Archtop Tailpiece: Best Grounding Spot?

[LMark]

I'm planning to wrap 2 P90s and build a harness following Jason Lollar's SG harness pattern here: https://www.lollarguitars.com/installing-p-90s (see videos 5 and 6). His way makes a lot of sense to me. I'll have a lot longer run from the switch to the jack because I'm wiring an L5 Studio. My question: where ought I to ground the tailpiece? Looking at Jason's layout (no criticism here) it seems that I could cause a gound loop by touching the strings and either pickup if I ground the tail to the jack. So it seems better to ground the tailpiece to the pot in the upper right (with pots showing), which I believe is the bridge vol pot. This way the bridge tone pot remains isolated and if I touch the bridge pup and strings it's a direct and isolated duplicalte path. If I touch the rhythm pup and strings, the path is only slightly longer. Am I thinking about this the right way? Or do i have it backwards? Am I myself a ground or an antenna? If I'm an antenna not a ground, then what's the best way to ground the tail--or does it matter? Mark

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Archtop Tailpiece: Best Grounding Spot?

You are a ground. It doesn't matter where you ground the strings, just so long as all the metal hardware is connected.

People recommend "star grounding" because it's easiest. This is where you send a single wire from every metal element directly to one volume pot, but that's mostly for convenience. "Ground loops" do not exist within the context of guitar circuits.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Archtop Tailpiece: Best Grounding Spot?

Christopher is correct, forget about ground loops...they don't exist here.

Whether you use a "star". "loop", or any other pattern it doesn't matter. Just make sure that everything is grounded, do not leave any pot "isolated".

 

[LMark]

Thanks friends! Mark