GUITAR ELECTRICS - SHEILDING AND GROUNDING - WHY DO I CARE?????

Ever been irritated by the fact that when you go near fluorescent lights, or TVs, or PC monitors in the studio you get followed around by that buzz. well maybe its time to sort it out, I'm not saying it will completely cure it but i know full well that by properly shielding your guitar you can make it a lot quieter, allowing you to crank your amp up that extra couple of notches before it even kicks in.

Whats the point in spending all that money on pickups,capacitors,potentiometer's etc if your sound is always going to be drowned out or coloured by the buzz.

This is one of the many areas that is constantly overlooked when fine tuning your guitar and shielding and grounding schemes go hand in hand , and fortunately its a cheap and easy fix.

People who do these modifications are split into two groups

1- Those who don't do it properly or have poor instructions and whinge when it does not work.

2 - Those that do it correctly following good instructions and reap the rewards.

Whats the difference between the two usually the grounding scheme if the shielding isn't grounded it will not work anywhere near as well.

The point is sadly very few manufacturers place any shielding in the cavities , and rely heavily on shielded cables as there only defence which just isn't enough.

So here's the best set of instructions i have ever come across explaining how to apply shielding to your guitar as well as a couple of guides for installing better grounding schemes.


Soon you could be hearing the quieter more dynamic tone that you've been chasing.

GUITAR ELECTRICS – POTENTIONMETERS ( POTS ) – WHY DO I CARE?

Well as with any of the electrical components inside your guitar, the pots could be the final overlooked stumbling block in finding the tone of your dreams as they are in essence in control of shaping your sound.

Using the wrong value, type, or just poor quality pots could be ruining all the other upgrades you may have done so far, and the good news is they are a cheap and easy fix.

So what do they do?

That’s a long answer but pots are basically a variable resistor, which can be wired in several different ways for different jobs within the guitar and amp, there are also several different types and values so lets start with the types.

Types of Potentionmeterss

There are two types of pot used inside guitars, Audio Taper and Linear Taper both do the same job but in very different ways.













Linear Taper Pots are quite self-explanatory when you turn the knob half way you have half of the resistance. These tend to be used by most for their tone controls as you have an even, logical response across the range, although this is as always a matter of personal preference.

Audio Taper pots on the other hand where specifically designed to react in a completely different way. Our ears respond to sound on an exponential scale. A sound has to be 10 times as powerful for us to hear it as twice as loud. For a 4× increase in volume, it must be 100 times as powerful. This kind of increase gives a curve like the one above, audio taper pots have been designed with this in mind and tend to be used by most as volume controls as they give a more natural increase in volume.


Values of Potentionmeters

There are many values available but the ones most commonly used are 250k-ohm, 500k-ohm, and 1 Meg ohm. There are some general rules of thumb surrounding which pots to use with which pickups but none of these are set in stone. So feel free to experiment.

Medium impedance pickups (i.e. high output single coils & low output humbuckers) generally sound best with 250k - 330k ohm pots. With some, you may be able to justify 500k-ohm pots, but again… Depending on your pickups and taste, you might find that too brittle.

Higher impedance pickups (i.e. modern humbuckers) can scrape by with 300k ohm pots if you like the dark tone, but you’ll get much more clarity at 500k ohms. This is especially the case with modern pickups that are designed to be “hotter” versions of Gibson’s “Patent Applied For” humbuckers of the late 1950s.

Very high impedance pickups (i.e. modern metal passive humbuckers) generally behave well with 500k-ohm pots, but you might find that 1,000,000-ohm (1M ohm) pots work for you.

One other thing of note is that due to the manufacturing tolerances of plus or minus 20-30% percent a 500k pot could measure anywhere between 350K-600K this is where the buying quality parts comes in. You can buy calibrated sets, which can be expensive, but there are several modifications that can be done to bring them up to value. Go to the Les Paul Forum for more information on that one.