Help! Silhouette Special Humbucker Wiring

[cpguitars]

Hi guys,

I could really use some advice. I'm a guitar tech based in London. One of my clients has a 2009 Silhouette Special (HSS) with the stock DiMarzio humbucker in the bridge and he's looking to swap it out for a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates humbucker.

The problem I have is that the stock pickup has 4 connections plus ground, whereas the new pickup only has one connection, plus grounded shielding. This is a problem because the superswitch/pot allows for coil splitting in positions 2 and 3, which makes the wiring pretty complex. Obviously the single connection pickup can't be split in the same way.

So I am looking for ideas. I figure it's either:

a) try to make it fit somehow with some nifty wiring. Does anyone know how I can wire it in, so that the humbucker just acts as a single pickup?

or b) use a different pickup which has 4 connections.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks a lot!

Andy
CP Guitars, London

 

[beej]

Hi Andy,

I was under the impression that the PG humbucker had 4-wires, but clearly that one doesn't.

I guess it really depends what your client wants. You can certainly wire up positions 2 & 3 using the full humbucker + 1 single coil and it will likely sound great. Less like a Strat, but still a really useable sound. (The Cutlass and Luke models, for example, have position 2 as the full humbucker plus the middle single coil and sound really good.)

If you go this route, you'll want to make some wiring changes so that the Silent Circuit isn't bypassed in those positions, for noise reduction. Easiest way to do that is to remove the yellow wire from the 5-way switch, so it's engaged all of the time.

Other option, as you say, is to get a pickup with 4 wires. You can fake the single coil thing a bit with a capacitor and resistor (reduce the bass and output), but it's not that convincing.

If you need a hand with the wiring, drop me a message and I can shoot you a wiring diagram.