It's a personal preference, I know, but question on shielded wire

[voxic]

So I can run a soldering iron and follow directions like most everyone else here can im sure, but the finer points of guitar wiring are not known to me in great detail. From my readings I've gathered that running shielded wire is basically a personal preference at this point. So I was on a guitar website and they had a pretty handy, and most importantly inexpensive, wiring kit that consisted of heatshrink, copper tape, zip ties, white push-back wire, black push-back wire. All well and good. But they also include some length of shielded wire. This got me thinking, do people use both shielded and unshielded wire in a guitar?  Why?  Should I be doing this? Connecting some things with shielded wire and other unshielded?  Or are they just being awesome and including it for people who have a preference of one over the other?

 

[mayfly]

If you're going to wire your guitar with shielded wire, you should use it everywhere.

If your pickups are not shielded (like standard strat and tele pickups), then it won't make any difference mind you...

 

[voxic]

If you're going to wire your guitar with shielded wire, you should use it everywhere.

If your pickups are not shielded (like standard strat and tele pickups), then it won't make any difference mind you...

So im going with a rear route strat, HSS setup, with Seymour Duncan noiseless Classic Stack Plus single coils and a Custom Custom Trembucker.  Looking for general advice on wiring and shielding (if needed) either with wire or with tape. I don't have any particular preference, just want to do what's best practices.

 

[Rick]

Those sound like pretty quiet pickups.  Why bother?

 

[voxic]

Those sound like pretty quiet pickups.  Why bother?

Because I lack the fundamentals that would lead someone like you to the conclusion of "why bother". I'm a noob you see. And while the internet is great for finding info, it's even more spectacular at finding conflicting info, arguments, pee pee contests and a million comments to the self described "decisive video on guitar wiring" saying the guy did it totally wrong and should never be allowed to touch a guitar again.

But I digress. And I value the opinion of folks in here. So you're saying because of the pickups I'm using, I have no reason to either use cavity shielding or shielded wire? I have also seen comments etc saying shielded wire is only needed on the output wire to the Jack.

 

[stratamania]

To try to answer your question objectively and fully...

You have pickups that will be relatively quiet so for some they may not wish to bother with any type of shielding. But that does not mean that someone else should not or may wish not to do so.

Per the guitar wiring kit that you mention containing heat shrink, copper tape, zip ties, white push-back wire, black push-back wire and shielded wire.

If you are going to shield the guitar than it needs to be consistent as Mayfly said. However what to do if all the wiring is not shielded such as push back wire. That is where copper tape is used attached to ground to "shield" the cavities and the unshielded wiring in them from interference.

Per the output wire to the jack - often that needs to run from a body cavity through a relatively small hole to where the output jack will be located. You cannot easily use copper shielding tape there or conductive paint.  So if you use shielded wire for that purpose you have a solution to not being to shield by some other means such as copper tape wire that is unshielded going through that hole. A similar use for shielded wire is on a Les Paul for example between the selector switch and the control cavity where three shielded wires are required.

If you use shielded wire for all of the job then the need for copper tape is very diminished. Though some may elect to use some in any case in the area of selector switches and pots as whatever wire you use at that point and the controls themselves are not fully shielded.

Whatever method you use for shielding you need a continuous ground so any copper tape you use needs to be conductive for example and grounded.

Hopefully now this gives a good overview of when and why you or others might choose to deploy any or a combination of methods towards shielding a guitar.

 

[voxic]

VERY HELPFUL!! Thank you!!

To try to answer your question objectively and fully...

You have pickups that will be relatively quiet so for some they may not wish to bother with any type of shielding. But that does not mean that someone else should not or may wish not to do so.

Per the guitar wiring kit that you mention containing heat shrink, copper tape, zip ties, white push-back wire, black push-back wire and shielded wire.

If you are going to shield the guitar than it needs to be consistent as Mayfly said. However what to do if all the wiring is not shielded such as push back wire. That is where copper tape is used attached to ground to "shield" the cavities and the unshielded wiring in them from interference.

Per the output wire to the jack - often that needs to run from a body cavity through a relatively small hole where the output jack will be located. You cannot easily use copper shielding tape there or conductive paint.  So if you use shielded wire for that purpose you have a solution to not being to shield by some other means such as copper tape wire that is unshielded going through that hole. A similar use for shielded wire is on a Les Paul for example between the selector switch and the control cavity where three shielded wires are required.

If you use shielded wire for all of the job then the need for copper tape is very diminished. Though some may elect to use some in any case in the area of selector switches and pots as whatever wire you use at that point and the controls themselves are not fully shielded.

Whatever method you use for shielding you need a continuous ground so any copper tape you use needs to be conductive for example and grounded.

Hopefully now this gives a good overview of when and why you or others might choose to deploy any or a combination of methods towards shielding a guitar.

 

[stratamania]

Sure...