Silhouette Special sss vs hss

[alf cockle]

Has anybody out there had the good fortune of playing both of these guitars?I have the HSS,and find it very versatile..but GAS is starting to knock on the front door again...What tone differences can one expect?..preferably rosewood fretboards.

 

[robelinda2]

Pretty obvious I wouldve thought? The bridge single coil gives you a better bridge/middle tone, which i really prefer, and the bridge single coil on its own and nice a spanky and wiry for country-ish stuff.

 

[paranoid70]

And the HSS will get you a fuller sound for hard rock.

 

[Pott]

It's very easy to wire the bridge humbucker in a HSS configuration with an autosplit, so that position 4 becomes only 1 coil of the bridge 'bucker + middle single coil. This gives you the full humbucker in position 1.

It's not 100% stratty but with the right pickup it'll easily get there. Use a mid-powered humbucker so that a single coil out of it is powerful enough. I got great, great results out of a Duncan Alnico II Pro humbucker.

I use this wiring on all my HSS guitars and so far, while I know it's not quite there, it hasn't made me miss a single coil in the bridge position.

Wiring Diagram

 

[lukeuser78]

Sounds sad but really like sss but with a rails type bucker in the bridge from a looks point of view!

 

[mb99zz]

I took a risk and got an SSS Silo Special without trying one first. I had access to an HSS model and of course several HSH Silhouettes when I was looking. At the time, I wasn't a fan of the AL's body, but I tried an SSS AL the same day I sampled an HSS Silo Special and just really loved the sounds of the three single coils versus the bridge humbucker on the Silo Special.

I don't regret my purchase at all. That being said, I don't play any metal or really heavy rock. So, I've never felt like the bridge pickup on my Silo Special was lacking the bite that a humbucker would provide. When I really want something with a full bite (with lots of overdrive/gain) I pull out the 20th.

 

[alf cockle]

Tx guys.As usual,lots of useful info.Cheers.

 

[whitestrat]

Has anybody out there had the good fortune of playing both of these guitars?I have the HSS,and find it very versatile..but GAS is starting to knock on the front door again...What tone differences can one expect?..preferably rosewood fretboards.

Here's more GAS for you:

I have them all. SSH, SSS and even in this case, HHH. That's the beauty of the Silo Spec. Fully Customisable!

 

[alf cockle]

WOW.What a beauty.What are those rail single coils on the white one pictured here?

 

[alf cockle]

Hmm..so they*re humbuckers..sheesh.What I have missed in my guitars is the old ,for lack of better words,Beeble tone from my 65 single coiled F.....r . Know what I mean?

 

[djlynch]

I want that Silo!!! Wow wow wow!

 

[whitestrat]

WOW.What a beauty.What are those rail single coils on the white one pictured here?

Don't shun them just yet. They might deliver what you want. Those are cruiser/cruiser/protrack.

 

[Roubster]

Silo Specials are awesome and as Whitestrat said, you can pretty much do almost anything. I myself have an HSS with an Air Zone, Fast Track 1 and Cruiser. It's a rocking guitar for sure but quite versatile. I am really looking for a more strat tone in the neck position at this time though.

Lionel, how are you finding the Cruiser in the neck? It's a great pickup, but for some reason the low strings on mine are kind of muffled sounding compared to the higher strings. The Fast Track 1 seems to cut more and has a tighter low end...but then again that is in the middle position. I'm thinking of going a regular single coil way this time with an Area 61 in neck and Area 58 in the middle.

 

[whitestrat]

Lionel, how are you finding the Cruiser in the neck? It's a great pickup, but for some reason the low strings on mine are kind of muffled sounding compared to the higher strings. The Fast Track 1 seems to cut more and has a tighter low end...but then again that is in the middle position. I'm thinking of going a regular single coil way this time with an Area 61 in neck and Area 58 in the middle.

You're right. The cruiser neck seems to have that flub. It doesn't tighten up. I'm going to try a Chopper in there or a FT1. Apparently it's a characteristic of the FT design.

While you're at it, why not an Area 67? I've heard nothing but great reviews on those!

 

[robelinda2]

I tried a cruiser too, mad Timmons fan, went for a Suhr FL classic neck pup, dear god what a tone.

 

[Jonny Dubai]

lovin your guitar mate

 

[Roubster]

Rob, what was your take on the cruiser? And yea the suhr FLs are pretty cool...but I definitely want to go noisless. I gave My silent circuit to beej, so I have to compensate haha.

Lionel, the 67 sounds cool too but I think I need a bit more output to match the air zone in the bridge...I love that pickup!

 

[beej]

I've had the FLs before, they are wonderful pickups. If I were sticking with traditional singles, they'd be it.

On the noiseless front ... I think I've tried just about everything, my personal two cents is you can't beat Bill Lawrence L45s for the classic strat vibe. Best of the bunch. That's what's in my SSS AL now.

(Oh ... and thanks again for the Silent Circuit Living happily in my Morse for split coil sounds with no noise.)

 

[Jason2112]

My Silo was originally SSH and I converted it to SSS. What sold me on the guitar was it's playability, not so much it's sound, so I figured if I was going to buy new pickups, I'd go in a different direction (most of my other guitars have humbuckers). So I went with a set of Dan Torres Blues single coils and am very happy with the results.

Before:

After:

 

[robelinda2]

Beautiful!