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JMJ Owners - Have you needed to shield your JMJ?


Jean-Luc Pickguard

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I have three JMJs but I have not shieded any of them with copper tape yet.

 

Has anyone done this on their JMJ? If so have you noticed a noise improvement? I Noticed a definite improvement when I did my Classic Vibe Mustang.

 

I have a gig tomorrow evening and I'm not sure whether I should be spending time in the morning practicing the songs or dismantling the JMJ I'm planning to play to apply some slug tape.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Jean-Luc Pickguard
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Need to? Probably not for live work. Did I? Yes (inveterate tinkerer syndrome/too much time on my hands). Was there a noticeable difference? Yes, again. Definitely less buzz. If being used in a noisy environment, when recording, this might possibly be the difference between using the JMJ or something else.

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I've shielded one of the blue ones and whereas yesterday I noticed it was picking up a bit of hum which went up and down in volume as I moved the bass, now it is dead quiet. I was trying to rush the job though and managed to scatter all twelve pickguard and control plate screws across the floor and under the sofa. I managed to find ten so this bass now has two slightly mismatched screws. Oh well.

 

I'll have to do the same (apart from the losing two screws bit) to the other blue JMJ and the black one or they'll never get taken out

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8 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

I was trying to rush the job though and managed to scatter all twelve pickguard and control plate screws across the floor and under the sofa. 

We have all been there. The struggle is real. 

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I recently shielded my JMJ and it made a massive difference, guess it’s not often you don’t have both hands on the strings, but on the odd occasion I did it was noisy as heck but now it’s silent !

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I did the gig last night with the newly shielded JMJ & it behaved immaculately. I still have plenty of the anti-slug tape left on the roll so I will do the shielding on other two JMJs over the next week. I already did the shielding on my competition Orange Classic Vibe mustang, but I don't think I ever did it on the vintage white CIJ — my first mustang, so I'll probably do that one as well.

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  • 6 months later...

Apologies if this is a stupid question… I’m looking at doing this on my Vintera Mustang, Is it just as simple as putting copper tape inside the cavities, or does it require soldering anything.

 

Looking at some YouTube videos, it appears to require soldering? 
 

Again, sorry if I’m missing something obvious.

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Posted (edited)

I never solder anything when I shield a bass and I've never had less than perfect results.

 

I ensure there is continuity of the tape, ie a strip of tape betwen the pickup cavity and the control cavity, the bits of tape overlap (the adhesive on most copper tape is conductive) and extend a tag to one of the control plate screw holes so it connects to the control plate — you can see these have been done in the pic I posted above.

 

One further tip, don't be tempted to get the wide tape thinking it'll mean less bits are needed. I've found that the 1" (25mm) wide tape works best, anything wider gets unmanagable and tries to stick to itself before you want it to.

Edited by Jean-Luc Pickguard
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Just now, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

I never solder anything when I shield a bass and I've never had less than perfect results.

 

I ensure there is continuity of the tape, ie a strip of tape betwen the pickup cavity and the control cavity, the bits of tape overlap (the adhesive on most copper tape is conductive) and extend a tag to one of the control plate screw holes so it connects to the control plate

I think some people solder the seams but i think most copper tape has conductive backing now so you dont really need to do that

 

 

Also on some pickups you would solder the ground to the shielding i think???

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11 minutes ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

I never solder anything when I shield a bass and I've never had less than perfect results.

 

I ensure there is continuity of the tape, ie a strip of tape betwen the pickup cavity and the control cavity, the bits of tape overlap (the adhesive on most copper tape is conductive) and extend a tag to one of the control plate screw holes so it connects to the control plate

 

9 minutes ago, lidl e said:

I think some people solder the seams but i think most copper tape has conductive backing now so you dont really need to do that

 

 

Also on some pickups you would solder the ground to the shielding i think???

Great stuff, thanks guys. 
 

Will give this a go when the next run of shows is done 🙏

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Silly question, never having owned a Mustang - I've never had to shield any of my basses with hum cancelling pickups. I was under the impression that the purpose of the split Mustang pickup was to cancel hum, same as on a P bass, is this not the case?

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Posted (edited)
On 04/11/2023 at 09:15, Lozz196 said:

Agree. From what I’ve read the intentions were to keep it as true to the original as possible but sometimes I think it’s better to deviate a bit.

 

It's maybe an off-topic, but I agree 100% with a lot of Fender reissues. I have a Vintera Mustang (not a JMJ, but I had to shield it) and I couldn't access the truss rod because in that era you had to take off the neck to adjust it. The same happen to my Classic 60s jazz. I mean, this a feature that wasn't ok back then and we could live with these reissues being improved. Both basses were taken to a luthier who made a hole to access the truss rod easily.

Edited by javi_bassist
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