Silo pickup question

[jakehadlee]

Hi - hope someone can help me. I have just bought a 1989 Silo which is a thing of beauty and I am totally in love with the tone from the neck and bridge pickups.

The only issue I have is that the middle pickup seems thin and underpowered compared to the two humbuckers. There is a noticeable drop off in volume when switching to either notch position or the middle on its own.

It sounds almost as though it could be out of phase, but not quite.

Two things - a friend of mine who has two Silos (and who introduced me to this great guitar after 25 years of Strats) one of them has exactly the same problem, he's looked inside and it all seems wired up right. The other is fine - sweet as a nut in all positions.

Also, the middle pickup on mine looks suspiciously tarnish-free for a 20 year old guitar. My 1985 Strat's pole pieces are all black from years of use and abuse by me, but these are shiny and new looking.

So, firstly - is there a way for me to check if this is an original pickup?

And secondly, if it is (and the pickup in my friend's Silo is original and has the same issue) what could be causing it?

Hope you can help - it's bugging me because apart from this issue, this is the best guitar I've ever played.

 

[Roubster]

Well, you will definitely notice a drop in volume in the other positions other than the neck and bridge since those are all split positions. You can always get a hotter single coil for the middle, but you will not be able to match the output of a full size humbucker in those positions...at least not that I know of.
I just rewired my Silo Special with humbucker like singles in neck and middle, and split them in position 2 and 4 and also get a noticable voume drop. I like this however, because you can clean up the sound on a distoted channel and you can do all sorts of other cool things rather than having the same output in all positions.
Sorry if this is no help!
To check the pick up, I guess you can compare the model number from the back of it to your buddies?

 

[jakehadlee]

Hi Thanks - I expect a little drop, but this is quite noticeable. Also, as I mentioned one of my friend's Silos does the same, but the other doesn't. It's not just volume, the tone is not as good - it goes thin and brittle.

Been thinking about replacing it with a hotter pickup, but first of all want to be sure its not a wiring issue in which case I'll just replicate the problem with the new pickup.

 

[Hakan]

You can adjust the distance between pickups and strings. Try to get closer single coil and far humbuckers. I did that for my Ibanez HSH and result is perfect. Single coil is really close to strings while the humbuckers are not. Also yu can balance the sound between neck and bridge humbuckers or you can have higher sound for one of them if you want. But don't forget this adjustment may cause to lose the real tone of the pickups. It depends the type of the pickups. If the humbuckers are too weak it may cause less distortion and warmer sound. You need to try and find the best position for the sound you want.

 

[RocketRalf]

We may be talking about different humbuckers from your Silo and your friend's. Silo's first started coming out with some other brand humbuckers, then they switched to DiMarzio PAF Pros, and then to Virtual PAFs. The Pros have more output than the Virtuals. You can recognize the PAF Pros because they should have black pole pieces.

How are your pickups set up in height? On my Silo the single coil is noticeably higher than the humbuckers, on it's own it seems to be even louder than positions 1 or 5 when playing clean. With gain they're equal, though 2 and 4 are still a tad quieter which is nice.

 

[jakehadlee]

I'm pretty sure they are PAF Pros - its a very early Silo (89), and the pole pieces are black and set for an allen key.

Part of the problem, I know, is that I have to have the single coil set low as I play country guitar and use my fingernails - set too high, my nails snag the pole pieces.

It may be that I just need to get a hotter pickup to compensate - any suggestions? I thought about a bareknuckle slow hand, but maybe a hotter DiMarzio? Something that will balance with the buckers without being too much of a hard rock pickup - still want that country twang.

BTW - being a country player I've always gone the single coil route, so very impressed what a great country instrument the Silo is - it has twang to spare. Surprised more country players don't use one.