Hi everyone.I was wondering if any of you have tried the single coil silencing system for Strats put out by Suhr(Suhr BPSSC) and what you thought about it.Such as: does it work? Is it worth the money?Etc...It is supposed to cancel the 60 cycle hum in Fender single coils without affecting the tone of the pickups at all.I'd really appreciate your input.Thanks

I havent tried it, £200 for a dummy coil is a bit too expensive for my budget. Thats basicaly all it is, a pickups coil with the magnet removed from the center. It is reverse wound to your pickups and brings them to humbucker status. As you say without affecting tone.

Its easier to acheive with a lot less cost. Simply take a old pickup, pop the magnet(s) off it and wire it into your guitars control cavity.

Both a waste of time in my opinion, I'd rather have the hum. Heres a schematic on how to wire the dummycoil into the circuit. Ignore the midboost and altered tone/mid pot configuration. Just concentrate on how the pickup shaped thing in the control cavity is applied to the circuit. Ignore the wire colours, its far more important to wire the coil so its windings are reversed to your pickups windings. Where this diagram shows a white wire connecting to the tone pot, connect that wire to where the hotwire from the switch traditionaly connects to the volume pot.

Powerhouse schematic

You will likely have to muck about revesing the wiring of your center pickup as a dummycoil will not work with a RWRP middle pickup. Hence Suhr not fitting them to their dummycoil equipped guitars.

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I was thinking about using the Suhr silencing system on my Fender 50th Anniversary American Series Strat which has the custom shop '54 pickups on it.They are such great sounding pickups but they have so much 60 cycle hum that I can't use the guitar in the studio or to do any gigs where I am going to turn up the volume.Except for the 60 cycle hum,this ,in my opinion,is one of the best strats Fender has made in a very long time.If I could eliminate the hum without compromising the tone of the pickups I would use it as my main guitar.Are there any other alternatives that you know of to address this issue that work?If I use this dummy coil on my strat, will it cancel the hum on the in the 2 and 4 positions on the selector or only when there is one pickup being used?Can I use this dummy coil idea on my 51 nocaster as well?Thanks

If your middle pickup is stock polarity, a dummycoil will eliminate noise in all positions. Stock polarity middle pickups sound far better than humbucking rwrp middle pickups in my opinion. It's something that is slowly becoming lost in the mists of time.

All noise cancelling modifications alter the sound of your guitar. Whether its just shielding or adding a constant dummy coil. It's highly unlikely that any hum your experiencing from your rig. To the point of being unable to perform or record with it, likely isnt coming from your guitar. You may be better served looking at your amp, pedals and leads.

I've just installed a stock polarity set of singles in a strat a couple of weeks back. No shielding, no rwrp, next to no noise. Certainly not enough to negate using the guitar in any situation. People have recorded stock strats for 56 years now, without need for dummycoils or shielding. Look at current singlecoil sized humbucker pickup marketing and ask yourself why 60hz hum is such a problem this last ten or so years.

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I had the SSC with a set of Suhr V60LPS pickups. Dead quiet. Tried disconnecting the SSC, and noticed no difference in tone only the 60 cycle buzz. IMO it's the way to keep the single-coil tone without the hum. Scott Henderson's endorsement and use on his signature guitars was enough for me. Henderson's almost as picky as Eric Johnson when it comes to tone LOL!

I really like the stock pups on my 62 AVRI but hated the hum. Was looking into installing a Suhr Backplate but then started tinkering and came up with this mod....

Using stock 250k Pots.

Dummy coil is a Old Plastic Bobbin Fender Japan pup with magnets removed.

Bottom Tone Pot is wired to Roll off Treble on just the Bridge Pup, personel preference.
I Could have wired it as a Master Tone for all pups but I often ride on the Bridge pup at a gig with the Tone on 8.
I never need to roll off tone on the Neck and Middle pup so...

Stock pups are about 6k and the Dummy Coil is about 6k. If you measure at the output jack you'll measure 6k.
Roll back the Middle pot and the resistance will increase up to 12k and the Hum just goes away, AWESOME !

I must note with this setup I noticed there was a considerable amount of hum still until I flipped the dummy coil.
I imagine that I could have just flipped the Dummy coil wires on the Middle pot to achieve the same result.

Such a useful MOD especially for guys that love there stock vintage Pups but need to take away the Hum when needed.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Everyone loves the sound of the pure single-coil pickup, but the 60-cycle hum that it generates has been an annoyance that musicians have had to deal with for over 50 years or not deal with at all and use humbucker pickups or settle for tonal compromises like stacked single-coils, dummy coils, and active electronics. Those days are now over with the Suhr/Ilitch Electronics SSC System. Originally only available as a built-in system on Suhr Classic guitars, the SSC is now available in a backplate that covers the tremolo spring cavity and that means you can now enjoy the benefits of this breakthrough technology on non-Suhr guitars with "pure" single-coil pickups.

The BPSSC System eliminates the noise while completely retaining the sonic character of pure single-coil pickups. The noise is gone but the sparkle, the chime, and the low-end response that you've come to love in single-coil pickups are all still there for you to enjoy and savor. The BPSSC System is easy to install and does not need any additional modifications to your guitar. Remove the current backplate on your guitar, solder the wires coming out of the BPSSC with the electronics on your guitar following the included instructions, screw the BPSSC on the back of your guitar and you're ready for great pure single-coil tone without the noise!

Finally, after over 50 years, you can get true single-coil sound without the noise. Many single-coil lovers had resigned to the fact that noise was a "necessary" artifact that couldn't be eliminated without compromising the tone. The BPSSC System proves that it is possible to get great single-coil sounds without the annoying hum once and for all!

The BPSSC is optimized to work with single-coil pickups with the DC resistance ratings between 6K Ohms and 8K Ohms. The BPSSC requires the middle pickup to be the same polarity and the same direction winding as the bridge and neck pickups.

Important note: reverse-wound reverse-polarity middle pickup will not work with the BPSSC.

Suhr's BPSSC is ideal for those Strat® purists who found the sound of Noiseless pickups too sterile and wanted to have that classic vintage Fender tone without the hum.

Chromeface did you just post and add for a product word for word... in large bold text?

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My Rig: Guitar into Pedals then into Amps and out into Speakers.

All the BPSSC is, is a dummy coil wound into a backplate. Thats all it is, end of story. Theres no magic about it, no mystery. It will affect your tone in exactly the same way a dummycoil does. The Suhr marketing hype that it cant affect your tone like a traditional dummycoil because of it isnt located within close proximity to the pickup coils is hogswash. A traditional dummycoil doesnt affect tone because of its close proximity to the pickups. It has no magnets, proximity matters not one iota. Addition to signal path does and this suhr dummycoil is exactly the same thing in a different guise.

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I also use normal sizes.

Not all of my posts are written so big and bold.

I prefer using bigger fonts and bolder letters because I found normal sizes almost unreadable in my taste.

It would be hard for me to say NIK is not right as he is very smart on these matters. Maybe Martian can stop in and give his two cents on the subject also. But I think it is a good product and for guys who dont know the inner workings like Nik, Martian or Miami Mike I see this as being very useful as I heard a Suhr that has this and it was an outstanding ax.

from Nikininja:
"People have recorded stock strats for 56 years now, without need for dummycoils or shielding. Look at current singlecoil sized humbucker pickup marketing and ask yourself why 60hz hum is such a problem this last ten or so years."

Thats true, but the environment HAS changed. Back in the day you didn't have so many florescent and LED lights, computers and many other electronic devices emitting noise.

It's impossible to use a pure single coil guitar at my house because of the hum. It sounds like a chainsaw running in the background no matter what amp you use. Other locations are not as big of a problem.

and it's not like hum wasn't a problem 50 years ago. Thats why humbuckers were invented back then in the first place.
Only in the last few years have I heard decent single-coil type sounds from hum canceling pickups, so things are looking up.

Not exactly true. The SSC is wired on the ground side, so it doesn't enter in to the signal path of the pickups, and the only change is the hum is gone.

Hi again everyone.I just wanted to thank everybody for their input on this subject.It is much appreciated.I have decided to try one of the Suhr BPSSC systems and see for myself if it works or not. I think you made some very interesting points, Nikininja.I have been playing guitar for a long time too. About 44years now, and have been living with the 60 cycle hum in Fender single coils for a long time.I think it is kind of funny that the industry has kind of digitally sterilized the sounds of guitars and amps with the idea of having a "clean slate" to work with and adding whatever distortion and effects you want afterwards.And ironically ,after sterilizing the sounds of guitars and amps,now everyone wants them to sound like the guitars and amps with their own natural distortion from the 50's and 60's.The natural distortion being the reason they wanted to digitally sterilize all guitars and amps in the first place and ,strangely enough, being the reason people want their guitars to sound like that now.Which would lead one to believe that the natural distortion in a guitar and amp is what used to give them that quality and character we all desire.But I do think the 60 cycle hum in single coil pickups isn't the kind of distortion that adds anything positive to the sound of the guitar.It's just a big old pain in the butt!Thanks again guys.