How To Fix Your “Crackling” Guitar

Have you ever had a guitarist in your studio or on stage who’s guitar seems to “crackle” randomly? This can be very annoying when trying to get that pristine guitar track recorded and sometimes the problems can be quite difficult to track down. Most people know to check the guitar cord and all of the wiring in the guitar to make sure solder connections are good and that nothing is loose or worn looking. One of the lesser known causes of this problem can be from internal shielding (see WFTD archive “shield“) in a guitar. Some guitars have strips of copper shielding glued to the inside where all of the electronics are located. While it seems like a great idea initially, and probably does help shield against outside interference, as the guitar ages these strips can begin to come loose. The problem may not be visible at first, but if they start moving around at all while you are playing you can get a crackling type sound on the output. Solution: If possible just remove all of this shielding. If you play in an area with high levels of electromagnetic interference you may not be able to get away with it, but we’ve often found this shielding to be unnecessary and, as in cases like this, counterproductive.