Punkt

[Trem]

------------------[edit for irony]
i'll try to make this short ^ - cause i could explaine every detail to illustrate the painstaking steps and triple checking i did but anyway.

I needed to change out the emghz pickups that came in my 90's RR1?:think:

I got some duncans a custom and a jazz.

I decided because i sit in front of my 24 inch widescreen CRT monitor and my mp-1 rack that i would do a full shielding to minimize the buzz that i get,

which isn't extremly bad as you would think (turn off the monitor and PC only takes a certain frequency away from the buzz - the pc/monitor buzz is not nearly as much as the baseline buzz that i get.

I figured for a long time it's likely mostly the mp-1 and in general my production shielded guitars, maybe some extra interference from whatever maybe a cell tower, dunno.
or maybe a ground loop between the components in my rack.
a million things who knows.

Moving along, i bought everything i needed to do this - down to soldering iron and new pots - many different tone caps from mouser, wire, tools, da worx.

I shielded the control cavity and back of control plate only - all shielding has continuity.

I first just rewire it per the seymour duncan specs. same buzz no worse no less noticable.

So i read a million articles and web posts - all with varying opinions - i decide to do the star grounding method as outlined on guitarnuts.

In short, all grounds "supposedly as far as i tried and can tell" meet at one point seperate from any pots or anything - and goes out to the output jack.

There's not a lot of room in the RR1 control cavity, i did realize that my pots were touching the shielding - so i wraped them in electrical tape and the switch leads, so nothing touches the shielding "as far as i can tell, to the best of my ability".

No dice!!
(this is hours of work late nights getting no sleep for days and draggin ass at work.) I had to learn to solder at the same time
My soldering isn't too bad i don't think, there could be a cold joint or something somewhere dunno, but overall it doesn't look too hack, but i did cut and redo wires enough that my pots tok some heat abuse - they are a tiny bit less smooth i know they got to hot a few time for sure, but they work.

Anyway, i havent even put the bridge on but i just plug it in and try it at every iteration of redoing, and rechecking, (i've unscrewed the damn plate 3 or 4 times, then finally just started leaving it off, and checking the guitar plugged in (no worse or less buzz anyway).

All of my humbucking guitars in my room same spot have the buzz to about the same degree - i usually turn away to the sweet spot, but it's always there a bit.


So i come home, read a ton more shit on grounding, ect, and say fuck it, i'm going to check all my guitars and see if any one of them are much less buzzy.

I decide to start with the one that should be entirely atrocious by all accounts.

My trusty cheapo costo 'fender' chinese Starcaster.
( i've praised it before in a few posts) best natural unplugged tone of any of my guitars period.
Sounds like what you'd expect plugged in - like cheap single coils.

i've only ever plugged it in a few times, maybe 3 counting this time.
but i play it every day.

So, first 'bridge' position on the switch, noisy - exactly like all my dual humbucker guitars.

"jam break can't help it with this thing"

never tried any other position but neck and bridge - put it in the second position i believe 'bridge and middle'.

Dead F#*^!g Silent.

+ better (still shitty) tone, decay and sustain

none of my humbucker guitars do that, and all of them cost around a grand to 2 grand.

NEVER heard my mp-1 that silent.

Pc/and monitor On by the way.
So i figure now, it's not really my mp-1 or pc in general (it can be, but i know when it's comming from that)


Also last night i turned everything off except the mp-1 just trying my jackson straight, everything else but my clock turned off in my room (i don't even have a light in my room) monitor takes care of that - so it's off i'm sitting in the dark.
buzz - touch the plate or pots, buzz lessened but not gone - so it's grounding somehow somewhere someway i guess, but not for a lack of trying.


so....eh...... fuckit......i have nothing more to say. *i think i hear cheers*

[Trem]

well, guess i could posts what it's wired like.
else a big useless post.

concept http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php is for a strat just did the same idea with humbuckers.

wired just like this http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUHH3T1201 , except all grounds (plus output jack shield) go to one point, are soldered together and shrink wrapped.

no pots/switch have ground from one thing or another connected to them, and my tone caps ground have wires soldered and go to the one ground point, to also bleed off to the output jack ground.

The RR1 has shielded paint in the pickup cavities with wires and screw rings screwed down in them, i covered that all with electric tape thinking to even keep the pickup plates from touching any ground.

Those and the trem claw ground go directly to the shielding in the control cavity, screwed down and then one wire up to the central ground point.

The main head scratcher for me is that, the wire from the output jack is two conductor, plus shield and a bare wire, also the same for the duncans, except of course 4 wire.

I really didn't know what to do with the bare wires that extend the shielding, so for the output jack bare, i just put it to ground first on the back of the volume, but then moved it to the one ground point - same result either way. (also tried left it floataing and taped off - no signal big loud noise.)

And the duncan bares i left soldered to a single tone pot - per the instructions on guitar nuts.

everywhere you read posts about this, it's half saying one way half saying the other. only one end of the shild wire needs ground, or both do.

but it didn't make a difference with the output jack, i doubted it would with the duncan shields either.

the whole point is i figured ground loops were making the mp-1 hum and buzz and or maybe they are still somehow.

[Grandturk]

EMGs kill for in front of compter recording.

[Trem]

i wanted to shield my guitars for every purpose.
my pc doesn't interfere much really and not at all if facing away a bit - the mp-1 or the furman is where the noise radiates most.

also, it dawned to me that the strat pickups are a lot less output too, and putting the switch using two pickups making it hum canceling.
so probably why it's so quiet - however the single coil by itself is very loud.

emg's are quieter, i have some emg guitars, less buzz at a sweet spot,
irrelevant tho because i'd rather have the buzz than use the emg's.
there's nothing about them i like tone wise, they were doomed when i bought the guitars..

I still think after shielding it should be much better than it is.

i think i just needed to vent - i had no one to bitch at

few would read all that crap lol.

Well, my weekend started so...got another one to do too, so I'll start one pickup and one knob get that quiet, go from there.

maybe i'll learn something.