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Section 3
OK. I know you are going to get all shirty (yes shirty—it's a
quaint English thing) and whilst prodding me in the ribs say
'What has this got to do with my GT-3/5?'. Well, its has and
it hasn't. Let's face it, if your guitar is not set-up correctly
there is no way on this planet the GT-3/5 is going to make it
sound good—and that, after all is one of the aims of this
series. What we are going to do is give your guitar a quick
check-up and make sure that it won't inhibit you in your
playing. Anyway, please bear with me on this one—we will
be looking at your guitars electrics briefly as a precursor to
noise elimination. So...
Preliminary Electrical
Before we start let's do a quick check on the old
tone/volume pots and switches on your guitar. Plug into
your amp (using only the good cables determined above)
and turn the volume up full. Ignore any amp-generated
noise for the moment. Now without playing anything rotate
the volume pots one by one. Do each one backwards fully
and forwards fully a couple of times. If there is any sign of
noise—which will typically be a scratchy sound then the pot
needs attention. Once you have done the volume pots, leave
the volumes at full and then try the same with each of the
tone pots.
OK, same again this time with the pickup selector switch.
You will get some switching noise here but this should be
acceptably low. Give the switch a waggle around as well—
this showed up a dodgy switch on my Strat. My Jackson
was deathly silent.
Finally waggle the cable at the point where it goes into the
guitar. If this produces any noise attention is required.
If any faults need to be rectified I suggest either seeking out
the services of a professional luthier or buying a book on
guitar maintenance; recommendations are 'How to make
your electric guitar PLAY GREAT!' by Dan Erlewine and
Guitar Player Magazine's 'Guitar Player Repair Guide'
which is also by Dan Erlewine. Whatever you do, solve
them before continuing.
Strings I
Now let's check the simple stuff. You have changed your
stings in the last year right? Ah. Well, go do it now!! Old
strings that are fully stretched have lost a lot of tone
compared with new strings. The harmonic overtones that
are also produced have diminished. The sound will be dull
and your guitar will be harder to tune. Nothing will sound
good on old strings. Nuff said. One more thing though;
always wipe your strings after playing. This helps avoid a
build up of crud that attaches itself to your strings and helps
to corrode them!
© Copyright 2000-2002 Barry S. Pearce et al.
Guitar Set-up
Final Electrical
Actually, while you have the strings off – let's do a quick
electronics check. I take no credit for what comes next—
this is direct from the Jackson website:
Check the wiring in the control cavity and make
sure the pickup is wired correctly. No loose wires
or strange animals crawling around inside? If not
then it's time to check out the grounding system.
You'll need a multimeter to check for continuity
between each solder joint.
Check for any broken continuity between joints
and the cavity ground (ground wires that should
be connected to the body of the guitar) if all check
out be sure to look for the ground that leads to the
bridge and double check it out be sure. The
ground wire for the bridge should be secured to
the spring claw or the baseplate depending on the
model and type. This will ground the strings and
keep many outside interference from taking over
your guitar.
NOTE: Many active pickup systems such as those from
EMG recommend that the strings ARE NOT connected to
the cavity grounding, or the electronics. At ALL times make
sure your guitar adheres to recommendations such as these
from the manufacturers. These instructions are normally
issued for your safety.
Shielding
While you've got the strings off you may wish to shield the
cavities of your guitar. This may not be necessary in some
case but certainly won't hurt matters if you are experiencing
noise difficulties. After shielding three of my own guitars, I
have certainly noticed a complete removal of the noise you
get when you haven't got your pinkies on the strings (which
then disappears as soon as you touch them). I think this is
down to bad grounding, and certainly found that shielding
the guitar helped.
So what do you need and how do you do it?
Its actually quite simple...first be prepared to take
everything off your guitar...and I mean everything!
Buy some 25mm EMI/RF copper shielding foil. Its quite
expensive at 25 UKP for 25m (well I suppose its about the
same as guitar cables really...) but you can get about 4-5
guitars out of this depending on the type of the guitar—
strats with their large cover plates take a bit more maybe 5-
7m of the stuff. I got mine in the UK from RS Components
(http://rswww.com). In the US, Stewart MacDonald (http://
www.stewmac.com) sells a complete cavity shielding kit, as
well as shielding paint and other items. Incidentally, this is
the company that Dan Erlewine either runs or works for.
20
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