How To Shield Your Guitar - Myths Busted

In this video we talk about how to shield your guitar and bust some myths about faraday cages
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How To Shield Your Guitar - Myths Busted
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[@timesurfingalien]

I built tv and cell towers. Ive had lots of engineers explain this. You have done the best job of explaining.

[@scobi9887]

I'm sure its been said before, but I wanna say it again; who bothers to click through to this video and then give it a thumbs down. Were they displeased with you simple and effective message, or are they people who say "no" before the question is asked. I am totally befuddled about these folks, and have made a mental note not to go out of my way to meet them anytime this century or next. They need to take a long hard look at themselves.

[@brandondaigle2496]

Great explanation, very informative. Subscribed

[@charlesb7831]

I did my 89 Kramer Nightswan a few years after I bought it. I use copper foil and I did solder the joints between each strip. Now my volume pot is a push/pull as it's my pick up selector switch, I have a Seymour Duncan JB pickup in the neck (passive) and a Seymour Duncan heavy metal live wire (active) in the bridge. The guitar is completely silent with the volume cranked until I hit the strings and it's full sound. I wish all my guitars were like this. It's a guitar with pass and active and works wonderful. Anyone who knows those pick ups, knows how hot and loud the Heavy metal live wire is, 18volt , lots of jam lol. Probably the most versatile guitar I have, the JB has a coil tap, so the guitar goes mild to wild. Each pickup cavity has copper tape and the control cavity with a wire soldered to each joining them. Lots of work, but well worth it for me. Also did my Epiphone Zakk Wylde model and changed the 9volt setup to 18 volt on it and works just as well.

[@Gilgamesh_One]

You're the best Dylan. You've saved me quite a bit of money by just being as straightforward and honest as you are. I seriously appreciate what you do man. Thanks. Rock on man

[@brocluno01]

You asked - I use conductive paint in cavities, always have. I use foil on pickguards. Nice review : -)

[@jonallen5280]

Love these kinds of videos when you do them! Realistic technical information with practical application was what drew me to your channel in the first place.

[@claudiajay8291]

Hi Dylan, I use the conductive copper tape too. I tried the paint but it takes two coats and takes too long to dry . Guitars still hum but not as bad . It would be cool if pickups had covers that were emi resistant

[@tonymccormick21]

thanks for this. One bit I am not clear on....do I have to connect the earth of the jack to the copper shielding tape?

[@SergeiVlassov]

control cavity plate is made from metal and grounded pots are in direct contact with it, so that small strip will connect shielding to the plate that is already connected to the ground to the jack (in case of proper wiring of coarse). So no, separate additional connection is not needed.

[@Leo9ine]

Hey Dylan! Big fan. Couple very important practical things. This isn't academic or pedantic, this is all practical - You can't solve a *magnetic* field (guitar noise) problem by treating it like an electrical field (radio antenna) problem. Using the "pickups are radio antennas" analogy is great, until you try to solve problems like noise. Pickups are not RF antennas. And yes, this difference matters! A 60hz EMI or RF wave is not 18 feet. A 60hz SOUND wave is 18 feet. A 60hz electromagnetic wave is 16,400,000 feet because it's *moving at the speed of light, not the speed of sound.* For your guitar to be a even a quarter wave antenna, the wiring would have to be about *790 miles long.* Further, all of the discussion of a guitar acting as an antenna is assuming it's in the "far field", as radio antennas are. Far field doesn't start until about 2x the wavelength. For 60hz, far field is about 6,000 miles away from the source of the noise. Meaning - *You'd have to be 6,000 miles away from the source of 60hz hum for RF shielding like copper tape to work.* These insane distances mean guitars are strictly in the "near field", which behave incredibly different from far field objects like radio antennas. RF shielding does not work on a problem that is not in the RF far field range. TLDR: Your guitar is not an antenna. You need to shield against magnetic fields, not electrical fields, which are very different, unless your pickup happens to be 6,000 miles long. Thanks for reading, if anyone did.

[@ajb625]

I read it! And now my head hurts, and I'm further confused at to what do with my guitar! Maybe I'll just learn the harpsichord.

[@danedearmond4905]

@@ajb625 - Get an acoustic. ;-)

[@aarontkacheve4595]

So how do you shield against magnetic fields then?

[@ant1sokolow]

I was about to do the same kind of comment about the wavelength. Also there is a mention of 'skin effect', and i don't really see the point when talking about guitar shielding. In any case , in the audio spectrum and for an object the size of a guitar the Skin Effect is absolutly negligible. To me the 'shielding' in guitar is a way to establish a good ground. Not more than that. Jazz Boxes and ES-33x guitars are not shielded and not more noise prone than solidbodies..

[@roardog6451]

73

[@choimdachoim9491]

I had to carve out my guitar to fit my new selector switch in and was worried about having cut through the metallic paint. I ain't worried a'tall now.

[@nedstar7378]

You explain it correctly, I did also shield my guitar the same way and that's the right way.

[@jonhidharma7543]

thank you!...I'll give it a try.

[@Charles75N]

Thx Dylan. I came back for the parts I missed.

[@hydorah]

Question for you mate, I had to get my guitar a bit more resistant to feedback in a hurry and couldn't find any copper tape. I found Aluminium. Laid a couple of bits on top of one another, got continuity, so I used that. It has worked, but would copper be loads better? Should I redo it? Or should I just leave it aluminium? By the way I did my control cavity! Nothing is shorted and the guitar sounds so much clearer with its super low noise floor

[@MOZOGuitars]

Learned a ton from this video. Thank you!!!

[@isyscarola5928]

This is such a great video, but what would you do for a guitar with no pickguard? Thanks for posting this video, I’m going to try this on my Strat.

[@svgs650r]

So the wood in the body of the instrument provides sufficient shielding to the back and sides of the pick-up cavity?

[@Jinnuksuk]

Wood is invisible to signals in the air. If wood did shield signals you couldn't use radio in the house. It has NO conductive matter.

[@JohnLee-mq4hk]

That makes a lot of sense.

[@GabrielSkolderblad]

hm my ibanez S621 did come with a backplate covering all the electronic that has some kind of aluminum foil on the inside but i cant see that its connected to ground. So this will not do anything?

[@davidp5152]

Beware of the copper tape, I used some and had electrical continuity at the time of installation because I went for the type with conductive adhesive. 3 or 4 years later I worked on the guitar again and had lost all continuity in all areas as the adhesive was no longer conductive. I ended up having to add small bits of solder between the sheets, even in the pickguard. One of the reasons I will probably look at moving to the shielding paint instead.

[@VulgarUltra]

Or just paint over the seams of the old tape with the paint, and save some time.

[@Santaheckler]

100% correct on the control cavity (Tele)…leave it alone.

[@SergeiVlassov]

where I live there is some source of rather high frequency hiss that is greatly reduced if I shield a control cavity of the tele. Tested on a two tele guitars. But only at my place. In other places there were no difference between shielded and unshielded configurations. SO, it is greatly dependent on conditions.

[@lanb16]

What if it is a guitar with no pickguard? Do you recommend shielding the pickup cavities?

[@Charlie-hp2oh]

I have the same burning question

[@swisstraeng]

You can, it's better than nothing. A partial shield is always better than none.

[@Charlie-hp2oh]

why not use a noisegate ? once you start adding effectpedals you ll need that anyway

[@Jinnuksuk]

He's said it several times... If you do require shielding on a guitar with no pick guard, you can try to apply shielding in as much cavities as you can. Just avoid the input jack to prevent shorting the circuit.

[@-Dominique]

Great

[@stevebrown1104]

Genius!!!! Damn bro thank you for all the useful info. Greatly appreciated!!

[@RuXTaR]

What about pickup cavities? I'm shielding my guitars, some don't have a pickguard.. should I bother shielding the cavities?

[@JohnShalamskas]

If the wires leading from the pickups are shielded cables, then shielding those again is overkill.

[@iagobroxado]

Dylan, is it necessary to shield the whole back of the pickguard? I use copper tape only around the area surrounding the neck pickup hole on a Tele. Then, I make a little strip to connect that to a ground spot on the guitar (as you show on 15:30)

[@Brennyv219]

What about the bridge pickup? Don’t you need to shield that as well?

[@briankientz2926]

I have thought about putting copper between the top and veneer before (I think there are glues that would serve well for this), any thoughts? I use copper foil from Amazon as well...

[@michaelmattson3515]

Ay great channel. I had our attic updated with 18” of insulation & heat reflecting foil and I’m getting more noise from my gear. Any ideas?

[@Aethalops]

+1 for math.

[@johnmarion7272]

How can I remove my electronics safely?

[@paristhalheimer]

Q: I once shielded my 76 Strat and it seemed to alter my tone. It appeared to "compressed" to the sound to my ears. Was this my imagination? And what am I hearing?

[@scobi9887]

I have read multiple sources on this topic, and the answer seems to be yes and no, depending on whose view you want to believe!

[@gregsmyk542]

Thank you for the clarification! I have a roll of copper tape with conductive adhesive to put in the pickup cavities, and pick guard. Staying out of the control area is really great news! Eliminating possible shorting issues, with low to no benefit, will save a little sanity! ...I just have to remember, “Stay grounded!”

[@grievouserror]

Once upon a time, I was awarded a degree in electrical engineering from an accredited university, so I've met the kind of people you're talking about, Dylan). For the record, I thought you did a great job of explaining the general ideas without dragging non-technical types into the weeds. For practical purposes and simplicity's sake we often neglect those higher-order effects, meaning that engineers usually deal with approximations of varying precision. Enough to get the desired results while still making the math possible. Looked to me like you walked that line very well with this video.

[@smccheese]

Thank you! I did a Strat copper shielding project this weekend - including the output jack bc the other youtube examples did NOT mention to avoid jack cavity shielding. Shielding made a huge difference, but I started having some popping sounds when moving around. So I swapped the jack for a new one. Then I had NO sound after screwing jack into cavity w cover, but it did work w/o cover. Noticed that jack plug was just touching shielding, and had watched this vid, so I removed. Problem solved. And the guitar is still quiet w all of the other copper foil treatment and groundings.

[@ilemraz]

did you shield the portion with the tone knobs etc

[@mghumphrey]

I'm an electrical engineer, and someone that earlier in my career did a bunch of RF stuff. And I just wanted to say that you did a great job of presenting the important information in a way that is simple enough for everyone to follow.

[@michaelhutchinson3901]

To all the Propeller heads that try to correct Dylan’s “science” He is teaching concepts/ practical applications for laymen guitarists. Not mathematics or physics. Lay off... Most guitarists... even legendary ones ... Don’t know shit about guitars... and they will tell you. They just pick it up and if it sounds great they love it... If it doesn’t they leave it. Us hobbyists love tinkering though, and need practical applications to improve what we are doing and BASIC concepts that we can apply to our next guitar or project. For instance... I’m betting that trying to shield the output jack cavity is a bad Idea on any guitar not just a tele... If your solder joint for the signal wire or a bare part of your signal grounds on that shielding..... Welcome to Zero output. Keep putting it out the way you do Dylan... We get it.

[@BobaFettBountyHunter]

It's an output jack, not an "input jack".

[@jennjennjenn61992]

@@BobaFettBountyHunter it works both ways

[@BobaFettBountyHunter]

@@jennjennjenn61992 No.

[@djolemadzarevic]

@@jennjennjenn61992 What signal do you send to guitar to make that jack "input"?

[@martgryfny]

Hey Dylan! Great vieo! You said that shielding controll cavity would not change much. I have old Framus guitar, with Bill Lawrence LTS pickups. I decided to change wires in cavity, which were old and degraded. I didn't want to mess with shielded pickup wires which were fine. Cavity wires were also of shielded type. I changed them to regular wires and instantly i got massive noise. Then i shielded that cavity with tin foil and averything was back to normal.

[@spidermancereal]

Ive experienced similar. I reshielded my guitar from stock and it is much much quieter. It is especially noticeable when using high gain. Its a day and night difference. It was unbearably noisy before.

[@kudzuvine1]

Just found this guy .. Love the videos.. Practical science without getting lost in the theory.. Thank you sir !

[@SirVicc]

Put an aluminum pickguard plate under my AmStd Strat pickguard. Looks cool, really made a huge difference in noise, and did effect the tone a bit. Positively in my opinion.

[@jasonhuber4089]

I have used aluminum foil tape for HVAC use on a budget build for my seven year old. It had real shotty single coils and when you combine a 7 year old with little skills and a loud hum along with a cranked combo amp... It can be hard to keep your sanity.. Lol All I had on hand was my HVAC tape.. It worked pretty good..!

[@ShawnCothran]

I am always thankful for your logical approach to guitars. Thanks for the download of good solid info. I'll use these shielding (or not shielding) principles in my builds and mods going forward, for sure!

[@BBGuitars]

Filling cavities with shielding makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside regardless of noise or not...

[@kickinrocks6055]

If you like the fuzz, it's OK.

[@Randy-ul5hy]

I am a guitar player that has been completing my own hardware modifications for years. Changing tuners, relicing/aging, set-ups, etc.. but I have always been intimidated with the electronics part and therefore have avoided. After watching this, and a few of your other vids, my confidence has definitely grown. I recently completed a pick up swap on my Gibson Explorer which is something that I never would have attempted a year ago. I have always wondered about shielding, and whether there were any actual benefits in completing it. This video has explained it so well that I am now going to attempt a shielding project on my Classic Vibe Tele. That grounding part is gold. I wonder how many out there have been shielding but not grounding. Thank you so much for this...and all your other videos!

[@flyingbeaver57]

For my sins, I spent 2-1/2 years working on building cryogenic-soaked receivers for radio telescopes. The "cage" was about 10' x 10' x 7'. The contact setup around the door was really interesting and really complicated. As you say, people REALLY don't need to go there. I'm all in favour of proper shielding, but that's a whole other thing, and much easier. Glad to see this explained in straightforward layman's language. Thanks, Dylan.

[@garymcmurdie6058]

ahhh, I wish I had watched this four guitars ago...would have saved a crap load of copper!

[@fen3184]

You need copper at least 10mm thick... Looks at guitar... Looks at copper... Hmm... Well, that's the neck dive sorted...! 🤣

[@timwilson032]

It’s very refreshing to hear people that are super knowledgeable explain things in an understandable way without being pretentious. Thank you for this!

[@ColocasiaCorm]

Why if theres only minimal flux through the pickup itself does shielding around it so wide make any differemce

[@JonsterMonster]

I have DIY project without a pickguard. HSH-Configuration. 3 pupcavities + controls backside. How am i gonna shield n ground successfully the neck-H through middle-S & bridge-H with also controls cavity? The wireholes thru Hum-S-Hum are already ridiculously little and no way i can extend the copperline thru first neck pup to controls cavity.

[@svgs650r]

I don’t bother shielding my guitars I play in portable 8’ x 8’ x 8’ copper screen Faraday cage

[@michaelinglis8516]

I use aluminium foil tape but when I overlap the tape pieces i fold over the next piece so aluminium is touching aluminium. If your adhesive is conductive that isnt nessesary but if it isnt that will work for sure.

[@swisstraeng]

true but the aluminum touching aluminum part isn't held by glue, so, maybe it could no longer contact after a while?

[@michaelinglis8516]

@@swisstraeng If you only fold over a small piece and run it the length off the strip it wont come up but I typically put another piece over the folded seam for aesthetics anyways lol. I building a telecaster now and I made my own conductive paint. Tested it out and it conducts perfectly. It's just graphite and black gloss acrylic paint. Foils will easily show continuity(very very low to no resistance). But what most people fail to realize with conductive paint is that just cause your not getting solid continuity diesnt mean it's not conductive and working as a sheild. A better test for conductive paint is an ohm reading or if you dont have a meter use a 9v battery and an LED. If having solid continuity is important to the builder/modder then mixing on more graphite and adding more coats will get you there.

[@danielcharles485]

I was going to say the same thing. I found some aluminum tape in my parents' attic and used it for shielding years ago. Testing it with a meter showed an open circuit so I just folded down a corner to make contact. Since then I've upgraded my pickups and the wiring is shielded so it's probably not even necessary anymore.

[@catboyzee]

Question: Are you grounding the control plate also, or just the electronics attached to the control plate? Please clarify, trying to understand. Thanks.

[@1rgam3r]

Had to have a custom pickguard made (a surprisingly difficult venture) and they offered a copper foil option so I figured why not. One single piece of copper on the back of a Strat-ish pick guard. Thanks for the vid. Satisfyingly geeky. 😊

[@danielbarbieri8199]

I have already shielded several guitars with copper foil (single coil pickups), in the best possible way, and star-grounded everything possible. I noticed a clear improvement. However, I have the impression that certain very high treble frequencies are a little lost. I'm not 100% sure because I didn't record the sound before/after to compare. It's just an impression, perhaps due to the fact that there was no more buzz...? What is certain is that it is very appreciable to have less buzz when you use gain pedals or play loudly. The buzz is not 100% eliminated with the gain pedals, but in clear sound yes.

[@elwhastrummer]

Also, making the face of the top of the guitar arched would act opposite from a dish, radiating the RF away from a central point, and to ground. That's why physical shields are shaped that way, to direct the attack away from the center. I'm digressing, but curious about how the difference between RF striking a fluid concave meniscus vs a convex meniscus and how to control the nature..and how that could be used to accept or reject certain signals and or noise.

[@danedearmond4905]

I copper-shielded my Fender strat and it helped to a noticeable degree. I did the same with my Franken-Squier (with new Fender pickups) and while it helped, it was much less noticeable. But with the Fender it was absolutely worth the 30 min. and $4 of copper-tape. If you have the materials, I don't see why NOT to do it. It may help, it may not, but so long as you don't short something out it surely can't hurt...

[@divebomb99]

Excellent, excellent, excellent. Does the back of the metal control plate (mounting plate for the pots and switch) need to have shielding tape applied to the back of it as well? Or will the metal itself shield once it comes into contact with a strip of the copper tape?

[@Gloomshimmer]

i shielded a very noisy harley benton ja60 with p90s. all copper tape. Pickguard. Cavities. Result. Its quieter, but the P90s (which you cant swap easily because of weird screws) are still noisy. But the overall noise is gone and its less prone to radiation noise. changed also two pots to 500k, maybe some of the noise is gone with that. HB skips the whole shielding because the guitar comes for under 200 bucks. But with p90s......not the best decision. Otherwise i only shield with weird noises. My old ibanez grg crackles when you touch the screws of the pickup selector. A bit of shielding and that was gone.

[@jakopet]

Hi Dylan. I enjoy your videos, so thank you for making them. I thought i would chip in with my experience here, specifically shielding of the electronics compartment. Not to disproof you at all, because i think that you are correct in what you are saying, just to share my personal experience. I have this Tokai strat that i really love playing, but i found myself using other guitars more because the buzz/hum from the guitar annoyed me. I have a godin session, which i had installed Mojotone quiet coil pickups in, and the thing was dead quiet. So i thought i would put the quiet coils in my Tokai and all would be good. So i swapped the pickups and to my surprise the Tokai was still quite noisy when i did not touch the strings. The only thing that was different on the two guitars was the shielding. The Tokai was shielded in the pickup routing and on the pickguard. Because i ran out of cobber tape, the electronics compartment did not get shielded. The Godin Session was shielded all over also in the electronics compartment. I thought to myself i had to try shielding the electronics compartment of the Tokai to see if this would change anything, and sure enough it made the Tokai i dead quiet aswell. I do agree with you that shielding the electronics compartment can lead to some issues, but if you look at the components and your space in the compartment,you can tell where you might run into trouble. I just put some vinyl electrical tape in the two areas i saw as potential issues. This is just my experience, shielding the electronics compartment did make a pretty big difference in my Tokai.

[@Olibertau]

Thank you so much, Dylan. I had a lot of annoying static electricity on my G&L Asat classic. I've just shielded the pickguard the way you explain with conductive copper tape and it works fantastic. Have a nice day and happy new year. 🙂

[@olenfersoi8887]

Good video but I disagree with you comments about shielding cavities having no effect and, if the shielding of cavities causes there to be no sound, blaming the shielding, rather than some wiring screwup which is being inappropriately grounded to the shielding, is not right. The solution is to track down & fix the wiring issue, not rip out the shielding. It should be obvious, though they capture & dissipate EMF in different ways...if a Faraday cage must be as complete as possible, so must a shielding "cage". It is also important to note that pickups with grounded metal covers also act as shields in their location. But, often omitted is shielding of the rest of the rig between the guitar & the amp: Cables need to be shielded (...cheap ones may not be); Pedal cases need to be metal, and grounded; & pedal individual power supplies need to be electrically isolated from each other. Some of these issues are often ignored, leaving multiple places for EMF to invade the guitar's signal to the amp.

[@je1279]

What are your thoughts on the aluminum pick guard shield that Fender sells for strats? I know it's not copper but it seems to be an effective solution.

[@angelopaskel2075]

One question, I am not in any way a technical/electricity knowledgeable person, but, will copper screws, instead of regular iron screws, make any difference, when used on copper shielded pick guard ?

[@WVNicholson]

It just occurred to me that my Godin xtSA doesn't have a pickguard; so the only option may be to shield the cavities. Fortunately, that is done by the manufacturer, I think. I'm watching this video before shielding a strat copy which does have a nice big pickguard.

[@gnfrank]

If your electronics cavity is shielded (either by a foil job or conductive paint spray) and something is touching where it shouldn’t, leading to a short or one pickup not working or whatever - just put clear packing tape in the insulated cavity over the foil. Insulates it electrically from the wiring harness while still retaining rf isolation.

[@thedave2429]

Great video but........didn't really catch if shielding the guitar is even needed at all, seems optional. Maybe I missed it. It was rather nice to hear that you don't need to shield the control cavities. I will be doing a Tele build and like the pick guard application, but do you need to also shield the bridge position? Or do you not even need to shield anything? There are so many videos out there on this, it's hard to determine who knows what they are actually talking about.

[@PM-yz8fx]

You are confusing acoustic waves with electromagnetic waves. The wavelength associated with an electromagnetic field frequency of 60 Hz is about 5 million metres (or 16.5 million feet) calculated by wavelength=c/60 where c is the speed of light. Electromagnetic radiation propagates at the speed of light not at the speed of sound.

[@stevelaferney3579]

If and when I start playing in a band in front of an audience then I’m gonna play inside of a chicken coop. The band will be The Faraday Chicken. 🤠🎸

[@adrianguggisberg3656]

It's always funny to see guitar reviewers point out the presence/lack of shielding paint in guitar cavities, when I know it does absolutely nothing except causing problems.

[@johnwinkler2606]

I have some thin copper sheet that I was planning on using to make a pick guard with but I didn't know anything about shielding I just thought it would look cool. It would probably shield pretty good I'm assuming.

[@bluesman354]

Why does my 50s Epi Les paul with 50s wiring hum but not my 60s Epi with normal wiring. When I use a 5.8 wireless system ( Amoon) it still hums. But when I use the legato UHF wireless system on either there is no hum.

[@scottbridges5066]

I am a bit confused something you said about the wires not being a good antennae for RFI/EMI. I've been using shielded wiring in my guitars for years now and had great success in interference free play ever since I started. As a network engineer it seems highly logical. It is after all why we have shielded cabling. I'm definitely curious to learn why you don't think the wires are a good receptors. Wouldn't the metal housings of the other components be more like a faraday cage since they are grounded housings. I'm not the expert and am not trying to argue at all. Just want to learn what and why things work the way they do.

[@scottbridges5066]

And you did do a great job explaining a lot. Hopefully not confusing more than myself.

[@christopherstorrier5560]

I just use a single big enough sheet of copper sheilding foil to cover rear of scratchplate as conductive glue breaks down over time & with hot bright stage lights...you must mix graphite paint for days to get a smooth black paint like finish but proven to be more effective than copper foil or silver foil...someone done a video on YT with copper,silver foil & graphite paint...graphite painted interior body with copper sheet on rear of pickguard scratchplate worked the best,lowest measured noise....

[@illegallystalked3119]

I see several problems with your theory. Mostly that you seem to think grounded metal will somehow direct noise away from the pickups. Well if a pickup, single coil pickup picks up noise because it has both a positive and negative lead, obviously the magnet and poles as well as the coil, yet if you delete one of those leads, produces no sound at all. So i see it as very improbable that grounded metal, or shall we say ADDED grounded metal, in the circuit will somehow redirect noise away from that pickup.

[@nexyboye5111]

just use some fucking ai to filter out the noise, like the one in izotope rx, I dont think that theres a physical way to solve this problem completely. One possible solution could be to use two guitar at once but only record the noise on one, while playing the other, and after that invert the phase of the recorded noise and adjust the time of it to match the other guitar. idk it just sounds complicated, use computers and thats it.

[@tusharjamwal]

18:15 "this is not an engineering video. this is how to most effectively do this to solve a problem" actually that is exactly what engineering is hahaha xD an analytical approach to a problem is helpful when the cost of trying the thing is quite high so you do the math and figure out a solution that might work and only then try it. But when the cost of doing the thing is super low like in this case for shielding, you can just try different configurations and see what difference it makes. The iterative approach to solving a problem. Still engineering, sounds less fancy but perfectly valid. Apologies if some of my young comrades working at big companies trouble you with comments about details like that. Its probably because it does make a difference to the projects they are a part of and details can cost a lot of money. Maybe with that it's easier to tackle their comments next time :)

[@johnwinkler2606]

Love ya brother. Thank you for the info. and you're right, I just want to know what to do not have nuclear science class.

[@1dimtim]

QUESTION i once saw shielding round a pickup, cant remember the make i think it was yamaha, what is it suppose to do??? does it do anything?

[@danielmcfarlan1035]

I also commited the mistake of applying shielding to where the pots are mounted, and oop, no signal (NONE of the tutorials i watched on shielding even hinted at this posibility), i just applied electrical tape on the pot cavities and problem solved

[@LuisHernandez-dy1rq]

Great video! Clarification is great. .So you don’t put the copper tape inside the pickups cavities?

[@zdcyclops1lickley190]

Any thing that reduces extraneous electromagnetic interference is a good thing. No need for conductive glue. Make sure the copper overlaps. Where it overlaps, poke it with an icepick. This pushes metal from the top layer into the bottom layer. Best remedy for noise is a noise gate. Signals below a set level is never sent to the amp. Signals sent to the amp are many times greater than the noise in the signal. Listen to Stevie Ray Vaughn

[@omegahiker]

Would i only shield the pickup cavities on a bass with an internal preamp as well, or does that situation require control cavity shielding?

[@alejandrowyss4783]

Yet another excellent tech video! I think you are right about trying to simplify the theory behind and focus more on the practical application. Thank you Dylan

[@GoDrex]

I've shielded pickguards and control cavity plastic covers because of static issues. Other than that I don't have a need for it.

[@chesterchow1]

What's the best way to ground the shielding? A jumper wire to the ground point on the pot? Or is the control plate already grounded?

[@stevebrain65]

Instead of 20 minutes of talking how about a simple demonstration that shows that your method is as good as all the more complicated methods. Proof is in the pudding.

[@wafdaddyrocks7028]

the graphite paint does seem to help. but if a pot feels loose,don't turn it till the body moves cause one of the solder lugs could ground out. so tighten it pronto. Every little bit helps.

[@RuXTaR]

Been waiting for this since last year.. ha ha.. yeah..

[@Crispy.Badger]

For EMG pickups that don’t require a ground, how do I ensure the shield is connected to ground?

[@learningguitar7948]

I have seen people run wires between the cavities and solder to the foil. If the pickguard is shielded and you have overlapping shielding (for example as you have from control cavity to body), then doesn't the pickguard tie them all together and you don't need wire between the cavities?

[@stevegidman6031]

Remember the little asshole running around at the birthday party popping all the balloons ^ this guy! Love you Dylan lol.

[@禎子佐々木]

When I screw off my Pickguard I found there a nest with little screaming baby birds in them.

[@viberge]

I dont even saw "myth busted" in this video, only theory, not real comparison between with and without true shield to hear noise and see spectrum.

[@Lordofmrak]

Would a brushed aluminium pickguard on strat do some good here?

[@FOX11GUY]

The strings are your shield. They're grounded.

[@noneofyourbusiness2766]

I have lace Golds on a SSS Strat. Cam I shield those to reduce hum?1

[@timothypotter2137]

Copper tape for me too. Thanks for the tip on the control cavity, I didn't know that. I always learn some good info from you.

[@scottyhehehe5367]

What you're saying is that you're just trying to be practical