Nugget from Anderton

[Satch12879]

Hey Everybody,

I was reminded of something I read in one of CA's books.  In a section on rewiring guitars, he mentioned that in lieu of grounding directly to the bridge or tremolo spring plate on a guitar or bass, either Dan Armstrong or Mike Matthews suggested placing a capacitor in place of that ground connection.  I can't quite remember the specifics of the suggestion just that it got me intrigued.  Could anyone give me any insights into this and what it would accomplish? My only guesses involve decoupling and/or filtering, but on a ground line?

[R.G.]

It keeps you from dying if the amp your guitar is connected to has an AC leakage problem.

The reason that the bridge/strings are grounded is that it lessens RF pickup and spiky flourescent light hum/buzz. It also hard-wires you to the signal ground of your amp. If that amp leaks some AC into signal ground, you can get shocked or die if you are holding a guitar and mouth a microphone, for instance.

The capacitor is a short circuit at RF, so the RF buzz problem stays fixed, and it's an open at 60Hz so you don't die.

[lethargytartare]

See

http://www.guitarnuts.com/index.php

He has a nice heap of info on this issue, grounding, and a nicely guided mod to implement a shock prevention setup in your guitar.

ltt

[Satch12879]

Yes exactly! That was the other part of the bit of info from the book.  Anderton was saying some players liked to float that connection but he stressed not having it could be lethal.  I'm pretty sure it was from the earlier book (70s) and getting shocked as you were describing was a definite occurance back then.  Hell, it can still happen now in the right situation...

Say R.G., is it a beneficial mod in your opinion?

[jayp5150]

A friend of mine had this happen to him about 8 years ago.  He was playing bass, stepped up to the mic and got bit.  It put a huge welt across his thumb (where it was resting on the top string), and he was a bit "cloudy" for 2 days.

I'm pretty sure this was old equipment, though.

[oczad]

Or if you use a wireless you don't have to worry about it.

actually, the only time i ever touch the strings and any other part of the circuit including house wiring would be as was mentioned already......the mic. And since the only time i'm using a mic is onstage where i exclusivly use a wireless, i've never been shocked. (tho i sure did a few times B4 i used wireless !)