Interesting problem in my Silo Special... some insight?

[B2D]

Hi guys. My otherwise completely well-behaved Silo Special has begun making noises... not the good musical kind either.

The guitar will produce static and random crackling constantly while being played. Rotating the pots does nothing to stop or start it, and when being used with distortion the rear pickup is microphonic as hell... high pitched uncontrollable squealing. The Silent circuit does not apear to be working as there's prominent 60 cycle hum in the sound, and changing batteries has no effect.

I reflowed all the susicious looking solder joints in the guitar... no effect. I've isolated the problem to the guitar, it's not my amp or cable, etc.

Any clues as to what could be going on? Any help would be appreciated.

[Sub1 Zero]

Get a hold of customer service, they'll point you in the right direction

[Jonny Dubai]

Yeh..What he said. CS should b your 1st port of call if you have a prob.


J

[candid_x]

rut roh..

1. Check your cable.

2. Call CS.

3. Buy a backup (if you don't already have one).

[Big Poppa]

I dont know how passive guitars can make noise but contact cs

[paranoid70]

From my experience "weird electronic problems" are often due to bad grounding. It might not be the guitar, it could be the grounding in your house. I get buzzing and hums all the time in my 70 year old inadquately wired home. Good luck.

[B2D]

rut roh..

1. Check your cable.

2. Call CS.

3. Buy a backup (if you don't already have one).

Ain't the cable, though that was one of the first things I checked. Good thing I have another Ball and a new Bogner to hold me over.

I dont know how passive guitars can make noise but contact cs

It's got the Silent Circuit... those use a battery so I assumed the SC is active. Am I mistaken?

From my experience "weird electronic problems" are often due to bad grounding. It might not be the guitar, it could be the grounding in your house. I get buzzing and hums all the time in my 70 year old inadquately wired home. Good luck.

Yeah I have a home with similarly bad wiring and ALL my equipment used to do that until I bought a Monster 2500 power conditioner, which has all but eliminated the problem. It is specifically this guitar that the noise is coming from... I'll check all the connections again and then call Customer Service. Thanks guys.

[Bengal]

I don't know if this is your problem but it's similar.

I had an older Fender Strat that would hold a static charge in the pickguard. Everytime you touched the pickguard it would pop and crackle. It wouldn't do that if you were not playing it, you had to touch the pickguard to make it pop like that. I got a new pickguard and the problem was solved.

Like I said, don't know if that's your problem. Doesn't really sound like it but I thought I'd offer it up.

[candid_x]

It's got the Silent Circuit... those use a battery so I assumed the SC is active. Am I mistaken?

Nope, the pickups are passive.

Have you checked the input jack wiring and contacts?

[B2D]

Nope, the pickups are passive.

Have you checked the input jack wiring and contacts?

I should have been more specific. I know the pickups are passive... but isn't the Silent Circuit an active system as it uses a battery?

The connections on the output jack look good, but it's one of those enclosed units and I can't see inside it... tried cleaning the contacts inside with some cleaner for the purpose but no dice.

[beej]

The Silent Circuit has an onboard buffer so it can isolate the electrical properties of the dummy coil inside of it from your pickups. But it doesn't make your signal active in any way. When the battery is removed it's essentially out of the circuit- like it's grounded. So with your battery out, any odd sounds you're getting aren't from the Silent Circuit.

Sounds like a grounding issue or intermittent connection somewhere along the line. I'm assuming it happens with both pickups so you've ruled out a bad one and you've tried it with different outputs, different amps, etc.

CS should totally be able to sort you out with this- it should be straight forward to troubleshoot.

[paranoid70]

Yeah I have a home with similarly bad wiring and ALL my equipment used to do that until I bought a Monster 2500 power conditioner, which has all but eliminated the problem. It is specifically this guitar that the noise is coming from... I'll check all the connections again and then call Customer Service. Thanks guys.

Hmmm, you may want to try the guitar and/or amp in another location with good grounding. I would hate for you to spend all the trouble "fixing" a guitar that may not be a problem. Maybe take the guitar to a music store and say you want to try out a new amplifier with it.

[sim]

You could possible have a fracture in the contact of your input jack, esspecially if it's well used. I've had this happen on an old git of mine years ago and it sounded like what you describe. Maybe a dodgey capacitor also?

[B2D]

Hi guys... It's been a while but I thought I'd pop in. Just an update... the problem went away as mysteriously as it came.

*shrugs*

Thanks for all the help though!

I've since put a Duncan Cool Rails in the neck and bridge of this guitar and moved the stock bridge pickup to the middle position... plus I changed the tone pot to a 500K and snipped the tone pot out of the circuit. It's kind of halfway between Stratty and like a good bright humbucker equipped axe and it's got the coolest 2 and 4 position tones I've ever heard.