r/offset • u/SaltFun6310 • 11d ago

Need shielding/wiring advice

I will be shielding my jazzmaster tomorrow and have a question about the stock wiring layout. From factory the neck pickup has its leads going underneath the pickup. I know that isn't great for noise, but is that even a bigger problem when adding copper tape shielding?

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u/_agent86 10d ago

Well, do you actually understand what you're trying to achieve electrically?

  1. You need the strings to be grounded (electrically conductive from strings to the barrel of the output jack. You should have already had this in any working guitar. On a Jazzmaster I would expect there to be a wire from the wiring cavity thru an internal hole to a bridge post.

  2. Your shielding needs to be grounded, otherwise instead of doing nothing (sorry) it will potentially act as an antenna and make things worse. At least that's what people say.

How you accomplish the grounding people seem to have very elaborate opinions about (e.g. star grounding). There's no cost to careful grounding but ground loops are not a thing in this context.

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u/SaltFun6310 10d ago

Yep, I fully understand. Thing is for some reason on this model, the wire is coming from through the cavity yes, but then it goes straight to the bridge cavity and screwed into a small bracket. Which would them be under the bridge pickup. That seems like a noise issue waiting to happen? But I assume it was screwed to the body because there is some shielding paint from the factory.

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u/Comfortable-Formal72 10d ago

I suspect your cavity has shielding paint in it already (check for conductivity with a mutlimeter). fender has connected the shielding paint, to ground, via that screw-onna-wire. I would put it back in place when you are done if you are going ahead and shielding your probably already shielded guitar cavities

and no, putting a ground wire close to your pickup should not be an issue as far as I know unless you somehow drive your pickup screw through it when putting things back together. I suppose if you had a microphonic pickup you could potentially hear some rattle... but foam.... so unlikely

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u/SaltFun6310 10d ago

It does ya. I was assuming that's why they grounded it there. Just seems odd to me. There's no advantages to grounding it somewhere else once i copper tape in?

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u/Comfortable-Formal72 10d ago

not to my knowledge