Has anyone here tried the Y-Shield conductive paint?

[Steve A.]

Has anyone here tried shielding their guitar or their music room with the Y-Shield RF Shielding Paint? I ran across this looking for a less expensive alternative to the conductive paint at Stew-Mac for shielding guitars. However this is intended for shielding rooms and preventing wifi signals from getting out. But I wonder if it will on guitars...

Y-Shield RF Shielding Paint (1 liter size) $89.95 + $14.50 shipping

High Frequency Indoor Shielding Paint

Easy to apply water-based paint for walls, ceilings, doors and other interior surfaces. Very effective for blocking cell phone signals, CB, TV, AM, FM signals, radio frequency radiation and microwaves. Tested highly effective up to 18 GHz!

Guarantee absolutely free of toxic solvents and additives and completely carbon-based to avoid corrosion or oxidizing metal particles over time.

Easy to handle - brush, roll, or spray similar to ordinary wall paint - and still achieve an amazing reduction of 99,99% of HF-Radiation with only one layer. Dries quickly. Water clean-up.

Due to its holohedral carbon structure, without fibers or meshes, it offers consistent attenuation regardless of the direction of signal polarization, and a highly conductive surface. As a bonus, carbon is a good RF absorber. About 10% of Y-Shield shielding effectiveness is due to absorption. This helps reduce reflections and minimizes the risk from RF sources trapped inside the shielded area.

Supplied as a frost resistant liquid. Long shelf life. Safe for air or ground shipping any time of year.

> Cover with latex paint, wallpaper, etc. to achieve desired aesthetics
> Color: black; RoHS Compliant
> Attenuation: typical 40 dB per layer; ~10 Ohm per sq
> Minimum application temperature: +1°C / 33.8°F
> Typical coverage: 50-100 ft² (~ 5-10 m²) per liter
> Shelf Life: 15 months, unopened
> Good water/humidity resistance

Requires grounding like any other RF shielding material. Interior or exterior application. Appropriate for home, industry, research, and educational applications. Can be overcoated with high hiding latex paint of any color.

Amazon.com: Y-Shield RF Shielding Paint (1 liter size): Arts, Crafts & Sewing


Steve Ahola

P.S. In my quest to reduce all of the single coil garbage I pick up at my house I ordered an isolation transformer from Newark Electronics awhile back which is supposed to reduce the crap from the house wiring but I haven't tried it out yet. It comes in a metal enclosure with an IEC receptacle for the incoming voltage but 1/4" quick connect terminals for the output. Now that I mentioned here I need to get my ass in gear and do it.

[soundguruman]

What you need is a humbucking pickup.
It's not worth the effort to try to "cure" all the problems that come with a single coil PU.
You can shield with paint, foil, etc...etc... and it barely improves at all.
Knock yourself out, but I told you so.
Spend $80 on a pickup and save yourself $500 worth of useless effort.

[big_teee]

There will always be the die-hard single coil players.
I play mini blades in my strats.
You can get some real decent tones with low wound buckers, and a little less gauss of the magnets.
The Blades are real quiet.
I would think the shielded paint would help, it couldn't hurt!
Good Luck,
T

[soundguruman]

There is NO magic cure for a single coil PU.
Even though people who sell you stick-on foil and shielding paint want you to think so.
It's all a bunch of wooly bully. I don't care how much you spend, you are just wasting your money.

[Steve Conner]

Correct. Guitar pickups pick up hum by two mechanisms: capacitive and inductive (magnetic) coupling. The shielding paint and foil only helps with the capacitive coupling. If you shielded a single coil pickup against inductive coupling, it would also kill the wanted signal from the strings.

To get rid of inductively coupled hum, you need to cancel it out with a bucking coil, either as part of a humbucking pickup or one of the dummy coil systems. Or just put up with it, it's vintage correct

[soundguruman]

Correct. Guitar pickups pick up hum by two mechanisms: capacitive and inductive (magnetic) coupling. The shielding paint and foil only helps with the capacitive coupling. If you shielded a single coil pickup against inductive coupling, it would also kill the wanted signal from the strings.

To get rid of inductively coupled hum, you need to cancel it out with a bucking coil, either as part of a humbucking pickup or one of the dummy coil systems. Or just put up with it, it's vintage correct

See, even smart people agree.
When you put this foil or paint on, all it does is kill the high frequencies. (adds capacitance to the audio path)
It might "seem" like there is less hum, but not really so. All it does is EQ the hum, like a tone control set to "0."
I reached this conclusion about 30 years ago, after exhaustive experiments and trials with guitar pick ups.
So I still laugh when people put foil and paint in the guitar, and when I see people paying $$$ to have it installed.
(cause it's useless, snake oil, come on, you know it's true)
A single coil might work great with a low gain amplifier. But for rock and roll, all bets are off.

[Steve A.]

What you need is a humbucking pickup.
It's not worth the effort to try to "cure" all the problems that come with a single coil PU.
You can shield with paint, foil, etc...etc... and it barely improves at all.
Knock yourself out, but I told you so.
Spend $80 on a pickup and save yourself $500 worth of useless effort.

Did I say anything about single coil pickups? My condo gets all sorts of RF noise which is picked up by my guitars with humbuckers unless I shield the control cavities.

Steve Ahola

[Steve A.]

When you put this foil or paint on, all it does is kill the high frequencies. (adds capacitance to the audio path)
It might "seem" like there is less hum, but not really so. All it does is EQ the hum, like a tone control set to "0."
I reached this conclusion about 30 years ago, after exhaustive experiments and trials with guitar pick ups.
So I still laugh when people put foil and paint in the guitar, and when I see people paying $$$ to have it installed.
(cause it's useless, snake oil, come on, you know it's true)

The capacitive coupling mentioned by Steve Conner has absolutely nothing to do with the capacitance in a treble-cut tone control circuit. I will agree that wrapping a single coil pickup with copper foil tape can act like a capacitor that cuts the treble to some extent but shielding a control compartment has absolutely no effect on the tone other than removing some of the extraneous RF "hiss" noise.

There have been many advances in noise reduction over the past 30 years. One in particular is the Chiliachki patent which has introduced a new paradigm in dummy coils. By using a wide area dummy coil with low impedance most of the single coil noise (the inductive or magnetic "hum" noise mentioned by Steve Conner) is eliminated with virtually no effect on the tone. Suhr and Ilitch have marketed their own interpretations of that patent.

A single coil might work great with a low gain amplifier. But for rock and roll, all bets are off.

Tell that to Jimi Hendrix.

Steve Ahola

[Steve Conner]

Tell that to Jimi Hendrix.

Any time Hendrix picked up a guitar, all bets were off anyway.

Electrostatic shielding sounds like it "turns down the tone" on the hum because capacitively coupled noise has a very trebly character to it. The capacitive coupling emphasises the high frequencies, because capacitors pass high frequencies easier than low ones.

So when you get rid of it, what's left sounds duller.

[soundguruman]

Did I say anything about single coil pickups? My condo gets all sorts of RF noise which is picked up by my guitars with humbuckers unless I shield the control cavities.

Steve Ahola

I just love to tell people that single coils are non curable, that's all.

Any transformer, in the vicinity of the guitar, produces a 60 cycle field which will inductively couple to the PU.
This includes the power transformer in the guitar amp. AND fluorescent light ballast transformers.
So what you really need is to block that field from reaching the guitar.
Adding an isolation transformer to the power 'may' just make it worse. You will add another field to deal with...
Normally if the amp and transformer cases are properly grounded, much of this 60 cycle field is blocked.
When you say RF, are you picking up Radio??? RF is radio frequency.
So try to narrow it down to what it actually is.

The first thing I would suspect is that there is something wrong with your grounding.
You can buy a little outlet tester at the hardware store, to see if you really have a ground to start with.
ELECTRICAL RECEPTACLE TESTER AC OUTLET PLUG 3 PRONG GND - Amazon.com
Is the ground actually connected to the outlet? Is the casing of the fluorescent lights REALLY grounded?
Is the hot and neutral reversed? etc...etc...

If you have humbuckers already, and you are still getting a lot of noise, there is something goofy.
Normally, you should not need to add a bunch of shielding to get an acceptable noise level.

I am sitting in the kitchen with my Fender amp.
I am playing an epiphone guitar, with $1.98 humbucking pickups.
There are fluorescent lights, galore.
AND I am not getting any appreciable amount of buzz or noise.
And so, I strongly suspect you have:
1. A defective fluorescent lighting transformer ballast, corroded connections on the lamp pins.
2. Loose or oxidized electrical connections in your house wiring, or aluminum wiring.
3. No ground at all.
4. Another unknown defect in the electrical system.

Instead of trying to compensate by shielding the guitar, try to find out what the real source of noise IS, first.

[soundguruman]

Any time Hendrix picked up a guitar, all bets were off anyway.

Electrostatic shielding sounds like it "turns down the tone" on the hum because capacitively coupled noise has a very trebly character to it. The capacitive coupling emphasises the high frequencies, because capacitors pass high frequencies easier than low ones.

So when you get rid of it, what's left sounds duller.

Hendrix Guitar did buzz like a chainsaw, you can hear it on all of his recordings. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
And he was a single coil guy for sure.

[JoeM]

Oh, so you just listen to the buzz? Must have really ruined it for him!

[soundguruman]

I hear any buzz, any noise, any out of tune instrument......
I was cursed with audiophile ears. I can tune a piano by ear only.
Those guitar tuners you guys use drive me nuts, because they are 5% off key.
Be thankful you don't hear what I hear.

[Steve A.]

Hendrix Guitar did buzz like a chainsaw, you can hear it on all of his recordings. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
And he was a single coil guy for sure.

I was tripping out listening to one of his live recordings thinking that the single coil noise added to the total effect of his sound- it just would not have sounded as good if the single coil noise wasn't there.

Steve

[Steve A.]

Instead of trying to compensate by shielding the guitar, try to find out what the real source of noise IS, first.

I thought I already mentioned this earlier in this thread but I live across the street from a big transformer from the electric company so that contributes to some of the noise. I had removed all of the dimmers from my condo a long time ago (I worked as an electrician for many years so I have checked that my outlets are all properly grounded. To add insult to injury the next door neighbor moved his TV cable outlet from the garage side of his condo to the wall right next to my music room. When his 42" LCD TV is on I get the capacitive noise that Steve Conner mentioned, which in part appears to be RF (radio frequency.) "So how can you hear radio frequencies?" The interaction between two frequencies in the audio or radio realms can result in signals which are the sum of the two frequencies and in signals which are the difference between two frequencies.

If shielding is without merit why do so many guitar mfgs shield the control and pickup cavities of their guitars? Why did Gibson go to the trouble of enclosing the controls of many Les Pauls in a metal can? IMO it really makes a difference if you are playing in one of those BARS FROM HELL with almost as many cheap dimmers as light fixtures- even worse if someone gave them the bright idea of running Christmas lights connected to dimmers throughout the bar for "atmosphere."

You have made a valid point: shielding will do nothing to remove inductively-coupled hum from single coil pickups.

Steve Ahola

EDIT In looking for a room that would be better for my guitars I have used a battery-powered amp to test the noise levels in different rooms of my condo with both humbuckers and sc pickups, thus eliminating any crap coming into an amp from the AC line as well as increasing the distance from my neighbor's TV. I am in the process of moving to a room which is less noisy.