Thank you!!!!

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Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

I'm just going to toss my $.02 worth in here if for no other reason, I'm snowed in by this lovely Ohio weather at the moment and don't have much else to do! LOL!!!

On the foil vs. paint debate, I will admit that I've never tried the paint but the reason for that is that in my mind the density of any shielding material in a paint is never going to be equal to that of even a thin layer of foil. While I could most certainly be wrong here, it seems to me that in order to make a metal sprayable/paintable, that those metal particles would have to be very very small and that you'd have to apply a lot of paint to get the same amount of "metal" there for the shielding compared with a thin piece of foil.

Also as other's have mentioned, foil doesn't require having to "paint" anything to begin with which is a permanent alteration (which in and of itself isn't really a big deal in my mind) where as foil can be easily removed if you choose to do so later. That said, I'm a foil man myself and I have shielded all of my Strats, single coil or otherwise.

Now in regards to the "should I or shouldn't I" debate, despite some claims to the opposite, shielding -can- make a very big difference in certain situations. In my own situation for example I record (and/or practice) with a home build, PC based DAW and more importantly, I have a traditional 17" Dell monitor (CRT...not LCD). The "noise" that an unshielded Strats pups get from that monitor can be unreal! In a situation such as this even a piece of aluminum foil glued under the pick guard can make a -HUGE- difference! Will it completely cancel the hum of a single coil? No...of course not. A single coil pickup "is what it is" and that's part of why it sounds the way it does (much like the inefficiency of a tube amp). But shielding -does- make a difference and particularly in regards to recording, it makes the noise -much- easier to clean up in post production. I would add the same is true of fluorescent lighting as well. With a great many places using fluorescent of some type (including bars where one may be playing a gig and/or many studios) again for the simple cost and effort of shielding, it makes a big difference.

BTW, for those concerned, no...Hendrix probably didn't complain too much about his single coils, but back then he probably wasn't working with computer based recording either! LOL!!! Also, there weren't a lot of noise canceling Strat pickups in Hendrix's day...certainly nothing like we have now so it's way to subjective of a comparison to say what Hendix would or would not have complained about and/or used...had he of lived, he could very well have put Duncans or something in all of his Strats later.

Anyways, my vote goes for foil...as others have said, it's easy to obtain, easy to work with and in my opinion under the right circumstances, it can make a very big difference.

Peace,
Jim

wow...lots of strong feelings on the topic!

When i made my strat, i shielded it with copper tape from stewmac...it barely makes any noise at all...whether by my shielding or strange coincidence, i know not...

It has vintage style pickups and an anodized aluminum pickguard

As for the reverse wound/reverse polarity pickups, I don't like those at all. My favorite positions on a strat are the 2 and the 4, with good vintage pickups, not rw/rp!

Ummm...isn't the middle pickup on a Strat usually reverse wound to begin with? Isn't that part of what makes those 2 and 4 positions sound the way the do is how that middle pickup interacts with the others?

I'm not trying to be rude but am I missing something here?

L8r,
JIm

i painted the cavity of my guitar with the magnetic paint from Home Depot. it has metal in it. i then shielded my guitar with copper flashing roling the edge so i had continuity over to the pick guard. it originally was backed with tar paper and i used mineral spirits to remove that crap. very messy! the flashing is very thick, much thicker than tin foil or the self adhesive copper tape. the thicker the medium the more RF rejection. it was much more difficult due to its thicknes also. i used aluminum HVAC tape to seal all the joints and even used a copper tube for the pass through to the output jack. soldered a wire from the shielded output jack to the rest of the cavity. over kill? maybe. is my guitar quiet? EXTREAMLY! anything you do to your guitar has an effect. with better shielding it will be more difficult using the environment like your amps to generate feedback and other EMI interactions while playing. I suck at playing, so at my level, i dont need anything screwing up my sound any more than my playing!

I don't know about the whole range of strats but my CP 60 definitely did not come with a reverse polarity middle pickup.

I'm curious, what do you not like about reversing the middle pickup? My ears didn't deteect any difference in tone...but that could be an age thing.

If I am going to go the foil shield route, do I have to get the adhesive backed copper foil, which is a little pricey, or can I use Reynolds heavy duty aluminum foil and some adhesive spray? Will it do the same job??

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A bunch of guitars, a few amps, some pedals and some other stuff that makes noise.

well, copper is considered to have better shielding properties. thats what was and is used in highend audio amps and components. if your willing to use tin foil but dont want to spend the money on copper tape just use the foil tape from the HVAC section at lowes or home depot. double up if you want it thicker.

Hmm...perhaps i'm the one missing something...before i got the matching middle pickup I had a 69 reissue bridge and neck and a mexican standard middle...would this cause a strange, thin, not-normal sounding...sound? From what I've read, the sound was similar to phase-switched pickups...?

I haven't really read anything on the subject. My view is based on playing guitars that have had the mod done. I can hear no difference in tone. Just much less hum in positions 2 and 4. Positions 1 and 5 still hum, of course.

By the way, I have not modified my CP 60 (yet). Like others here, I usually don't mind the hum. Its just part of owning a strat.

But if hum did become a problem, I would try the reverse polarity mod before messing with any shielding based solution. It is always best to solve the root cause of a problem rather than implement work arounds. IMHO

I know lots of people like the shielding approach and I certainly don't fault them for that. Its your guitar and you need to be happy with the end result, not me.

By the way, how did you end up with 2 69 RI and one standard pickup? I thought they sold the 69 RIs in a set of 3.

Oh, right...not those 69 RIs...i got them on ebay...they're from a japan-only strat. They do sound relatively comparable. The custom shop 69's would have doubled the cost of my project...I don't even have a job

I think people are confusing things here.

The single coil PUP will always hum. We are not talking about 60 cycle hum but the-hum-that goes-away-when-I touch-the-strings-or-other-metal-parts.

I have a American Standard Stratocaster that is deadly quiet. It has the single coil traditional hum and no hum at all at position 2 or 4. It makes absolutely no difference whether I touch or not the strings, etc.

ITOH, I have a 72 Telecaster Custom. With my hands touch the strings the HB position is deadly quiet, in the middle position HB+ SC a little less and the single coil alone hums as expected. However if I remove my hands from the guitar metal parts it Buzzes much more including the HB itself. The more gain the more buzz I get.

I am searching the whole web wanting to know if this is a common feature of these guitars and I'll have to live with it. IMHO it has not to do with the pups (I don't want to get rif of the 60 cycle hum...Just the buzz when the metal parts are not touched). I tested the connectivity between the bridge and the output ground and it seems OK. Any advice or similar problems?

Will shielding help? The shielding is not placed in the signal path so I didn't undestand why it would reduce the output signal. The shielding is connected to ground in order to do a kind of faraday's cage, thus avoiding interferences.

Thanks in advance.

Based on my experience, completely shielding the body cavity only helps if the shielding paint already there offers any resistance. You can check this by exposing a small area away from the cavity ground screw and check for resistance. If you get any, this will interfere with the ground and you should shield the whole cavity as well as your pickguard. If no resistance is found, use the widest copper tape you can find for the back of your pickguard and make sure to overlap about 1/4". Check for resistance from one side to the other. If there is any or the adhesive is non conductive, you will need to solder at a couple of points on each seam. Then put a 3/4" strip under the cavity ground screw to the top of the body over the pickguaud screw below the bridge. Make sure the tape isn't visible with the pickguard in place. This will ground your pickguard to the body and should reduce the hum.

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2004 American Deluxe V-Neck Strat w/Kinman Blues
2007 American Deluxe Tele w/Kinman Broadcasters
Mesa Boogie Lonestar Classic 2X12
Fender Cyber-Twin SE

I agree on the HS-3 being dead quiet. Nice tone too!!!

I take a different approach- a simple noise gate. On stage, I only want to make my life less annoying with the buzz between songs. Enter noise gate. While playing, what's the problem? Works well in the studio too, although I'm starting to use and love....let me duck here...the variax for recording. Now there's dead quite! And before all this- on stage I simply trained myself to turn my axe all the way down, perfectly timmed, at the end of a song. It was as much a part of my playing as the actual playing!

Dan