Shielding pickup cavity.

[CarlosG]

Hi!
I've been shielding my guitars for years and never gave it a second thought, just every cavity.
However, recently when I shielded my bass I noticed how much the sound had become duller.
Today, for fun, I tried a stainless steel pickguard (non-ferromagnetic grade) and I can also hear that the sound is more dull and with less signal.
Humbuckers have grounded bases and shielded wires (single-coil pickups are a different story). Wouldn't it make sense to shield only the area where the electronics are located (pots, switch, jack)? Perhaps that's why the standard Strat has a shield only where the potentiometers and switches are located?
Theoretically, there shouldn't be any audible difference in sound(maybe minimal), but shielding near the pickups it seems like a bad idea. I'm not sure if Bill Lawrence or Kinman wrote about this at some point, specifically about not shielding too close to the pickups.

 

[idsnowdog]

Shielding filters out RFI, but it also adds inductance, which can affect tone. I believe better clarity, less noise, and better signal to noise ratio at high volumes outweighs any perceived dulling.

 

[uOpt]

Any conductor inside the magnetic field of the pickup will dampen the amplitude of the resonance peak. Doing so is also useless (no noise reduction) if the pickup is a humbucker with a shielded wire anyway.

On a Fender style guitar with true single coils you might hear a noise reduction, but these pickups are also most sensitive to resonance peak reduction. A compromise is to use shielded wire with Fender-style pickups but no cavity shielding under the pickups.

 

[ehdwuld]

All stainless is not the same

Some react to magnetic fields and inductance

I want to say 702 is the food grade non ferrous
And the 716 is the construction grade ferrous type

I may have those numbers wrong
I am old btw