Wiring on an ash body HSS strat

[musicispeace]

Any opinions on pot values and shielding the back of a pick guard or not on an swamp ash body, maple neck, rosewood board. I assumed I would need 500k pots but more than one person has told me they felt 250k would not make me loose out on anything but would help even out output and treble. Understand I am a novice on electronics. Do people mix pot values in such a guitar? I chose ash to add an ingredient lending itself to a bit of pop but am not looking for Treble City.

Still torn between "noiseless" and regular single coils. Does any copper shielding actually help to minimize hum? Thanks for any experienced observations.

 

[Cagey]

Traditionally, single coils get 250K pots, and humbuckers (or any "noiseless" pickup) would get 500K parts. I use 500K parts for everything, since they present less load and you get a more articulate sound. If it's too edgy, you can always back off the tone control on the guitar or amp just a smidge. But, better to have signal you don't need than to need signal you don't have, so no 250K parts for me.

As for shielding, putting something on the back of the pickguard doesn't help out the noise situation at all, but it does drain the static buildup that the plastic develops. Shielding the pickup/control cavities is largely an exercise in futility - you're much better off using shielded cable. Unless, of course, you're using single coil pickups. Nothing you can do about those buggers - they're noisy and that's it. Get a good noise gate. Rocktron's hush units work well and are highly regarded.

If you want a good single coil sound but no noise, there are a lot of good offerings out there from all the usual suspects. But, the best I've found have been GFS' "True Coil" design. They really do sound like single coils. They're not perfectly quiet, but what little noise they make is quite tolerable and they're tons quieter than standard single coils. The Neovins are nice, too. Just not quite as faithful as the True Coils. But, they're very quiet. Don't be fooled by the price - those are both high-quality parts, as are all GFS' offerings.

 

[Surf n Music]

I saw this and it looked like a pretty good setup for a HSS. When the bridge and middle are selected it automatically splits the bridge and when choosing the bridge only it reverts back to full humbucker.

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/downloads/schematics/general/hsh_hss/hss__1_vol__1_tone__5_way_with_auto_coilsplit.pdf

 

[johnny35]

My Strat is an Ash bodied HSS setup, 2 Fender vintage noiseless pups and Seymour Duncan JB

Whole cavity and complete back of pickguard are covered with copper shielding tape. I have ground wires attached to the trem claw, the shielding and onto the ground block on THIS wiring harness. Check it out---

http://www.elek-trix.com/collections/fender-stratocaster-prewired-solderless-wiring-harness-kit/products/stratocaster-5-way-hsh-ssh-wiring-harness

 

[line6man]

The reason people are suggesting 250k pots is that the more direct load helps to warm things up a tad, to prevent the "ice pick" vibe you get from single coils and bright woods. However, in general, people make way too much of pot values, when the difference between 250k and 500k usually proves to be rather subtle. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Just pick what you think will work best for you.

FWIW, there is absolutely nothing wrong with mixing pot values, as long as all of the pots are in an appropriate range for the signal impedance. For example, 250k and 500k is fine, while 25k and 250k is not.

 

[Dan025]

bill lawrence said that aluminum is a good way to keep noise down on single coil pickup. but i'm not sure how much. many people use copper shielding on the pickguard. but like joey said it can be an exercize in futility. fender uses aluminum but not always around the pickups it may be for cheepness since it's just used on the control cavity and is really just a grounding point to simplify the wiring. stock cheap fender guitars don't have the grounds all tied together in one point like many people prefer. they just mount the pot tightly against aluminum foil glued to the back of the pick guard. but in bill lawrence's application you would back the pickup area with aluminum and by some miracle of science he claims it can reduce the hum caused by a triac/thyristor type dimmer. i can't verify this. but bill lawrences wasn't the kind of guy that said things that didn't have some scientific backup, what the cause of this was isn't explained, i just remember his site had some quotes that aluminum had a unique ability to quiet dimmer switch specific noise.

anyway, if you just want to make wiring easier like fender does then put copper on the pick guard in the control cavity region but this may cause noise or reliability issues if the pots come loose so you may want to solder the grounds negating the point of the foil.

if you have single coils and would like to attempt to quiet light dimmer related hum then perhaps try to put aluminum foil tape on the back of the pickup region or the full pick guard (don't do this with noisless, if you have noiseless pups that are stacked coil over coil this would be very bad with any metallic material as it would negate the noise canceling by making the intensity of the noise different on the upper and lower coil) you can use an aluminum pickguard but they are thick enough for the eddy currents to influence the sound from the pickups making them less bright. thin foil wont have any audible influence on the tone.

static is a source of pops and noise. so foil helps a bit. but bill lawrence also had another tip for this. spray the pickguard with anti-static fabric softener!!

250k or 500k are fine. as long as you aren't an order of magnitude off then it's probably ok.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I have shielded ones that hum, and unshielded ones that hum.  I think it's mostly piece of mind.  The notion that manufacturers don't do it, I haven't found that to be the case.  I don't own many production made instruments anymore, but I do pot, switch, and pickup swaps for friends.  So far I've seen a Mexi Tele, PRS McCarty, and EBMM Sterling that have all been factory shielded in the control cavities.  Considering this crosses 3 manufacturers and price ranges, and eats in to their bottom dollar of labor and material costs, I can't see them doing it for no good reason.

 

[The Hun]

I have my own opinions on shielding as it is the "guitar hobby" version of my day job. Short version: Not worth fooling with it.

Foil and conductive tape are too thin to shield against the energy required to transmit these low frequencies. Higher frequencies transmit with less energy, but can leak through tiny gaps in your shielding. At low, audio, frequencies you can have huge gaps in your shielding, you just need metal thickness and drains to ground. Foil and conductive paint are designed to shield much, much higher frequencies with a thin film that covers all the tiny gaps.

For potentiometers, I wasn't getting much adjustability from Tone knob positions 0-5.  So I kept the 500k Vol pot and changed the Tone pot to 250k and put 200k resistor in series with the Cap. This is worth doing if you want an adjustable knob instead of a Tone On/Off toggle.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

For potentiometers, I wasn't getting much adjustability from Tone knob positions 0-5.  So I kept the 500k Vol pot and changed the Tone pot to 250k and put 200k resistor in series with the Cap. This is worth doing if you want an adjustable knob instead of a Tone On/Off toggle.

Oooh, I like that idea a LOT.