A question for those of you with a Silhouette Special!

[flybeereligion]

Hey guys, I'm primarily a bass player though I've always found guitar to be great fun on the couch at home and jamming with old college buddies (doesn't quite cut it next to the raw power of an SVT in a live situation though ) and I'm ready for an upgrade! Right now I've still got my old pre-Fender Jackson Flying V which I've had since I was 17 (and stuck a DiMarzio D Sonic in) and it just really doesn't suit me any more. Not only is it not very comfy on the couch but the range of tones doesn't cut it either. I really, really had my heart set on a Les Paul Traditional, but after playing a couple I always felt like I was battling with them. It was then that I discovered a tobaccoburst Silhouette Special with a string through body, maple neck and HSS pup configuration. Honestly, at first the look turned me off a bit, but as soon as I was playing it I knew that it was something special. This thing just felt RIGHT! What I want to know from you guys is, will it pull off everything I want out of it? As it would be my only electric guitar it really needs to tick a lot of boxes, and I want to play everything from SRV tunes to heavy thrash and death metal (NOT EMG modern metal). Could this guitar pull this off or am I asking too much of it? I figure this forum is probably the best place to ask!

Thanks!!

 

[DrKev]

Welcome aboard!

It's a wonderful guitar, very versatile, with it's own unique sound and vibe. The single coils will happily get you into hendrixy-SRV territory. The humbucker is a DiMarzio Virtual PAF for a classic rock vibe. It's a beautiful pickup clean, just sings with distortion, and it will handle some very heavy tones with out any difficulty (though it's not a high output modern rock humbucker).

The 5-way selector is mostly what you would expect with one exception - the middle (no. 3) position. Rather than the traditional middle pickup on it's own, it's one coil of the bridge pickup in parallel with the neck pickup and gives a sound part way between a standard strat middle pickup and the middle position of a telecaster. Back off the tone knob a little and it reminds me of the middle position of an LP or SG. Cool, funky tone!

Checkout this thread for Elmer Ferrer's little demo of the basic cleans sounds. You'll find plenty of other demos and youtube clips out there.

http://forums.ernieball.com/music-m...talks-about-how-he-found-silhouette-spec.html

Looking forward to your "new guitar day" post!

 

[guitarp77]

It is an awesome axe.

All you hear about it is praise...

Go and get it! It is a winner!

 

[ScoobySteve]

SRV to thrash is a tall order for any single guitar to fill. The HSS can be configured to do but you'll deal with a couple of issues. First is volume loss. That is if you're going to use different pick up combinations within the same
Performance. SRV is my favorite player ever and my Silo Spec does it really well. I can sen you some clips of my Silo Spec getting really awesome single cool tones on the stock pups that get tons of flak for some strange reason. I mainly only play pos 2,4, and 5. Position 2 will be tricky with an HSS and it won't sound the same since you have the bucker there.

A couple of forum members have dropped Crunch labs (a very high output bucker) in the bridge and went wth some more modern voiced singles in the neck and mid. But that vintage stratty tone is gonna come from low output singles pushing tubes hard.

The Andy Timmons dimarzio set up on a Silo Spec sounds like an excellent match for an HsS silo spec. The AT-1 is an exceptional him bucker and dDimarzio makes excellent "stacked coils" to eliminate hum, higher output and still retain single coil goodness. Good luck man, I love my silo spec.

 

[Rufedges]

Silo Special is an awesome and versatile guitar,....my new favorite axe, in fact, I am actually going to put vintage saddles on my Axis Supersport in an attempt to be able to replicate hopefully some of the single coil goodness..........

SRV to thrash is a tall order for any guitar. One of the biggest tone thing with SRV is not just single coils but really heavy strings, like he played 13s, ...9-42s will not cut it.

Personally, I changed the pickups out on mine, (HSS) and now the Silo is my #1.......before that, not so much. I love the Silo Special so much, I almost cancelled payment and delivery of an Axis Supersport PDN model, and if the saddle swap on myAxis SS doesn't get me closer to strat territory, I will probably sell the PDN and get another Silo Special. Very versatile,.........I really want a Silo Special, SSS, and I will pick a DiMarzio Area 58 in the neck and middle, and a DiMarzio Area 61 in the bridge (Lincoln Brewster). I've got an Area 58 in the neck right now, sounds great.

 

[RocketRalf]

In one word: YES.

In a few: If you have a rig with enough gain (either a multi channel amp or some pedals), then yes it will do all that. However if you gravitate more towards humbuckers on to the heavy side of things I would recommend the 24 fret HSH Silhouette instead. The neck pickup will do from jazz to shred and you still have some very nice stratty tones in the middle positions.

 

[flybeereligion]

Ha, the amp thing is interesting as I actually don't have a guitar amp right now, I'm just running a SansAmp GT2 into a Mackie HD box. I had a JCM2000 a few years ago but sold it to put money toward my SVT and because I wasn't really using it much, might look into getting a nice little Orange or something down the line a bit if I'm playing a bit more guitar though. More than happy to use pedals to make up any gain the pick-up lacks, I already have a Pork Loin that I dig for blues stuff and might get a TC Rottwheiler (sp?) or Radial Texas Bones for high gain. It's just having the ability to play whatever I want to that I'm after! Volume loss/gain isn't really an issue between songs as we're just talking jamming with friends here. I could also easily just throw my D Sonic in it, but honestly, I think I'd rather not. That pick up always felt a little sterile to me. It does sound like the Silo Spec may be one of the better examples of a versatile guitar though and, as I said in my first post, it was just magic to play so I may have to pull the trigger on this one!

 

[RocketRalf]

Well it sounds like you know what you are talking about as you answered your own question! Make sure to post pics!

 

[whitestrat]

will it pull off everything I want out of it? As it would be my only electric guitar it really needs to tick a lot of boxes, and I want to play everything from SRV tunes to heavy thrash and death metal (NOT EMG modern metal).

Yes. Look no further.

 

[Tubes4Tone]

To answer your question....Yes ! I have owned 3 Petruccis, a 25th Anniversary, 2 Axis Sports, 1 Silhouette, a Steve Morse Standard Blue, and a Y2D BFR Roasted Black Sugar. They were very nice indeed.

I now have 2 Silhouette Specials that I bought used. That's it...... They do everything I want