Question about shielding

[CarlosG]

Hi!
Some time ago I shielded the potentiometer chamber in my bass.
Then I decided to shield the pickup cavities and under pickup's covers.
This made the bass sound worse. It lost its brilliance, became midrange, and the attack was muddy.
I'm about to assemble my Stratocaster, and I've always shielded the entire pickguard and the entire chamber.

I'm wondering if this time I should shield only the areas where the potentiometers and jacks are located. Maybe that's why the original Stratocaster only has foil on the pickguard where the potentiometers are.
A lot of people have reported poorer sound after shielding their Stratocaster pickups. I suspect it's not the shielding of the potentiometer chamber that's the problem, but rather the shielding around the pickups. I think I once read an article by Kinman or Bill Lawrence that said to keep the shielding away from the pickups.
What is your experience?

 

[uOpt]

Yes. Any conductor inside the magnetic field will induce eddy currents, which dampen the ampliture of the resonance peak of the pickup.

Pickup cavity shielding is also useless. With a single coil you have noise no matter what, and humbuckers don't need shielding because, well, they buck the hum.

It makes sense to shield the cables between the pickups and the electronics cavity,, though. Just keep the shield a centimeter away from the pickups.

 

[ehdwuld]

Most issues I have had with shielding, is the connection to ground

If you don't have some continuity to ground for the pickguard to the cavity
It will become an antenna amplifying noise

 

[CarlosG]

It makes sense to shield the cables between the pickups and the electronics cavity,, though.

But humbuckers has shielded wire. Single coils not, but I can twist wires. I suspect that singles do not use shielded cables due to their capacitance and they could lose their shine.

Just keep the shield a centimeter away from the pickups.

Are you still talking about shielding the potentiometer chamber only, keeping a 1cm distance from the bridge pickup, or do you mean shielding the entire chamber and the entire pickguard, keeping a 1cm distance from the pickups?

 

[CarlosG]

Most issues I have had with shielding, is the connection to ground

If you don't have some continuity to ground for the pickguard to the cavity
It will become an antenna amplifying noise

I like the copper shield, I solder everything together, I don't trust the conductive glue on the copper tape.
I also do not trust the mechanical connection of the housing mass of potentiometers and switches to the shield, I always solder an additional one from the shield to pot.

 

[Chistopher]

I've heard if you don't close the loop, the single coil shielding doesn't effect the sound. Who knows if that's true though.

 

[ehdwuld]

I've heard if you don't close the loop, the single coil shielding doesn't effect the sound. Who knows if that's true though.

This is the antenna thing I was talking about

 

[uOpt]

But humbuckers has shielded wire. Single coils not, but I can twist wires. I suspect that singles do not use shielded cables due to their capacitance and they could lose their shine.


Are you still talking about shielding the potentiometer chamber only, keeping a 1cm distance from the bridge pickup, or do you mean shielding the entire chamber and the entire pickguard, keeping a 1cm distance from the pickups?

What I do in Strats is wrap some aluminium foil around the wires (not not right up to the pickups) and ground that with a blank wire. The capacitance is not sufficient to be audible on that short run.

I shield the electronics cavity. It is usually more than a centimeter away from the bridge pickup anyway.

The pickguards I prefer have aluminium not right up to the pickups.

 

[uOpt]

I've heard if you don't close the loop, the single coil shielding doesn't effect the sound. Who knows if that's true though.

You need to connect all the shields to ground, otherwise you make things worse.

 

[CarlosG]

I've heard if you don't close the loop, the single coil shielding doesn't effect the sound. Who knows if that's true though.

Do you mean wrapping the coil in copper tape with a gap? Yes, I saw this article. It's supposed to prevent eddy currents. However, it adds capacitance and lowers the resonant peak, without having any effect on noise. Grounding the pole pieces doesn't help either.

 

[CarlosG]

What I do in Strats is wrap some aluminium foil around the wires (not not right up to the pickups) and ground that with a blank wire. The capacitance is not sufficient to be audible on that short run.

I shield the electronics cavity. It is usually more than a centimeter away from the bridge pickup anyway.

The pickguards I prefer have aluminium not right up to the pickups.

You could also replace the wires with shielded ones, but not everyone wants to influence the originality. I think tightly twisting the wires would be sufficient. You could also remove the shield from the vintage one wire cable and slide it over the single coil's wires.

 

[bluesky636]

I shielded the entire pickup and control cavities of my 1950s Classic Nitro Stratocaster with black conductive paint and use a gold anodized aluminum pickguard with copper tape bridging the pickguard to the control pickup cavity. My pickups are Duncan SSL-1s in all three positions. The guitar is dead quiet with no loss of high frequencies.