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Post subject: shielding
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 7:52 pm
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What are some opionions on shielding a guitar? Is it worth the trouble? I've never shielded, or owned a shieled guitar...I kinda dig the 60 cycle hum...kinda part of the vintage vibe. But I have heard some guitars that are way too noisy. I've also heard that shielding will take a little bit of tone away from your pickups...anyone else heard this? I just wanted to get some thoughts on the subject.

thanks,

MJ


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Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:45 pm
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This thread might give you some info :

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/ ... =shielding

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Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:07 am
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Some people have reported noticeable reductions in noise after a shielding job. I tried it and it did nothing and I've spoken with other people and they concurred.

Single coils will hum. That's the nature of the beast.


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Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 4:43 pm
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The chief collector for inducing hum into a guitar's circuit is the single coil pickup itself. This is the only thing that doesn't get shielded when people decide to embark on such folly.

Even if the single coil pickup itself was in fact, shielded, this will introduce Eddy Currents into the pickup which will alter its sound and usually weaken its output.

Sure, the circuit MAY get quieter from shielding but that's because the shielding has elevated capacitance and oftentimes, resistance too. So, along with the 'quieter' comes a reduction in volume and a dulling of the frequency response of the pickup(s) as well.

And then of course, there's the Placebo Effect which has I'm sure, convinced millions and will convince millions more to come that I'm talking out my you know what.

As previously stated so many times, single coil pickups hum. Yes, guitar enthusiasts, that's what they do; it's true! Any attempt to stifle what is inherent in a single coil is counter intuitive or to put it another way, a complete waste of time and money. This is unless of course, one desires the results I've stated in my third paragraph above.

YMMV.

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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:04 pm
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I am just learning about guitars and amplifiers, but I have saw in my experience that fender amps have a brass plate in the chassis behind the controls and input jacks so they are all on one ground plane and for sheilding. I also have watched the video of where the Fender Custom shop guys disect Eric Clapton's "Blackie", guitar and there is a big portion of the back side of the pickguard covered with a piece of copper sheet metal, for sheilding. Not the pickup or electronics cavities but the back of the pickguard is sheilded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d0Du6RqdTs
I figure if it's good enough for "Slowhand" it must be pretty good. Just my 2 coppers.


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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 1:55 am
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I do shielding on many guitars and it does the job; no noise on single coil.
But you have to do the shielding right, it's easy but you have to know the right way.

You forget something and too bad, you hear a noise.
357mag write that he ear the noise after shielding. IMO this could be a bad shielding job.
But if you want to use lot of high gain effects at the input of your amp, shielding could be not enough to remove the noise.


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Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 8:39 am
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Simpleman69 wrote:
I have saw in my experience that fender amps have a brass plate in the chassis behind the controls and input jacks so they are all on one ground plane and for sheilding.


The brass plate provides a common ground bus for the amp's controls to prevent ground loops within the chassis. Shielding has nothing to do with its purpose.

Vintage Fender amps used steel screen stapled to the underside of the cabinet top to help reject RF interference from nearby radio stations. Later the screen was replaced with thin aluminum sheet similar in thickness to a pickguard shield.

Arjay

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Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 5:31 am
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My personal opinion is that if you are going to be using the guitar for recording it is definetly worth shielding it as much as possible. The single coils do get hum and shielding is just one of many ways to try and reduce that. In a live scenario the hum isn't as noticable but in a studio it can be horrible.

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Post subject: shielding
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2010 5:45 am
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I agree that shielding is worth it, done right. I have done shielding on all of my high end guitars and there's no single coild noise. Nice! Make sure you have good amps .. Hope this helps.


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Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2010 9:17 am
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I used to shield my guitars, but not anymore. In fact, I have since removed the shielding jobs I did in all of them. I did find that it dulled the sounds of them as Martian pointed out. Sure, I find that they hum in certain places, but not in all places. Our band plays anywhere from 10-15 shows a month. In about 80% of the venues we play, hum is not an issue. In fact the guitars are pretty quiet just from the wax potting done to them. In other venues, the electrical seems to be the biggest culprit of loud hum, and the shielding did nothing to curb it. In cases where bad electrical is encountered, I'll either switch to a Humbucker equipped guitar, or use a Boss NR with the single coil guitar.

For the most part, I came to my own personal conclusion that I'd wasted time and money in shielding my guitars.

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