...all this earthing stuff..

[Robert Smallwood]

Hi.
Being something of a slave to the written word I have painted all body cavities with conductive paint,(we're talking guitars here), ran wires from each cavity to a common point in the control cavity and connected all jack p/up bridge pot earths to this as well.

I have had no problems I must say, and that's good, but I was wondering, ...is it ALL necessary? I look in various production guitars & don't see anywhere near the same number of earth wires..and again there doesn't seem to be any problems.

And the wiring looks so neat & uncluttered.

So are the manufacturers being blase about the risks or am I going overboard?

[Mark Swanson]

When I first looked at this discussion, I thought it said "earthLing" stuff. I had to wonder what the heck this was about! Then I read it and I see...here on this side of the pond we call the "earth" part of a circuit the "ground".
All guitars need all of the grounds connected somehow, or else you'd get no sound. the factory ones usually connect the grounds in more efficient ways, and don't send each ground connection to its own central point independently. If you have a close look and see how they each handle grounding you'll get that right away.
Your style of grounding is called "star grounding" by some and some believe it to be a better way, some don't think there's much difference.

[Celeste Hall]

whether you went overboard or not depends on how electrically noisy your environment is and how much noise you can tolerate. Some people find commercial guitars unplayable in some environments because of their lack of shielding and poor grounding/earthing scheme.

If what you have done is well executed and is still not quite, the only improvement is to go full balanced and low impedance all the way to the amp.

[David Schwab]

I have had no problems I must say, and that's good, but I was wondering, ...is it ALL necessary? I look in various production guitars & don't see anywhere near the same number of earth wires..and again there doesn't seem to be any problems.

Production guitars often lack some details because they are trying to make them fast and get more profit.

Fender guitars are notoriously noisy, but then they have single coil pickups. But even some of their basses, like the Jaguar, which has shielding, is noisy because they failed to ground the shields and seem to do a half-hearted job of it. A lot of Fender don't even run ground wires from the pots to the jack because they are either sitting on foil or a metal control plate. That's a bad idea IMO. Mechanical connections can oxidize and get flaky.

So that could be good enough for you, or not.

I don't shield pickup cavities, but I also use fully shielded hum canceling pickups. I have a few I make that sound close enough to single coils, and are quiet.

Whether or not you need it depends on the types of environments you play in. I think we have all played in clubs that were noisy, and even my usually quiet basses made some noise. So from that standpoint, making it as quiet as you can will help in most situations.

[Chrysanthy Zhang]

All guitars need all of the grounds connected somehow, or else you'd get no sound. the factory ones usually connect the grounds in more efficient ways, and don't send each ground connection to its own central point independently. If you have a close look and see how they each handle grounding you'll get that right away.
Your style of grounding is called "star grounding" by some and some believe it to be a better way, some don't think there's much difference.

yeah i totally agree with you.

[Mark Swanson]

Hello chrysanthy, please know that the MIMForum requires full names first and last, so please let one of the Staff know and we'll change your name for you. Thanks.

[Chrysanthy Zhang]

sorry for that my full name is chrysanthy zhang

[Greg Robinson]

Thanks Chrysanthy, your registration has been updated.

[Veronica Merryfield]

I always star connect the earth/ground connections and connect the cavities. In many cases one can get away without the star or the cavity shielding, but it is more likely to bite you than if you take the extra steps.

Production wiring gives some of us work