[LAU] Shielded electrical wiring for studio (or not)

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:23:30 -0500, Chris Caudle wrote:
>On Wed, June 3, 2015 2:47 am, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>> Unless you shouldn't be Ri¢hie Ri¢h, you perhaps want to spend
>> time and money in something that might improve acoustic properties,
>> audio gear or music instruments. That is at least what I would do.
>
>Yes, and I guess I should say that the paper I linked is useful, but
>has to be taken in context.  If you are building a million dollar
>commercial studio that had to be highest quality of everything
>(pretending for a moment that someone would still do such a thing)
>your considerations would be different than for a personal project
>studio attached to your house.
>
>And while it may be nice to have the absolute lowest amount of power
>noise coupling into your vintage Fender pickups, it would be a lot
>cheaper to change to humbuckers.  That wouldn't be so bad, would
>it?  ;)
>
>The other good way to reduce power line coupling to single coil
>pickups is to move farther away from the power lines.  You just need
>to convince your spouse and banker that you really "need" an
>additional 50% floor space in your studio so you can have less hum in
>your Stratocaster.  :)
>

Customers who bought this single coil pickup also bought a Faraday
cage, a million dollar commercial studio, tealights and candles.​

My 80s Ibanez Single Coils aren't antennas for averaged household
mains. I've got no problems with electric light and plastic conduit.
Turn your back on monitors and power supplies when playing the single
coil guitar. Another "trick" for Strat like guitars is using a 5
position switch, an out of phase switch and a screwdriver to adjust the
highs of the pickups, to keep the single coil sound, by faking a
humbucker.

If you guess your single coil is a receiver for electric smog caused by
averaged household mains in plastic conduit or by the kind of used
lighting, I bet that something else is fishy, that can't be solved by
using metal conduit for the mains and candlelight. More likely a
cable's ground is broken, an effect unit or power supply has got a bad
design etc..

The body of a musician is a parabolic reflector or a wall, depending
on how you use your body. Provide low-resistance by connecting the
body to ground, e.g. by grounding the guitar strings and as already
pointed out, turn your back to unshildet sources. Most important still
is, that the gear isn't defect or bad designed.