Fender Telecaster Mexico '14 Lefty - Shielding & DiMarzio Tone Zone T SC humbucker
First project on this blog and kinda excited to dive into it. My band's drummer recently purchased a Fender Telecaster and wasn't quite satisfied with the buzz from the pickups and the thin sound in general. In suspicion of electromagnetic distress I therefore recommended to shield the guitar and put a SC bridge humbucker into it. Without further hesitation my buddy instantly handed the guitar over to me. As this is my first 'real' blog entry, please don't mind wrong image scaling, poor display of English language and logic fallacies.
Problem statement:
- - Telecaster exhibits enormous acoustic impact by electromagnetic/electrostatic radiation.
- - Bridge pickup sounds thin
- - Thicker strings are preferred
- - General setup of guitar
Problem description:
- - For exemplary description of the difference between electromagnetic and electrostatic consult your local library or hey, there's this globally linked thing called the Interwebz.However, there's a good description on differencebetween. Typical emitters of electrostatic radiation are e.g. computer screens or cheap neon tubes.Unfortunately, some guitar manufacturers don't find it necessary to properly shield their guitars from outside radiation. As you can see below, only black conductive paint has been used to insulate the Tele. To get the delicate sound of single coils without receiving local radio stations' signals like in Spinal Tap (ok, in the movies it was the wireless guitar system) proper insulation is the way to go.This can either be reached by eliminating disruptive factors, twisted pair wiring, using hum-cancelling through humbuckers or shielding the guitars. To achieve an overall and sustainable effect on the guitar, I decided to shield the entire bowels of the guitar with copper tape.
- - As my buddy mainly uses the bridge pickup and wants it to sound "fat", a humbucker seems to be the weapon of choice (I have heard single coils being used on death metal albums already - with proper tweaking - but in this case a fail-safe option seems to be sensible)
- - Thicker strings - can do. D standard tuning and EB2215 should provide a firm grip on the low end and flexibility on the treble strings
Equipment used:
- - DiMarzio Tone Zone T WH DP389 - 79€ at www.hieber-lindberg.de
- - Copper Tape (18mm, 4 meters) from ebay - there are shielding kits, I decided to go full DIY
- - Spare wires
- - Ernie Ball EB2215 .052 - .010
- - Phillips screw drivers 4 mm, 6 mm
- - Flat screw driver 2 mm
- - Allen keys 1,5 mm, 1/8"
- - Pliers
- - Soldering iron
- - Multimeter
- - PRS Guitar cleaner
- - Micro fiber cloth
- - Ballistol
Step 1: Unstringing the guitar and putting parts to be incorporated on it, hoping for parts to mix up and problems resolve themselves
Step 2: Disembowelment.
A useful tip is to always document the wiring when disconnecting parts for later stress relief. In times of smartphones no real obstacle. I disconnected the bridge pickup and witnessed some interesting grounding technique: connecting pickups' grounding with the conductive paint. After a short break of sardonic laughter I continued.
Step 3: Insulating the guitar cavities and covers with copper tape.
Note: there are shielding kits for Telecasters out there. I decided to try it with copper tape and actually was astonished with how seamlessly it could be integrated. Note the excess tape overlapping the edges of the cavities for continuity between copper-shielded cavities and pickguards/covers. This however is not possible along the long edges of the control cavity as the control plate barely covers it.
Recommendation at this point: applying pressure with your finger to apply the copper tape can be a nuisance in corners, therefore the rubber end of a pencil with a cloth wrapped around it worked fine for me.
Step 4: Connecting the new pickup with the rest of electronics and existing ground with the copper shields.
The copper surfaces act as a functional ground or antenna for electrostatic radiation. The more connected surface there is, the better! A lot of blogs point out the importance of continuity with shielding work and necessary soldering work if copper tape is used. Surprisingly, the copper tape I used does not entail the continuity-cancelling phenomenon of the adhesive film described and thus no additional work was necessary, can't argue with that.
Note the importance of serial and singular connections to avoid circular continuity cancelling (Source: Wikipedia):
- - pickguard > neck pickup cavity > pote's case
- - bridge plate > bridge pickup cavity > pote's case
- - neck/bridge pickup > pote's case
- - output jack > pote's case
- - control cavity > pote's case
- - pote's cases connecting each other
Step 5: Restringing the guitar and tuning, intonation, neck and action adjustment
In this step I gently applied a small amount of Ballistol to each point where the strings permanently touch the guitar's hardware. My experience has shown that this contributes significantly to the strings breaking due to fatigue at certain spots. Furthermore all hardware is checked for loose screws, standard procedure before tuning and intonation of the guitar.
Another thing, often left out of guitarists' consideration when changing strings, is to stretch them before usage. This is the most common mistake any player can make. Imagine lifting 50kg of iron in the gym without previous exercice. It works for a short period of time, but most certainly this won't work longer than a few times. ESPECIALLY with guitars with floating systems, the application of stress to the strings before doing divebombs or any sort of string whackery is crucial for the longevity and tuning stability of the guitar and mental sanity of the guitar player.
Steel is capable of stretching a LOT, thus my rule of thumb is taking every string with both palms and stretching them with the thumbs (imagine a second hand in the picture below - can't yet afford a hands-free GoPro helmet cam) all the way from the first fret to the bridge. I continue this on every string (caution with the D-string and the high E), retune and stretch again, until the string does perfectly return to the original pitch.
For intonation purposes I have just recently discovered the joy of a strobe tuner. The one I use is available for free at http://www.tbstrobetuner.com/. Go give it a try if you have an interface, otherwise the tuner of your choice may be fine.
Step 6: Cleaning the guitar from all the blood, sweat and tears (of joy).
As this guitar is practically in mint condition, I could save some time and didn't have to polish frets and/or the fretboard. Some PRS guitar cleaner and a micro fiber cloth sufficed in this case. Behold, the finished Tele below.
Step 7: Testing....
Test setup:
In the following conclusion following signal chain was used:
1) Fender Telecaster (DI)
2) M-Audio Fast Track C400
3) Cubase 5
In order to trigger an electromagnetic hum, two disruptive EM units have been used and laid upon each pickup:
1) a Logitech Daedalus G303 with "pulsating" LEDs and
2) an LG Nexus 5 with touchscreen usage
In order to prove the hypothesis of reduced noise level through the copper shielding (neck pickup) and hum-cancelling (bridge pickup) the interface (C400) and Cubase act as constants in the equation with unchanged gain levels etc. Also the Telecaster is remains unchanged as being with strings on. The "only" real change is the insulation and the bridge pickup.
Both audiofiles are set up as follows:
1) G303 on neck pickup
2) G303 on bridge pickup
3) Nexus 5 on neck PU
4) Nexus 5 on bridge PU
Note the radiation "wave" emitted from the G303 and the buzz from the usage of the touchscreen of the Nexus 5.
Results:
Before:
After:
Final remarks: The project went smoother than I anticipated thanks to the good quality of the copper tape used and all wire connections working on first attempt. Of course, the copper shielding and Tone Zone pickup are good for more than mere optical arousal. The 'fatness' of the pickup has been confirmed with tests not part of this discussion.
As for the buzz in comparison before and after the shielding can be said that buzz decreased significantly with the G303 on both pickups. However, due to the strong electromagnetic field induced by the touchscreen of the Nexus 5 a slight difference in decreasing notion can is recognized.
All in all the project is a success and I'm happy to hand the guitar over to my buddy. Also, I hope that this entry serves as a guide for guitar technicians or those aspiring to become knowledgeable with shielding a Tele or a guitar in general.
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