Guitar Tech: Noise Reduction

Hi all...

Anyone out there who has experience installing pickups, I'm seeking a little help trying to quiet down my Strat a bit. It's never been overly noisy, as Strats go, but I'm dropping in some new pickups and figured this was a good time to take a shot at what noise it does put out.

I have read that aluminum tape, covering all of the inside surface, will help shield/ground the whole system. What I read was a little unclear, however, and I am stuck trying to find out if I should either re-solder the existing ground or add another which contacts the tape and one of the pots.

If anyone has experience, or otherwise knows, I'd really appreciate any tips. Thanks.

http://www.emray-enterprises.com/mray/images/strat.gif

 

You can just add another one or resolder the existing and add another one. You just want to make sure that all your grounds connect in some way. I have never used aluminum tape but have had good results with copper sheilding tape. If you used multiple peices in the same cavity, make sure you solder them together as well, so all peices act as one peice. Be careful though, the tape can't take a lot of heat and will melt rather easily.

You can also try lining the inside of the pickup covers if your pickups have them, but only if they are plastic, don't do it on metal covers(humbuckers). Humbuckers have metal frames and the nickel covers are usually soldered to the frame to make a good ground.

Other things, use good sheilded wires in your cavity. I noticed you have a hb s hb pickup configuration. You really shouldn't have to much noise with that circuit, depending on the humbuckers you put in. Some pickups have slightly mismatched coils to give you that bite or distortion that sounds so good. Only downside is, the more they are different the more hum they pick up.

I could go on about this for days. I have been winding custom pickups for clients for 4 years now, and have seen just about everything you can think of lol. If you have more questions or get stuck along the way, give me a shout. I'll be glad to help you along if I can.

 

Wow, Bluesman, thanks a ton! I had a feeling you would know a little something about this.

/bonk me... I think I'm going to have to strip all this tape out... the only way to cover the little corners fully is to use many pieces of tape. I didn't fully consider the ramifications until you mentioned it... but, in reality, each piece of tape will need to make a connection to the other if I am grounding to the tape, right? And the connections between all the pieces of tape is far from solid. Do you think I can leave the tape in there, whether or not I ground to it? Can it possibly make the noise worse?

The body is cut out for hb s hb, but it was built with s s s, standard strats. I'm going to be experimenting with a couple configs, but only using one, bridge hb.

I'll by some new, shielded wire and replace all of it... dunno what the quality of the stock wire is, but it isn't really very noisy with the current setup.

Thanks again, B. I'll try to look up everything I can, rather than posting every question here. hehe... Hard to resist such a great source of info, tho.

 

The tape wont hurt bro. Leave it in and see if it makes a difference. You may want to also tape the backside(underside) of your pickguard as well. Any question you have, post it. If I don't know the answer I'll ask around and find out. I am always up for learning something new

 

thanks again, B... I'll let you know how it goes...
OH, any tips on where to find the shielded wire?

 

www.stewmac.com
www.mouser.com

radio shack, local surplus store, walmart, home depot and lowes sell it in bulk probably.