Copper tape, do I need it?

[oid]

Humbuckers are useless against EMI. EMI is pretty much what shielding can address, so maybe I should have been more clear about that. There are a lot more sources of EMI interference now than there used to be.

Hum is EMI, and humbuckers cancel all EMI that meet the specifications I previously outlined, from wikipedia "A humbucking pickup, humbucker, or double coil, is a type of electric guitar pickup that uses two coils to "buck the hum" (or cancel out the interference) picked up by coil pickups caused by electromagnetic interference, particularly mains hum." I can walk you through the theory if you would like to practice your math.

Wikipedia does a fairly decent job explaining it though.
Wikipdia - How Humbuckers Work

Now I'm going to retire from this conversation as I've given what advice I have to give and it can be taken or not taken, but I don't really want to have to justify it over and over. At the end of the day, it's not my guitar, and I am almost certainly never going to hear it played. Best of luck to all of you.

I suppose constructive debate and furthering of ideas and knowledge is dead.

You edited your post and deleted it all for what ever reason, oh well.

[Larry Mal]

Of course, noise can get into the guitar at other parts of the wiring, so the humbuckers can't remove all noise, can they?

[oid]

Of course it can, and I said just that in my previous post. Humbuckers can only cancel the noise which they themselves pickup, we rely on other tricks to mitigate EMI in the wiring harness, such as shielded control cavities, short wire runs, twisted pairs and shielded wire.

[Larry Mal]

Remember hum buckers can't prevent noise, those are two different concepts.

OK. So my point was, humbuckers can't prevent noise (from your guitar), so it's good to shield your guitar.

Maybe I could have been more clear, but I thought it was obvious, when you apply copper tape to the cavities that the controls and wiring are in, then you shunt EMI type noise from reaching them.

Like, remember how I linked to a metal cap that covered the pickup selector switch in a Les Paul? Clearly I'm talking about shielding that from EMI, not the effects of humbuckers in the guitar.

So, with that, I am genuinely done with this conversation, I will never hear the guitar in question, have given what advice I have, take it or leave it... it makes no difference to me.

[oid]

Remember hum buckers can't prevent noise, those are two different concepts.

OK. So my point was, humbuckers can't prevent noise (from your guitar), so it's good to shield your guitar.

Maybe I could have been more clear, but I thought it was obvious, when you apply copper tape to the cavities that the controls and wiring are in, then you shunt EMI type noise from reaching them.

Like, remember how I linked to a metal cap that covered the pickup selector switch in a Les Paul? Clearly I'm talking about shielding that from EMI, not the effects of humbuckers in the guitar.

So, with that, I am genuinely done with this conversation, I will never hear the guitar in question, have given what advice I have, take it or leave it... it makes no difference to me.

Ok, so we had a failure in communication. I was not trying to prove you wrong or myself right, just offer the advantages and disadvantages of both sides. Sorry, when people just state something and follow it up with something to the effect of "I am done with you and I do not need to justify my views" it does not sit well with me, and I can get a tad hard headed in response. It is just a little to close to saying, I do not care about anything but by own opinion, and I react.

[windmill]

Doing an MJT Jaguar build. Do I need copper tape in the electronics routs and on the back of the pickguard. Is it worth the $15 to just do it? Also is there a metal shield guard for the Jaguar like there is for the Jazzmaster? If so what's it called so I can google it. Thank you.

Just about every guitar I have had had some noise or hum.

The noise has been eliminated or greatly reduced by proper shielding using copper tape.

So recently I forked out for a roll of it just so I will always have some on hand.

The first guitar I used it on was an old teisco bass with a single coil pickup, which was just the magnets and wire lying in the body rout.

Didn't make any difference at all

On the other hand you could just have a look at how our friend Dave deals with his guitars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp-zFLylafE

After watching the first minute or so skip to around 4:50 on the video

YMMV HTH

[billboneys]

Thank you!

[Riff Magnum]

What about using different wire to reduce noise? I see braided "shielded" cabling is pretty popular(and not expensive) but i've never used it and my tech has never mentioned it even though I have a fairly noisy tele and old jazz bass.
The guy I bought my recent set of JM pickups from, said he had a supply of NASA sourced Thermax wire. Supposedly made of or coated with silver and teflon. Said if I wired my whole guitar with that, and did the copper tape thing, my guitar would be dead quiet.

I prefer dead quiet. I mean I don't wanna be playing a gig somewhere and when we get to the quiet bits, or the in between song banter, all you hear is hiss and hum. It ruins the vibe and takes people out of the moment. It's funny how we do everything we can to get the best signal chain possible, from better patch cables, to true bypass pedals, to power conditions, but we forget about the actual source of all the sound, the guitar.

[timtam]

The guy I bought my recent set of JM pickups from, said he had a supply of NASA sourced Thermax wire. Supposedly made of or coated with silver and teflon. Said if I wired my whole guitar with that, and did the copper tape thing, my guitar would be dead quiet.

He said he got it from NASA ? Seriously ? .... Anyone who says stuff like that ... Run. Don't stop. Just run.

[Riff Magnum]

It's Kevin from Electrical Guitar Company and Travis Bean, so I actually believe him. His shit is pretty top of the line. All the new EGC's and Beans have it and the pickups I bought have it, so it's for reals methinks.

[timtam]

Unless it's high frequency digital comms (which is some of what NASA does), shielding isn't actually rocket science. If you pay for wire specced to that level you're going to be way over-paying. Copper in-body shielding gets you a lot of the way to EMI immunity (if that is your noise problem). Simple twisted pairs gets you most of the way to what shielded conductors would provide. But wire with a separate aluminium shield in addition to the conductors is not expensive if you want it.

You can also shield single coil pickups with a gapped copper shield. HBs shouldn't need that.
https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/ ... il-pickups

[countertext]

Hendrix didn’t need copper tape.

[mackerelmint]

Shield everything and twist your leads, and you will not have a noisy guitar.

All single coils should have twisted leads, I decided after I did it. I did it because I couldn't be bothered to find my wire cutters, so I twisted them to shorten the length a bit, and figured "amp makers do this to keep noise away, so maybe it'll work here too". Oh boy, did it ever. If you aren't doing it, you're doing it wrong.

[oid]

The NASA wire probably works well, but any decent quality shielded cable is going to be more than adequate as long as it is installed properly. The amount of noise pickup in shielded cable is tiny, to the point that it is very difficult to even measure in the lengths of the wire runs in guitars.

Twisting wires works as long as they are an AC carrying pair, such as the pickup leads but shielded cable would technically be better, but you are not going to notice that difference and the capacitance of the shielded cable may cause some HF loss.

[NICQ]

I went to buy a shielded cable for my firebird build (the way from the pots to the switch and back is pretty long) at some electronic shop and found out that the sell it from a big roll - 1 meter of shielded 4 wire cable costs about 2eur ... I was like and bought 2 meters of both


also yes to copper tape - I shield every cavity where I can