Question New Cutlass. Noisy pickups.

[Samhain]

I just got my new Cutlass, love the feel and play. But I’ve noticed that the pups are quite noisy, and the noise isn’t affected by my hush pedal. Same hum whether pedal is on or not.
I’ve been trying to research things and I saw someone somewhere say that the silent circuit is adjustable?
Yes, I put a brand new fresh battery in it and it hasn’t changed at all.

 

[DrKev]

Question: if this is a silent ciruit issue it should only be a problem in position 2, 4, and 5 (i.e. bridge/middle, middle only, and neck only). The noise should also change in volume when you point the guitar in different directions. If that is the case, yes adjusting the silent circuit should help. If not, contact your dealer and EBMM Customer Service.

Battery won't make a difference - remember the output is buffered (i.e. a unity gain preamp), which means if you have output, you're battery is fine.

The silent circuit is adjusted by two little tiny trim pots on the circuit board under the pickguard, labelled TPA and TPB, one for the neck pickup and one for the middle pickup. You'll need a tiny precision screwdriver to adjust. Take great care removing the pickguard so as not to damage the wires to the battery and output jack (there is no molex connector on the Cutlass like the Silhouettes or Albert Lees have).

Just remember that no silent ciruit on the market is 100% effective. I'm at my mother in law's house right now and I too found more noise than I would have liked. It is entirely due to the fuse box and transformer in the basement, right under the room I usually play in, which seems to extremely noisy, like YIKES level noisy! (At the summer cottage I don't have a problem at all the single coils are nice and quiet). So, I adjusted the two trim pots to full clockwise and things are better but with that level of noise generated the silent circuit just can't remove it all.

Incidentally, the old silent circuit in the Silhouettes and ALs had a single trim pot and the optimum position was somewhere in the middle (kind of). The new silent circuit *seems* to go from min to max.

Disclaimer: this based on my own messing around yesterday and may in part or in while be wrong. But you can still adjust and see what works best for you. Just write down the stock setting of the two trim pots before you do anything.

 

[Samhain]

You nailed it. The noise does indeed change depending on where I point the guitar or if I move around.
It’s only in the single coil positions. When I’m in a combined pup position it’s dead quiet.
I’ll adjust the trim pots and report back as soon as I can.
Thanks so much!!

 

[James Troska]

I, too, have found that the Silent Circuit is not as effective at cancelling the noise as humbuckers. But exactly how good or bad it is depends greatly on the interference in the room. My bedroom is pretty bad. So much so that I actually thought my Silent Circuit was broken and returned the guitar for warranty repair. Got it back with the same problem. But then I realized it was quite effective in any other environment I've used it in.

This is the original thread where I worked out the problem...
http://forums.ernieball.com/ernie-ball-music-man-guitars/67295-effective-silent-circuit.html