HSH 5-way Coil Split PushPush 1 vol 1 tone woes.

[stratamania]

I've never shielded a trem cavity. I think it's a bit of a waste of time and Cagey, doesn't use shielding except on odd numbered consecutive leap years.

It could be a dry joint on one of your grounds.

 

[Cagey]

If it sounds like erratic static, it may be the pickguard. You'll notice on most pickguards that have controls mounted on them that the backside has a bit of foil over the area that covers the control cavity...

It's not there for shielding, it's to dissipate static buildup. Mounting the pots in that area usually grounds it because either the pot housing or a ground lug is grounded. Without it, and depending on the material the 'guard is made of, even a slight amount of rubbing will produce audible static in the output that the amp will dutifully amplify. As long as you're not touching it, you don't hear anything but the usual level of hum for that pickup/control scheme. In the example above, that would be a fairly high level of hum due to the antennae single coil pickups.

As for shielding the trem cavity? No. It would have no effect.  All lining your various cavities with foil does waste your time and money, and maybe make them look good in pictures to those who think doing so is a Good Thing.

 

[Ace Flibble]

To clear up the split coil problem, you just swap the north finish and south start, and south finish where north start was. It's easy to remember if you just think of everything being upside down: starts become finishes and north becomes south.

Just bear in mind that this can cause phase issues between two pickups if one is wired for a regular split and the other is wired for the 'inverted' split. With an HSH set up, where the neck and bridge pickups are never on together, this isn't a problem, but for HH guitars it's something to be aware of.

But yeah, it won't make that much of an audible difference, unless you use humbuckers with really mismatched coils. So stick with what you have for now and just think about swapping some wires over the next time you go to restring the guitar.

Also, in the OP, it's briefly asked whether SD RWRP is the same as Fender's. SD RWRP is not the same as Fender's RWRP, but it is the same as Fender's non-RWRP pickups. Basically, Fender use the opposite winding and polarity of everybody else. So Fender's regular wind direction and polarity is every other companies' reverse wind and polarity. The exceptions are some of SD's 'antiquity' models, which use the same wind direction and have the same polarity as Fender, and some of the OEM pickups Dimarzio and SD have made for Fender as stock pickups, like the DM H8 & S1, and the Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates Plus.
If you're only using all SD pickups in your guitar—or all DiMarzio pickups, all Gibson pickups, all Fender pickups etc—then this does not matter. But if you ever mix in Fender pickups with other brands, then you need to be aware of this, and in any case, it's wrong to think of SD RWRP as being like Fender's RWRP :icon_thumright: