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Shielding Kit for Electric Guitar and Bass - Paint and Accessories ONLY

Please beware of inferior products copying our part numbers and listing titles! Our paint has a typical resistance of 8 ohms/sq, with excellent adhesion to most materials.

Reduces mains hum, buzz from lighting dimmers, radio interference and static clicks.
Especially effective on guitars with single-coil pickups. Search "guitar shielding kit demo" on youtube for an audio demo.
Kit contents: 30ml specially formulated conductive paint, accessory pack and step-by-step photo instructions. This kit DOES NOT CONTAIN A SHEET OF FOIL - if you have a plastic pickguard or control covers please see our other items for a kit which includes enough copper foil to shield these.
Accessory pack includes paintbrush, stirer, cleaning wipes, foil strip for ground connection, insulation strip and wiring connector.
Easy to fit - you will need only a few basic tools like screwdrivers, scissors etc. No special skills are needed, no soldering is necessary.

A complete DIY kit that will significantly reduce hum and noise from most electric guitars and basses, especially if fitted with single-coil pickups. Even guitars with humbucking pickups have unshielded wiring, pots and switches, and will benefit from this kit. The outward appearance of the guitar is unchanged. See the end of the listing for some background info on how this works, and why you might need it, regardless of how much you spent on your guitar......

Kit Contents:

        specially formulated shielding paint - 30ml for pickup and control cavities - special additives reduce the resistance of the painted surface to just 8 ohms/sq, for effective audio frequency screening. Many shielding paints are designed only to combat radio frequency interference (mobile phones etc.) and aren't very effective at audio frequencies.
        insulation strip - for the jackplate cavity - on many guitars there's not much distance between the hot connection on the output jack and the guitar body; the insulation strip ensures that the jack doesn't short to the conductive paint coating and mute the signal
        accessories - paintbrush, stirrer, and alcohol cleaning wipes - the only extras you need to provide are basic tools like screwdrivers, scissors etc.
        terminal block - for reconnecting the wiring to the output jack without the need for soldering, although you can solder if you wish
        foil strip - used to connect the conductive paint layer to the ground connection on the guitar
        step-by-step instructions - four pages with colour photos.
        email support - contact us as often as you need for help and advice

The components of the kit are all available seperately in our other listings.

How It Works

You probably spent more than the price of this kit on a decent cable to plug your guitar or bass into your amp. That cable will have a heavy copper shield to prevent the central "hot" wire (that carries the guitar signal) from picking up noise in the form of hum, buzz and radio transmissions etc. Unfortunately, it's very likely that on the inside of the the guitar the hot wire, pickups and controls will be completely unshielded. This kit enables you to continue the screening effect of the cable inside the guitar, greatly reducing the background noise - especially on guitars fitted with single coil pickups.

This is achieved by coating the pickup and control cavities with a specially formulated conductive paint, and covering the underside of the pickguard or control cover with self-adhesive copper foil. These are both connected to the cable screen. This has the effect of enclosing all of the guitar’s electronics in a conductive box which is connected to ground. Any noise that would previously have been picked up and amplified along with the guitar signal is now mostly shunted to ground, giving a much cleaner signal.

In a live situation, buzzes from lighting dimmers are greatly reduced. In the studio, the improved signal to noise ratio makes everything easier— you'll spend less time walking around the room or spinning on a chair trying to find the sweet-spot where the noise nulls out. And the guitar just sounds better - low level harmonics that were previously buried in the mains hum and noise are now audible, making the overall sound richer and more dynamic.

Don't assume that expensive guitars will be shielded properly - many mainstream manufacturers do little or nothing to shield their guitars regardless of price. The screening on some £1000+ guitars really is almost non-existent, and you can probably guess which manufacturer is the worst off-ender ;-)

The Test

The recording (search youtube for "catmusic99 guitar shielding kit demo") and the graph in the last image of this listing are the results of a test to measure the effect of applying the shielding kit to a stock famous three-single-coil-pickups guitar. For a £750 guitar, the level of screening fitted as standard is very poor indeed - just a small piece of aluminium foil stuck to the pickguard around the the controls - virtually useless.

The guitar was set on a stand 1m from a 1980's valve combo. All of the controls on the guitar were set to maximum, with the pickup selector set to the mid position. The amp controls were all set to "flat", with the volume at minimum. To simulate stage conditions, some thyristor dimmer controlled lighting (the type used in stage lighting rigs) was switched on and set to 50% dim (the noisiest setting) 2m from the guitar.

The guitar amp was then switched on and the volume increased to a typical playing level. A recording of the background noise was made, and a 3D plot of this recording can be seen in the "mountain range" on the far side of the graph. The yellow peak to the left is 50Hz mains hum, and the following green peaks are harmonics of this. The blue peak is the buzz and associated harmonics from the dimmer.
The guitar was then removed, and everything else was left exactly as it was, including mic position, pre-amp settings etc.. The screening kit was applied to the guitar, and it was put back in the stand. The amp was switched on again and another recording of the noise was made. This can be seen on the near side of the graph (separated from the first recording by a short silence, which appears flat).As you can see, the noise at all frequencies is considerably reduced, especially the really annoying buzz from the lighting dimmer. Some mains hum remains. This is unavoidable with single coil pickups. The only way to reduce it further is by shielding the pickup covers, but most people would find this unacceptable as it will change the sound of the guitar - some of the top-end clarity and attack will be lost. (This is why you often see the front pickup cover removed). And the hiss? Well, hiss is usually due to the electronics in the signal chain, not interference. In this case the hiss is my 30 year old valve combo. Sounds great when you actually play something though .....