Question regarding silent circuit

[Tuckerbomb]

Hi, can anyone help me figure this out? I’ve got a repair customer that would like to change out the pickups that came in his Albert Lee SSS with the battery powered silent circuit. He would like to install a Fender Eric Johnson set. Seems like that should work just fine, but will the silent circuit work with those pickups, or will it not, and so no need to run a battery anymore? Anyone have experience with doing this?
Thanks!

 

[John C]

Hi, can anyone help me figure this out? I’ve got a repair customer that would like to change out the pickups that came in his Albert Lee SSS with the battery powered silent circuit. He would like to install a Fender Eric Johnson set. Seems like that should work just fine, but will the silent circuit work with those pickups, or will it not, and so no need to run a battery anymore? Anyone have experience with doing this?
Thanks!

The original style Silent Circuit on the Albert Lee should work with any pickups that are in the guitar - you should get the schematic to make sure of how it's wired, but I think it's just wired into the switch (as if it was a 4th pickup). This style Silent Circuit is a little sealed cylindrical thing attached to the pickguard; it has a trim pot on it so you might need to adjust that for optimal noise reduction for the replacement pickups. The guitar functions without the battery - you just lose noise reduction if you remove the battery.

 

[Tuckerbomb]

Thank you!!

 

[beej]

It's wired to the ground of each pickup, to add out-of-phase noise in the signal so it cancels out.

Basically, wire it up the same way, using the Silent Circuit to ground the signal (not the shield, if there is one, that can be grounded). The bridge and neck share one output from the SC. The middle uses the inverted output on the SC, since the AL pickup set has a RWRP middle pickup.

When you're all done, you can adjust the trimpot (in the playing position), to adjust the output of the SC as needed.