strat shielding / noise. HELP

[jaredrutledge]

my bandmate and i were attempting to track guitars today and couldn't due to the ridiculous amount of hum my '97 american strat was making. i tooled around on the net to see if there were any suggestions, and came across some faqs on shielding and whatnot. i took a piece of aluminum foil and fiddled around with my guitar, and sure enough, touching it to one of the screws on the pickup selector almost completely canceled the hum (assuming i was touching the strings).

i was gonna go through and shield the whole thing, but is this a specific problem i can fix, or is it gonna take an afternoon with a soldering iron? thanks in advance

 

[Pablo1234]

If you do shield your guitar (I highly recomend rewiring it also) it should take you about 3 hrs. Stare grounding will be a biger improvment than just shielding, I recomend both.
http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php
Follow this to the word and your guitar will be very quiet.

 

[jaredrutledge]

yeah that's the one i was looking at. does the step by step thing include the grounding thing also? i'm not totally knowledgeable about this stuff, but i feel confident enough to do it. it's obviously some kind of ground problem cause when i touched the screw it went nearly silent.

 

[Pablo1234]

Yes, its the main focus of the artical actually. Star grounding is where all the wires that would get soldered onto the back of the pots and to the sleeve of the jack are connected to one location. It reduces ground loop hum.

 

[jaredrutledge]

yeah i did everything the guide recommended and am thoroughly pleased with the difference. except for the bit where i put a hole through the back of the guitar while routing out the wire passage between the output jack cavity and the main cavity.

 

[phyrexia]

. except for the bit where i put a hole through the back of the guitar while routing out the wire passage between the output jack cavity and the main cavity.

It should have been there from the factory. Don't feel bad.

 

[jaredrutledge]

no it was there i just needed it to be bigger cause i used some large gauge wires.