Bypassing Cutlass Silent Circuit

[tekbow]

Hi Guys, been a member her for a while, but not much of a poster.

Axis owner, earlyish 98 model, one of my favourite guitars and recently rediscovered it as i hadn't played much in a bunch of years.

So, having recently come across the Cutlass, I'm blown away by how it sounds and excited in a way i haven't been about a guitar since i was a teenager. keep in mind i'm a strat guy and up until recently i was one of the guys who thought there was no point in buying anything but a strat (in my case MIJ) as all the attempts "update" them, made them stop being stratty. The cutlass has changed my mind and I have serious GAS.

But this new silent circuit/buffer.

Can it be bypassed? a tech friend of mine says that dependent on a few things, it shouldn't be an issue to install a push/push or push/pull to eliminate it from the circuit so that you have a bog standard passive single coil setup.

so keeping this in mind:

Are the Pickups themselves passive?
Is 5 way switch discrete and not directly attached to any boards?
Is there any chance of a gut shot (i've told him this is unlikely as it's prob proprietary).

Why do i ask? i use a lot of fuzz, including germanium which a buffer will prob not play well with. Its pretty much a deal breaker for me if i cant use the guitar with old school germanium fuzz such as fuzzfaces and tonebenders.

 

[beej]

I'm not an expert, but I believe the pickups are passive, into the buffer circuit. The Silent Circuit implementation is also separate, that doesn't affect the output impedance, so wouldn't affect a buffer.

I'm sure you can re-wire it to bypass the electronics, but you're probably going to have to just get in there and give it a go. I can't imagine it's all that difficult,but I haven't heard of anyone doing it yet.

Good luck.

 

[xjbebop]

""Why do i ask? i use a lot of fuzz, including germanium which a buffer will prob not play well with""

Have you actually tried this?? You might be worrying about nothing....

 

[tekbow]

beej, thanks man, that's interesting i thought they were integrated into each other. So it may be possible to switch just the buffer in and out of the circuit.

I've realised my title was a little misleading, I'm referring to the buffer rather than the silent circuit, but as i said, i thought they were an integrated unit.

xjbebop.

you may be right, and if it is nothing to worry about then no problem, but i don't think theres any harm in gathering as much info as i can beforehand. also there's none of these in stock near me at the moment.

Also, vintage style Germanium Fuzzfaces basically always have problems with buffers (unless its the switchable kind integrated into some wahs). The germanium pedals i have are vintage germanium style FF's. Basically direct clones.

Tonebenders aren't quite as problematic, but can be.