# Strat noise - help required



## smorgdonkey (Jun 23, 2008)

I wired up a Strat. I used this method with the extra jumper for the tone on the bridge as well:








Everything seems fine, sounds pretty good but a lot of noise. If I dial back the tone towards zero (on whichever pickup I have selected) the noise decreases until goes away completely at zero.

Anyone have any experience with this particular problem? 

Ideas?


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## dradlin (Feb 27, 2010)

Does the noise go away when you touch the strings?


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## smorgdonkey (Jun 23, 2008)

The noise doesn't go away when I touch the strings.

Could it be that I play humbuckers so often that I just am not used to single coil noise any more? It just seems odd that the tone controls are controlling (seemingly) the amount of noise...almost as if at zero I have ground yet at 10 I am ungrounded.

F'n strats.


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

What I do on my guitars is shield the pickup cavities and run a ground wire to them. 


On a strat, you should also shield the pickguard. Most good quality pickguards have some foil on the underside. To be effective, that foil must be in contact with a ground or cavity shield. I don't have any pics that illustrate this but basically, all you need is some foil that goes up to the face of the guitar from the control cavity. This ensures that the foil that's under the pickguard is in contact with the shielding and/or ground in the control cavity. If the pots are giving you a proper connection to the pickguard shield, that's all you really need. 

Neat wiring with all the pickup wires twisted also makes a difference.


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## dradlin (Feb 27, 2010)

Is middle pickup RWRP, and if so does the noise go away in positions 2 and 4? If the noise doesnt go away then there is a wiring/component issue.

Double check for no cold soldered ground connections.

Use a meter to check continuity between the jack sleeve and all grounded components. 

If there is any shielding be sure it is grounded too.


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## dradlin (Feb 27, 2010)

smorgdonkey said:


> The noise doesn't go away when I touch the strings.
> 
> Could it be that I play humbuckers so often that I just am not used to single coil noise any more? It just seems odd that the tone controls are controlling (seemingly) the amount of noise...almost as if at zero I have ground yet at 10 I am ungrounded.
> 
> F'n strats.


If the noise doesnt change when you touch the strings, be sure you have continuity between strings and ground. If there is continuity and no noise change when you touch the strings, then I anticipate something is wrong and the noise may not be normal.

Be sure the jack is not wired backwards too.


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## Mike Potvin (Apr 30, 2009)

LydianGuitars said:


> What I do on my guitars is shield the pickup cavities and run a ground wire to them.
> 
> 
> On a strat, you should also shield the pickguard. Most good quality pickguards have some foil on the underside. To be effective, that foil must be in contact with a ground or cavity shield. I don't have any pics that illustrate this but basically, all you need is some foil that goes up to the face of the guitar from the control cavity. This ensures that the foil that's under the pickguard is in contact with the shielding and/or ground in the control cavity. If the pots are giving you a proper connection to the pickguard shield, that's all you really need.
> ...


Nice wiring! That's exactly how I do it as well.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2014)

Check out guitar nuts.

I shielded my strat as well.


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## smorgdonkey (Jun 23, 2008)

dradlin said:


> be sure you have continuity between strings and ground.


This I have.



dradlin said:


> Be sure the jack is not wired backwards too.


I was very careful doing this but will check that next.


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## fraser (Feb 24, 2007)

smorgdonkey said:


> This I have.
> 
> 
> I was very careful doing this but will check that next.


since youll be checking that,
another thing that helps is to either use shielded wire for the connection to the jack,
or just use regular wires, but twist them-










its a subtle difference, but every little bit helps.


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## MReilander (Mar 16, 2011)

It sounds like you have the tip and sleeve mixed up on the output jack.

On a very rare occasion, I see this behavior on a guitar with a cooked pot.


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## smorgdonkey (Jun 23, 2008)

MReilander said:


> It sounds like you have the tip and sleeve mixed up on the output jack.
> 
> On a very rare occasion, I see this behavior on a guitar with a cooked pot.


I will be taking a swing at fixing this today (Tuesday)...going to reverse how I did it in case I read the diagram wrong.



fraser said:


> or just use regular wires, but twist them


and I will twist and shout!


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## smorgdonkey (Jun 23, 2008)

Success with the jack being wired incorrectly. The funny thing is that I consider that to be the simplest part of wiring diagrams, for the most part. No saving face there...I am pretty sure I did it in the middle of the day as well so...

My famous ellipses serve me well.

Anyway, I also followed your advice fraser, and twisted my wires (as you will see in the second pic). I am adding a couple of photos just to show a little thing I like to use to keep wiring organized (especially since we all know now that I can get confused 'in there' easily).
My tip is *heat shrink*. Yes, I use it to make connections look nice (like most) but I also use it to keep wires organized. It works well in that regard.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

+1 on heat shrink tubing. Particularly if the wire in question doesn't "want" to stay twisted or simply to keep wires grouped so that they don't snag on the body as you reinstall the pickguard assembly (though I have to say I'm a little perplexed as hat sort of audible advantages are provided by a couple of picofarads contributed by twisting lead wires).

Maybe I missed it, but have we established exactly what sort of "noise" was the problem in the first place? JUST hum?


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

mhammer said:


> (though I have to say I'm a little perplexed as hat sort of audible advantages are provided by a couple of picofarads contributed by twisting lead wires).


The twisting is not about capacitance, its about the electro magnetic field (EMF) and flux. 

The parrallel wires form a loop and as current passes through the loop, the EMF varies. The loop size is a big factor in induced "noise" (flux) and EMF.

Each twist in the wire reduces the loop size. Each twist becomes a mini loop and this has the effect of reducing the amount of flux. Also, each twist, positive, then negative and so on, cancel out the EMF because the EMF and flux changes direction/orientation at every twist.

Having worked with high capacity twisted pairs, I can attest to how important it is to twist wires to reduce noise and induced EMF.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

LydianGuitars said:


> The twisting is not about capacitance, its about the electro magnetic field (EMF) and flux.
> 
> The parrallel wires form a loop and as current passes through the loop, the EMF varies. The loop size is a big factor in induced "noise" (flux) and EMF.
> 
> Each twist in the wire reduces the loop size. Each twist becomes a mini loop and this has the effect of reducing the amount of flux. Also, each twist, positive, then negative and so on, cancel out the EMF because the EMF and flux changes direction/orientation at every twist.


Would smorgdonkey achieve better results if the wire had been twisted more tightly/frequently as seen in the wire dress in AC carrying wires in amps?..or is a bit of a twist sufficient? 

Not intended to be critical of smorgdonkey's approach, just curious.

Cheers

Dave


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## MReilander (Mar 16, 2011)

LydianGuitars said:


> The twisting is not about capacitance, its about the electro magnetic field (EMF) and flux.
> 
> The parrallel wires form a loop and as current passes through the loop, the EMF varies. The loop size is a big factor in induced "noise" (flux) and EMF.
> 
> ...



^Yes. Look up twisted pairs. 

It was mainly used in the telephone industry to prevent 'crosstalk' prior to fiber obtics. The crosstalk would happen when the current from one pair of wires produced a small magnetic field around it. This magnetic field would induce a current in an adjacent wire and people would hear other peoples conversations on the phone. By twisting the pairs, the opposing magnetic fields cancel each other out, and it acts as a shield of sorts... making it more difficult for a current to be induced from an external source.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

LydianGuitars said:


> The twisting is not about capacitance, its about the electro magnetic field (EMF) and flux.
> 
> The parrallel wires form a loop and as current passes through the loop, the EMF varies. The loop size is a big factor in induced "noise" (flux) and EMF.
> 
> ...


I openly confess to nearly everything about magnets and EMF, flux, eddy currents, and all that stuff being entirely opaque to me. But if twisting does what you describe, then I can see why it is a favourite of amp builders who are running their wires close to large transformers.


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## LydianGuitars (Apr 18, 2013)

mhammer said:


> I openly confess to nearly everything about magnets and EMF, flux, eddy currents, and all that stuff being entirely opaque to me. But if twisting does what you describe, then I can see why it is a favourite of amp builders who are running their wires close to large transformers.



Its not just wires close to transformers. There's flux/EMF coupling that happens between the wires themselves, not necessarily from an external source.


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## smorgdonkey (Jun 23, 2008)

The major hum/noise was that the output jack was wired backwards. I did the wire twist as an extra, since I had to disconnect the wires anyway.


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## fraser (Feb 24, 2007)

glad you got it sorted easily smorg.
i wire jacks backwards all the time lol- its just one of those things.
i like the shrink wrap too.
much neater than tape or zip ties.

on the twisting wires thing-
i found a video that sort of shows the effect it has.

[video=youtube;sO0jMlglHpQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO0jMlglHpQ[/video]


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Connecting to the wrong lugs on a jack is one of the more common sources of smacking one's own forehead over on the stompbox forum. There is no real standard for where solder lugs are to be found on jacks. Sometimes the one on that side is the hot, sometimes it's the other one. And then you have that mental switchover you need to do when working with stereo jacks as opposed to closed-circuit mono jacks. Not to mention this style, where you have 3 pins on each side of the jack, and you have to keep reminding yourself that the pins on _that_ side get *disconnected* when you insert a plug.


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## J S Moore (Feb 18, 2006)

I had it stuck in and broken off by those jacks on an amp I built. I changed the orientation of the jacks to give more room for the wiring and didn't consider what the change would do.


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## jonO (Mar 19, 2014)

Hey does anybody know where I can buy copper conductive foil? (Not online?)

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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Welcome to the GC forum. ENJOY and post often!!

Bezdez has it by the roll. I have used this product and am impressed. 

I don't have their toll free Telephone number but they are in Ontario and ship very quickly. 
They have an Ebay store, but you can order direct.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/COPPER-SHIEL...477?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item2ecd3ee7d5 

Cheers

Dave


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## Guest (Mar 19, 2014)

Yeah, what Dave said. Welcome.
Don't know where you are, but, if you're in Scarberia,
there's an ad for copper shielding tape on kijiji.

copper shielding tape $10


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## fraser (Feb 24, 2007)

look for copper tape used to repel slugs and snails from your garden-
i dont think the adhesive on it is conductive, so youll need to solder the sections or something.
i use the aluminum foil tape for ductwork on the back of my pickguards.
that can be used for the body cavities, but you cant solder to it.
most electronics places will sell a paint that is conductive, for repairing traces etc- that works but is expensive.
then theres regular aluminum foil.
really, the best option is the stuff dave and larry point out.

since this thread is about strat noise-
though not related to the OP-
i was able to kill maybe 75% of the 60 cycle hum in one of my strats recently
by employing a dummy coil.
i took a cheap squier pickup, 
ceramic type with bar magnets on the bottom.
heated it with a hair dryer and removed the bar magnet.
cut off the tabs for the screws and wrapped it in tape.
wired this in series with my 5 way switch and stuck it in between the switch and the pots.
the guitar uses a non rwrp middle pickup, so all positions of the switch benefit from the hum cancelling.
im really happy with the results.


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## Guest (Mar 19, 2014)

I like that! Any chance of 
posting pic's of your work?


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## fraser (Feb 24, 2007)

can do larry- but itll have to wait until i have time to take the guitar apart.
why didnt i take pics when i had the chance?
because im an idiot.

looks like this essentially though- not my pic










cool write up on the whole process here-
http://frettech.com/dummy/


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## Rex Lannegan (Mar 2, 2006)

More shielding tape in Canada: http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=271300573706&ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:CA:3160


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## JHarasym (Mar 27, 2007)

fraser said:


> cool write up on the whole process here-
> http://frettech.com/dummy/


Link was dead
Found it here : http://www.cavalierpickups.com/frettech/dummy/index.html


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## Taylor (Oct 31, 2014)

Hate to bump an old thread, just thought this would be a good place to pop in and share this wiring diagram I did. It's a dummy coil circuit for a strat with an RWRP middle coil. Push-pull tone pot as an on-off switch, almost all of the ones I found on-line either had a separate on-off SPST switch, or had a push-pull volume pot.










It says the Dummy is 5.7K, but after further experimenting, I found it worked better (ie: less of my top-end lost) when I de-wound it some to about 4.5-4.6K.

In terms of lead orientation on the dummy coil, I usually amp it up and clip them in place with alligators, and if the noise gets worse instead of better, I know I need to reverse them before I solder.
If you've got any questions, shoot me a PM and I'd be happy to try and clear things up. (I learn almost everything by trial-and-error, so sometimes I lack the technical vocabulary required to REALLY provide absolute clarity for some things.)


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