This is how to successfully shield your entire NS Starfire I bass.

Happy Face

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So, why aren't they shielded better at the factory? It doesn't look like it would add a lot to the cost.
 

lungimsam

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Yeah, I wish they would.
Saves on labor/materials fees maybe?
I find that every bass I have purchased, by any manufacturer, were not shielded by factory.
At most, they put black shielding paint in cavities, or a strip of conductive tape along the pots on a pickguard, but they don't connect that to ground so serves no purpose anyway. It just becomes an antenna from what I am told.

My Starfire had that black shielding paint in the pup cavity from factory, but without being connected to ground, it does nothing to help.
And besides, one has to shield everything, not just one electronic area of a guitar to get it quiet. Pup and harness need to be encased in a copper shielding "container" of some type and then connected to ground to eliminate noise. Copper tape is cool because you are basically making a metal box (or sausage casing in this case) around all the electronics to shield them.
Solid bodies are way easier to shield.

I love my Starfire and this was well worth the effort.
 
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Happy Face

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Geez. Could it be that it adds $2 to the cost? It's not like 2 million of the units are being made.

Any of your remember when TV Cable modems came with a convenient "Reset" button? Now we have to fish around behind a box to try and find the power input or pull the until out to find it and pull it power line. Then push the plug back in. But the "reset button costs 17 cents per unit so forget it!
 

fronobulax

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So, why aren't they shielded better at the factory? It doesn't look like it would add a lot to the cost.

My solid bodies are factory shielded. I can imagine some difficulty shielding hollow or semi-hollow. I think lungimsam's technique might be the best way to do it, so there is just a question of whether that would be cost effective during manufacturing. There is also a question of how much of a problem it is. My 2013 NS is not noisy enough for me to even worry about it, but I am not using it for recording and if it is part of a signal chain bigger than my amp, it is the amp that is feeding the next link. So it may be that a large part of the market is not using the bass in a way where noise requires a solution.
 

mellowgerman

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Whoa, good work! I've played several Newark Street basses but never in a quiet environment or for recording, so I never noticed anything more than the expected single-coil 60cycle hum. I did own a NS SF-III 6 string guitar, but was never bothered by noise. Granted, the SF-III guitar has humbuckers. I also deal with the fact that our old house does not have the best wiring, so everything is a little noisy (actually the previous house I lived in had the same issue, so I've learned to just ignore it).
Slightly related, slightly veer, I recently picked up a late 1999 Epiphone Rivoli II bass, which I am quickly falling head over heels in love with. 20 years ago these were made in the Peerless factory in Korea, which is known for putting out some truly excellent instruments. This bass was no exception, other than the fact that the chrome cover on the big neck humbucker had to be attached to ground. I was already modifying the "baritone" circuit (which I found features an inductor underneath the neck pickup) so it was a quick and easy fix to run some wire from one of the big fat mounting screw holes to the ground. Problem solved, but again, a tiny feat compared to the deluxe electro-shield-sausage!
 

Nuuska

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Howdy

Great job with good results. Makes me wonder if there was some overkill. If anybody had two such basses and the time and energy and lunaticy required. . .

How about making one like lungimsam - and other with just pick-up-cavity seal connected to strings and ground - PLUS wires twisted.

I assume there might be some marginal difference.

But then - once you pull the guts out, the rest is no big deal either way.

My pondering is more on "academic level" - glad to hear that end result was satisfactory.
 

lungimsam

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I think just shielding and grounding the pup cavity will not stop the RF noise because the harness needs to also be shielded and grounded to stop the RF from getting into your signal. So both need to be done. The whole electrical pathway, and then to a single ground.

Now, you could shield the harness/control cavity alone and then install a humbucker with shielded lead wires and that would stop both the AC and the RF noise. You would not even need to shield the pup cavity because the humbucker and shielded leads would do that for you in themselves. That is how I did my Ricky. You can see the shielded pup leads and shielded cavity. So you could do this on a solidbody Guild, too. It would be really easy. Or just shield the pup cavity and keep whatever pup is in there.

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Nuuska

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Hello

Since there is a new thread staring about improving electric bass - ( same applies to electric guitar ) - I will bring out my favourite general noise-cancelling wiring, which is compatible with standard guitar/bass cords and does NOT affect the sound.

The idea is simple - because the pickups are naturally balanced - just change the output jack to stereo-jack - wire signal like it's always been done to tip - and ring instead of ground - but before doing this, the metal parts of pups, bridge, pot covers etc must be separated from signal - and then they get wired to ground contact of the output jack.

If you use regular guitar cord - everything works like always.

If you use balanced cord - the signal is separated but shielded from ground up to next input - be it stompbox or amp.

Balanced cord would be regular microphone cable with sleeve + TWO wires. On guitar end you would have stereo plug - in the other end mono plug. Tip connects to tip. Shield connects to sleeve on both ends. Third lead connects guitar-end ring to amp-end sleeve.

To understand this, if not electronically inclined - just see how vocal microphones are connected - balanced signal travels on two wires, that are surrounded by sleeve, that is connected to ground.


And the new thread I mentioned in first sentence is here:
 
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