Whats up guys i need some help from you


I wanna buy a fender highway one upgrade strat but i have some questions about hum


what about the shielding in this particular model ? is it good ?, can it be "upgraded" or improved ? does it worth it ?


i heard this strat has the greasebuckett circuit, wich is special and different from the regular ones, and i took a look on how improve the shielding on a regular strat in some articles on the web


so is it much harder to shield the greasbuckett circuit?



i ask this because i love the sound of single coils pickups, and i'd like to reduce the hum to take the most tone out of them.


thnx for the help !


nice forums btw

Think of the grease bucket as a treble bleed. No harder to shield. You can buy shielding paint or shielding tape from stewmac. The h-1 has shielding paint in the cavity but you still get some 60 cycle hum.

so the highway one has shielding paint just in the cavitiy ? or in the pickguard 2 ?

i just want to minimize the noise comming from the pickups. and i was reading that in order to properly shield a strat you have to put some foil in the cavity/pickguard, and then conect/disconect cables, add some capacitors and your done.

so thats the part that confusses me....... just puting foil in the cavity/pickguard is enough to reduce the hum ?

thnx four your answers..............sorry for my english XD

Mine looks like it has some sort of dark shielding paint. Stewmac sells a copper shielding paint and copper tape. If you use the tape you unscrew the ground screw in the cavity and have to solder across the tape seams. Screw the grounding screw back in through the tape.

Look at this link. http://www.artandtechnology.com.au/guit ... strat.html

oh, but you have a highway one. do you think it needs a better shielding? or its ok to leave everything stock¿?

That is a personal choice. I am not in a band so my playing is just for me. I already had the copper tape laying around so I did shield the guitar one day when I had time. It did reduce the 60 cycle hum. Play it for awhile, see how you feel. Some people do not like the pickups and replace them. One replacement idea is the Dimarzio area pickups. They have no hum. I did not like the bridge pickup and wanted something thicker so I replaced it with a Dimarzio virtual solo. Absolutely no hum in that pickup position. I also replaced pickups in a MIM with Dimarzio area pickups. Once again absolutely no noise.

Highway 1's have shielding paint in the pickup and control cavitiy and it's connected to ground via a metal tab screwed into the cavity. Just look at the wiring diagram Fender has online here. I beleive there is foil only around the control knob area under the pickguard.

It's sufficient stock as is, or you can do the shielding thing if you want. http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php

I haven't bothered with doing extra sheilding because I just turn the volume knob on my Strat and Tele to zero between songs. Too much shielding can rob your tone also.

Understand that sheilding WILL NOT completely remove 60 cycle hum. Shielding reduces the buzz that you hear when take your hands off the strings or other metal grounded parts of the guitar and then when you touch them again the buzz goes away. You know that noise? Yeah, it reduces it. If you do not want 60 cycle hum at all then get humbuckers or noiseless single coils like Fender has in its American Deluxe.

Good luck!

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