• Ernie Ball
  • MusicMan
  • Sterling by MusicMan

rumpel

Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2024
Messages
5
Location
Berlin
Hi everyone, i'm a luthier currently restoring a customers Silhouette HSH. It's been rewired with a couple different pickups over time and the customer wants it put back to it's original state with the original pickups he still has. I'm not familliar with this guitar and it's switching so was wondering if anyone has a wiring diagram for this ?
 

Iperfungus

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 2, 2023
Messages
271
Location
Italy
Hi there!
I've a 2007 HSH Silhouette and its wiring is pretty standard.
There's a common Strat-like 5-ways pickups switch selector (no SuperSwitch or MegaSwitch here!), 1 volume, 1 tone.
On positions 2 (bridge+middle) and 4 (middle+neck) of pickups switch the autosplit is enabled.
Original pickups were bridge and neck DiMarzio Virtual PAF humbuckers and a custom DiMarzio Single Coil in middle position.
I swapped bridge humbucker with a DiMarzio Superdistortion: same colors, same wiring. No issues.
If you start from pickups combinations that you can find here:


it shouldn't be too difficult to wire the guitar's circuit as per original specs.

body-14.jpg
 
Last edited:

rumpel

Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2024
Messages
5
Location
Berlin
Ok, but let us know how it's going and SHOW THE GUITAR!!! :ROFLMAO:
hey yeah of course that was rude of me :giggle:

so we changed strategy a bit after putting in the original pups, i personally didn't like the sound of these pups so much. And the Mama supernatural pups that also had been in there once sounded really bad in this guitar (in general i'm not a fan of Alnico5 high ouput buckers and the client doesn't play any high gain stuff). So after comparing them to different bareknuckles i have in some of my guitars we decided to put in some Mules and a RWRP Mother's Milk for a more tame vintage sound. I had an HSH set in aged cream which really looks nice with the naturally aged pickguard of the guitar. Then had to rewire it a couple of times since i forgot that Dimarzio uses different wire colors. Then had to open it up once again to reverse the wires of the single coil since position 2&4 were out of phase. Locking tuners came in really handy hereand had me cursing my stupidity a bit less than usual :ROFLMAO:

Used a 0.022µF Jupiter Mineral Oil capacitor and i also put in 550k pots with a 470kOhm resistor soldered between the single coil and ground to reduce the resistance of the volume pot for the single coil. The client uses mainly the humbuckers and inbetween positions so i felt that 250k pots like in the original wiring would be counterproductive.

And gave the baby a good cleaning of course except for the sadddles which look quite nice with their natural patina.

and now all positions sound absolutely fantastic, night & day to the originals.

BTW: what a beautiful guitar. As a guitar builder/designer i always had great respect for Musicman since they have their own design language and don't copy other peoples guitars. When working on the Silhouette i really fell in love with the shape, intelligent design choices and awesome craftsmanship of this baby. Here she is:

. silhouette_whole.jpg
silhouette_pickguard.jpg

bare.jpg
 
Last edited:

Iperfungus

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 2, 2023
Messages
271
Location
Italy
hey yeah of course that was rude of me :giggle:

so we changed strategy a bit after putting in the original pups, i personally didn't like the sound of these pups so much. And the Mama supernatural pups that also had been in there once sounded really bad in this guitar (in general i'm not a fan of Alnico5 high ouput buckers and the client doesn't play any high gain stuff). So after comparing them to different bareknuckles i have in some of my guitars we decided to put in some Mules and a RWRP Mother's Milk for a more tame vintage sound. I had an HSH set in aged cream which really looks nice with the naturally aged pickguard of the guitar. Then had to rewire it a couple of times since i forgot that Dimarzio uses different wire colors. Then had to open it up once again to reverse the wires of the single coil since position 2&4 were out of phase. Locking tuners came in really handy hereand had me cursing my stupidity a bit less than usual :ROFLMAO:

Used a 0.022µF Jupiter Mineral Oil capacitor and i also put in 550k pots with a 470kOhm resistor soldered between the single coil and ground to reduce the resistance of the volume pot for the single coil. The client uses mainly the humbuckers and inbetween positions so i felt that 250k pots like in the original wiring would be counterproductive.

And gave the baby a good cleaning of course except for the sadddles which look quite nice with their natural patina.

and now all positions sound absolutely fantastic, night & day to the originals.

BTW: what a beautiful guitar. As a guitar builder/designer i always had great respect for Musicman since they have their own design language and don't copy other peoples guitars. When working on the Silhouette i really fell in love with the shape, intelligent design choices and awesome craftsmanship of this baby. Here she is:

. View attachment 44171
View attachment 44172

View attachment 44173
Awesome guitar and great work there!!
I know MAMA pickups (italian product) and I use them on some of my guitars.
They speak their own language and I agree about the fact that they are not a perfect match for every guitar.
Happy that you made the job and that the result is perfect!
MusicMan builds great instruments, the Silho being one of their best.
I love mine as hell!
 
Top Bottom