questions I've had for a long time
Not sure if it really matters but while aluminum is not ferromagnetic it does interact with magnets. You can induce a current in aluminum using magnets and it does create an electromagnetic field when you run a current through it.
Dude, Its Aluminum foil. Its not thick. Stop cutting it. Just crush it into poistion. If the thickness doubles or triples its not going to take any space in your cavity. When you do the back of your pick guard, just spray your pickguard, stick on one piece of foil then cut it once its stuck on. Youll save save yourself a lot of hassle.
Thanks for making your videos. Its inspirational.
Thats what I was thinking. But good call on the pickguard
Great video. They do make copper foil tape with conductive adhesive. It works well. Ive used it on several guitars.
The conductive adhesive is the good advantage. Like I discribed my way of work upper in comments, I use aluminium tape for exhaust pipes, but I need to create continuity between each part...
I was going to ask a question about the paint-on RF barrier. I had heard it was a great thing to use but that’s all. You answered all of the remaining questions I had. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
You might want to search online for "ground loop" and I think you'll be surprised at the answer to your question about why shouldn't you run two ground wires. Twice as many isn't always twice as good. However, in this application, it's probably not a big deal and should be OK.
Liberty4Ever I thought ground loop occured when both the source an the amplifier use the same power source but a different ground. But I could be wrong
Best practice is to have a central grounding point and connect all grounds to it, typically called a star configuration, with only one path to ground from any grounded component. In other words, the cases of the potentiometers would all be wired together and only one end would be connected to the central grounding point. In practice, ground loops are most problematic when there is a fair amount of power flowing in conductors and significant noise currents can be induced in adjacent ground conductors. The ambient 60 Hz electrical noise can't induce currents that would be problematic with ground loops, so the redundant ground is OK.
Another good noise canceling technique is twisting pairs of wire. If the signal wire is twisted with a ground wire, the electrical noise tends to appear equally on the ground and signal wires and is canceled.
Liberty4Ever it's impossible to get a ground loop inside a guitar, as all grounds go to one central ground on the output jack.
If there are two paths to get to the central ground at the output jack, that's a ground loop, but it's probably not a problem in reality, given the small currents.
If I remember correctly this is because of capacitive coupling, right?
Very informative,I actually have used the Alluminium adhesive tape for a DIY solid state amp I made I stuck it to the transformer plates,and there was a very noticeable difference
Using a Tripp Lite Isobar - noise suppressing surge protector power strip, can help eliminate noise as well.
On Star Trek, reversing polarity fixes things, but on guitar it messes everything up?
I realigned the antimatter injectors and balanced the flow regulators on my five string bass and it plays much better. I cleaned the plasma conduits and the pre-warp buffeting I was experiencing on the B string has completely disappeared.
humbuckers are two single coils with opposite polarity..
Ya cannae Chang the laws o physics Jim!!
Thank you guys! I've spent a lot. No. A LOT of time figuring out why I have weird sounds coming from my perfectly grounded guitar. I have a metal pickguard, and yes - it mixes interference to my hot signal.
Dan as always another great video thank you for the knowledge! I have never been able to get the wiring right when I have tried to rewire my guitar, you have a great teaching method I would love to see a video that you go step by step on the wiring process! Looking forward to seeing your next video!
I’ll be doing a more in depth video on wiring coming up
Also your humility and willingness to learn and remain open minded are great qualities for a successful future.
I found this video being complete and well explained. Thanks.
This is extremely quick fix your body carries electrical current one thing I've learned to do for rehearsals and performances once you set up your tone and volume for your bass amp take your head and turn it at a 90° angle so it is not facing towards your body which will eliminate almost all of the hum coming from your amplification especially with high-powered amps
This is my recipe for a good conductive paint:
Use shellac (you can find it at craft stores)
Mix the shellac with graphite powder until you get a mixture with the consistency of ketchup.
Apply 2 to 3 coats inside the guitar's cavities.
Remember to apply a piece of copper foil inside the cavity and solder the ground wire, this copper foil must be underneath the conductive paint.
Very good info thank you for sharing. If I may add something, when I'm laying down aluminium or copper tape I fold the edge back on to adhesive cutting little notches so you get the edges sticking as well as complete continuity
Thank you very much, this a little refresher for me since I usually work on Acoustic Guitars. I pieced together a remake of a 63 Strat with some modern parts. Sometimes less is more ! Many Thanks !
You are a fantastic communicator, Dan. Thanks for what you do. I just subscribed.
Awesome stuff man! I need to get a shirt! So for active pickups shielding doesn't matter ?
My god, i love this channel. Im a huge gun lover and i also 'try' to play guitar when i get a chance. Either way, I love guns and guitars!
Heck yeah, welcome Loren!
I really appreciate your videos man! Keep on rocking! In one week of listening to your videos I've become closer to my guitar. It's funny, I feel like I play better knowing all this info. I know it has no relationship with the playing. But it's how I feel. Thanks again!
Your videos are a wealth of information man. Thank you.
EXCELLENT VIDEO, DAN! Thank-You!
If you use shielded cable inside the guitar, and use a proper grounding scheme, you will have no noise pickup at all from the wiring. You don't need to glue foil to the guitar.
I’m actually really glad I found this because now whenever I play my Jaguar bass on my bed my amp won’t preach the New Testament to me
"And then God said, let there be bass! And it was good."
You live near an AM radio transmitter, don't you. I once toured KGO, a 50 kilowatt station, and I could listen to the audio thanks to the eddy currents induced in the solid copper transmission line!
Excellent video. I'm thinking of changing out the cheap ceramic pickups in my old 91 Peavey Predator strat and will probably shield it the same way.
Hi this video was one of the best shielding tutorial for me. Thanks a ton.
You're never fully getting rid of 60 cycle hum on true single coil pickup instruments. But if it is loud or noticeable enough to bother you, there is probably room for improvement. If you have your amp volume and gain cranked the hum is gonna be loud no matter what ( the solution is humbuckers or a noise gate).
Like others said, RF is a high-frequency phenomenon, not audio frequency. HOWEVER, any sort of small passive device like a diode at the front end of a signal chain can demodulate AM signals (cue the Spinal Tap Air Force base clip). So guitar , pedal, and amp shielding/grounding are indeed mitigating RF. I know this for a fact, as I work for a large manufacturer of musical equipment. The obvious other reason for shielding is for AC hum, which is at 60Hz and its harmonics (180Hz is a particularly nasty harmonic many times).
Electromagnetic radiation can be at any frequency, even audio frequency like 60 Hz.
That’s good advice. I have that roll of foil tape I was going to use, but I’ll have to get me some spray adhesive and go this route instead.
For copper tape or sheilding paint, instead of a guitar based resource, check electronics distributors. It's always cheaper than guitar based supplier.
I know this is an older video, but I feel I must push back on your explanation for the (lack of) effect on tone. Pickups work by electromagnetic induction; the strings vibrate, producing variance in the magnetic field since the pole pieces are drawn to the string, which by induction creates an electric current in the pickups. This works both ways, though; electric currents also produce magnetic fields, even if the current is flowing through a conductor that isn't magnetic. That's how an electromagnet works, running current through many loops of copper wire, and it can turn off the magnetism because copper isn't a magnet.
The changing magnetic field can (and likely does) create a current in your Faraday cage, which in turn creates an opposing magnetic field. To get an idea of how this could dampen the sound, look up a demonstration of a magnet dropping through a copper or aluminum tube. The induced currents create a magnetic field which opposes the changes in the original field, creating a frictional effect. This is basically the mechanism that the shielding uses to block radio waves, but in principle it would also apply to any applied electromagnetic wave, even from your pickups.
That said, I suspect it doesn't noticeably affect your tone. The shielding is farther from your pickups than the copper wires which carries the hot signal, meaning the field that it "reacts" to is weaker in strength, thus giving a weaker response. The only way to really test this I think would be to perform side-by-side spectral analysis of the same open notes with the noise frequencies known and accounted for.
You are correct about the shielding around the magnetic pickups causing eddy currents. You are also correct that the eddy currents diminish very rapidly with distance from the pickups. This is also why covered pickups use a relatively thick but higher resistance metal, so the tone is less effected by the metal cover.
Great vid. Would have been nice to hear a demo of the difference in hum though.
HalfBredReviews I revised a 1998 squier bass for my high school and it was completely unshielded and it hummed pretty badly, like a regular single coil instrument does. After a good shielding job it is what we call 'fluisterstil' or roughly translated, whisper quiet. Really barely any hum, you'll have to focus on it at loud volumes to hear it.
First of all I'll keep it simple down to two sorry 1 instead of 2 because I hate typing I'm in it and of my computer's too much so you won't see periods or dots or comments even though you just might have cuz I said it . But great video very thorough and fast explaining and dumbfounded dumb down I should say but he knows these things to go into depth and talk about the first radio transmitted signal was a guy whose brother went on the other side of a hill we could get into all kinds of crazy things you don't know that story what did I make you feel dumb come on dude I'm not commenting on on the harshness that's all I got to say. Anyways the common I just read is kind of funny because if you listen to it again and listen to your question it's beyond the concept of any hearing it all but also this gets me thinking even to deeper conversation of real news and fake news what if he's been trained his experience that he's been told this but all of its Ally and that's deep right. But I do take The Good the Bad and the Ugly from every episode and I appreciate your hard work and what to do cool move to the shed that you listen to people there's something else I can't quite put my finger on 00 k. Then lighting design look up and search three point you don't want to go to crazy cuz then it makes you look like you're on the QVC network but three-point lighting and basically gives the third dimension to a 2D image and also it would highly your guitars without going overboard experiment with lighting I am a lighting professional life fantasee lighting and Belleville Michigan and I repair like all of our concert Halls auditoriums anything you could think of college wise in Michigan if one of those things goes bad and ends up on my desk I don't even go to the site they deliver it to me and I make it happen and I get it back to him now even Cornerstone Church I'm working with right now but that's a pretty cool feeling it's like you're helping somebody out that's what you're doing for me and thank you. Because it is been a disaster and a whole nother story we'll talk about one day but I have great freaking photo documentaries of it and I'mma put a slide together and have a professional narrative over it because men you could get off I hope you go on the other things man. Cheers, Mark Anthony Porter of red-eye raccoon started in 2010 and Nashville moved back home to Detroit to reform the band getting ready for knee. Lease. I got a plug to you right! Can't wait to get one of those shirts though oh hey? What about incorporating a city thing where it says Detroit in the smoke but s*** I don't want you to feel like you're copying something but that could get you thinking defensive only person to ever be from Detroit Jack White everyone else lived in the public schools guns are big part of life out there you just got to my house to avoid it. that's why I jakatia I haven't even watch one of yours but I guarantee you it's educated conscious and fairness. Again I'm driving sorry for the misspellings. By the way doing an oil base to get to that green sending the hell out of it then I'm doing in arcrylic stained to really deep in the light part of the wood until then it's going to be a water-based coat instead of the tongue sorry bud. like I said taking The Good The Bad and The Ugly. Again thank you for helping us all skip several several steps you're doing the leg work for us. Koster
HalfBredReviews,,, I just read your comment again it's so funny it's like trying to listen to that close Galaxy fart
, I'm just commenting on my comment so there's not too but that was mean that was meant to be just for laughs have a great week and y'all
That RF explination explains why sometimes during band practice we can hear a spanish radio station playing mariachi music out of my amp xD Good shit tho I love the content!
Ok this works but is a bit of effort. I did this on a MIM HSS Strat just like the video shows. However in the cavity where the guitar output jack goes I found that the foil (ground) could touch the hot (signal) end of the jack when when jack plate is inserted and screwed in. I fixed this by using some electricians tape on the foil side where the jack end could touch and also added a bit of this tape around the jack tip area. I posted this just to let others know what may be the problem when there is no sound when plugged into an amp.
I had the same issue on a boutique Strat shaped object. The tip of the output jack touched the shielding, shorting the output to ground. Same fix was applied, just put some electrical tape on the bottom of the output jack cavity.
Great information,thanks for taking the time to share this.
Hi. Great video. Aluminum tape can be used and it's even simpler maybe. Overlap the strips of tape and as you glue the tape down just fold a little bit of the corner to touch the previous one. It works great. I saw this tip on willseasyguitar. Cheers
Oh great man!!! This is what i need to shut up my humming pickups. Thank you!!!!
I wonder if it would be easier to use foil HVAC tape? I'm not sure if the adhesive on that is conductive or not though.
the HVAC foil adhesive I have is NOT electrically conductive.
In order to get connectivity across layers of HVAC tape, you need to fold over the tape so there's not any insulating adhesive between layers. It's a pain in the butt. Just buy the copper tape with conductive adhesive..
water based low sheen sample pot from hardware store in black/dark grey etc and sum graphite powder, mix it up and test on offcut while mixing, when yr happy with mix paint away, easy as and cheap as chips, a couple of bucks and you have 500mls+ of shielding paint, plenty of info online about this with conductive tests using different mediums and the acrylic low sheen or flat paint with graphite powder worked the best.and the price is just right, cheap as chips n prob already have it around the house as well
Cool tip! I’ll look into this for sure!
It doesn't matter that aluminium is not ferromagnetic. It is a conductor and will produce eddy currents and produce back EMF. A magnetic field in opposition to the applied magnetic field. The windings in the pickups are copper, which are also not ferro magnetic just like the aluminum, but yet they are still effected by the magnetic field from the magnets.
Finally I have my answer, because I did this job with a not conducting foil and it went all wrong. Thanx for this.
Continuity is the word.
I thank you for the best explanation yet!!!!
You can get copper foil with conductive adhesive, it’s not too hard to find on amazon, you just have to check the description to make sure
I have this problem at a local church I play in sometimes. They have fluorescent lights all around, I'll definitely check this out!
Fluorescent lights can be the biggest culprit...
Non ferrous metals do affect magnetic fields, drop a strong magnet down a copper or aluminium tube and the magnet will drop slowly due to the magnet inducing currents in the copper/aluminium which in turn generates an opposing magnetic field. And motors,transformers, generators etc. (even pickups) use copper windings to interact with magnetic fields
I'd say it's possible that the shielding could affect the pickup, but how much some thin copper or aluminium foil could affect it by I don't know, probably not very much.
Excellent tutorial, explanation. Thank you!
Copper tape made with conductive adhesive is available. And it's not expensive. I just shielded my bass with it for $10.
And you probably have enough left over to shield several more guitars.
I still get noise even with a humbucker pickup, at least when high gain is used. So some kind of shielding or EMI absorbtion is probably a good idea. I wish manufacturers would do this from the factory, however.
It should be done in the paint shop with conductive paint, before any wiring or hardware is installed.
Great job 👍🏻👍🏻 but can you mix that kitchen foil with actual copper tape?? Thx
That's super strat was really lovely. I am assuming that you built it, and would love to see a video about it, particularly that beautiful finish.
Going to try this when I put a guitar I am working on back together.
Your Guns and Guitars logo is extremely cool.
Aluminum is More magnetic than wood, just because you try a magnet doesn't mean that's the same as a pickup.
Just like the movement in your magnetic pickup induces an electrical current, the opposite is also true. Aluminum is non-magnetic-- until you give it an alternating electrical current- at which point it becomes an electromagnet.
i was setting here watching this video ,eating rolos mmmmm watched the video , looked down and saw the gold and silver foil and decided to put some over the cover of my springs and found out it gave my guitar a little more sustain! wow like i said on my guitar so thank you
Excellent presentation and tutorial! I'll be doing some shielding on the HSS SuperStrat I am building. I did buy some conductive paint for it, though.
Might use some foil on a Dean Evo I am repairing and customizing. Like your Gun Stuff, too, and am an active target shooter/collector/hunter.
Conductive paint is quicker and easier to apply than foil tape, but paint requires several layers and a long time to dry between layers. There is no way to solder wire to paint, so a wood screw will be needed to hold the ground wire against the paint. A ground wire should be used to connect the cavities together. Sometimes you can depend on the mounting hardware of switches and pots to provide this grounding, but it doesn't hurt to run a dedicated wire from each cavity back to the control cavity. The pick guard or control cavity cover shielding should make contact with the paint/foil shield at as many places as possible for best shielding efficiency. The fewer and smaller the holes in the shielding, the less noise ingress.
Spray adhesive has no electrical continentality. But, there is something that might. Copper Coat gasket adhesive. I haven't tried it. But, it might be advisable.
I throw a static sheet from the dryer inside the control cavity and magic, no static electricity pops and hum.
Watched the video last night and did it this morning. It eliminated about 95% of the “HUM”. Thanks for the video!
I was getting a "slight" hum for ages , My geetar was shielded etc . It was doing my head in even though it was a "very slight" kinda hum, Eventually I sat one day and thought what if I lower the pic ups . Bang!! problem solved with 2 turns of a screwdriver,,, Worth a try guys , jist sayin'.
I've got a small can of Stu Mac shielding paint and I've done many guitars with it and I still have some left. You can get shielding paint cheap from Guitar Fetish, 9 bucks and they give you a brush.
I came here looking for this comment. Why is the foil better?
@@blakejones6648 Copper foil is more conductive and accepts solder. But if you use several layers of conductive paint it works fine as well. You will need wood screws and ground lugs to wire the cavities together, preferably one wire from the control cavity to each cavity that is not connected via the foil/paint.
Actually, non-magnetic materials become magnetic under electromagnetic or oscillating magnetic fields. The vibrating strings produce oscillating magnetic fields and in turn, they can actually magnetize the non-magnetic foil. It can cancel some of the hummings but it can take some of the sustain and brightness of the sound. This gives me an idea. What if we take a normal single-coil pickup and rewind it with non-metallic sleeves covering the poles. I should build a single coil noise-canceling pickup this way.