Suhr BPSSC (Back Plate Silent Single Coil) System

[m_lance]

Considering adding this to my TA Classic and Hollow T Classic. Does anyone have any experience with these? Does the circuit REALLY retain that single coil transparency? Would love to get Tom or Roy's take.

[tom]

i thought it sounded very good. we did not a-b in the same guitar with and without it. you do need to change the reverse polarity pickup for it to work. it also was less effective on our bridge pickup since it is a fair mismatch. we did also have to connect the cancelling coil up backwards for it to work with our pickups.

[GaryMcT]

It definitely doesn't affect tone. One thing that you might run into is that only two screw holes line up, which are the two furthest from the headstock. If you get the american standard strat version with the staggered screw ib the middle, you can probably add 2 more holes in the middle of the BPSSC. I've been planning on doing this but haven't yet. You definiitely can't add holes for the 2 screws towards the headstock since they will go right through the coil.

[JAZZGEAR]

EDITED 1-22-2007: Read my last post below regarding this issue

[GaryMcT]

Weird. Have you talked to Suhr about this? I suspect it isn't installed/configured properly.

[GaryMcT]

JAZZGEAR, is the noise that you hear 60-cycle hum, or higher frequency? I do still hear some higher frequency noise, although it isn't nearly as bad as without it.

[JAZZGEAR]

Most often is the high frequency variety. It is dead quiet in the studio and at home (no suprise there as the current is conditioned).

What get's me is that I could have just went for the BPSSC and save $$. I went for the, in Ed words, "Most effective" installation where they remove the middle pickup and some other Jazz (no pun intended) with the wiring that's different than the BP setup.

In my church it is the vintage, loud 60 cycle hum. It is only quiet in the middle position. All other positions are noisy.

I mean when it's quiet, which is a crapshoot, it is awesome.

I've learned my lesson....I now just play my Andersons at church which are dead quiet....despite the fact that the electricity in my church is dirty, and alot of dimmers.....(I'm sure this contributes to the noise)....But how is it that my Andy's with no SSC or BPSSCs are quiet and not the one with the actual system?

In fact my Fender SRV model strat is somewhat noisy there but not as bad as the SSC equipped.


Maybe the electricity here is worse than LA......nevertheless I don't feel I am getting the bang for the buck.

[GaryMcT]

Are the pickups in the neck and middle the same model? Given how it works, seems weird that the neck pickup would be noisier than the middle unless the adjustment for the neck pickup is out of whack (if there is a separate pot to blend in the BPSSC for the neck and middle with the SSC.)

Here's what I end up with in my home, which is the noisiest place that I've played in (guess I should do something about that. :) ). This is the BPSSC with the neck pickup only. The first riff is with the BPSSC disabled, then I turn the BPSSC up until it's roughly optimal for cancelling 60-cycle hum, and then the riff again. I do take my hand off the strings somewhere in there, so please ignore that bit.

http://home.comcast.net/~g.mctaggart/bpssc.mp3

I get roughly the same noise cancelling for any combination of neck and middle pickups, while the split-humbucker is the bridge position is less optimal and has a bit more 60-cycle hum. You can hear the 60-cycle hum that you are left with. I've compared this guitar to one with SSC and found that the SSC does a better job of getting rid of both 60-cycle hum and the high frequency noise, but it is still not as quiet as position 2 and 4 with a RWRP middle pickup.

If you don't use the middle pickup by itself, it might be possible to continue to use RWRP in the middle for positions 2 and 4, and use the SSC for positions 1 and 5 where position 3 would either have to be noisy or be rewired to be neck/bridge.

[JAZZGEAR]

Maybe I just don't know what I am doing but.....how exactly do I do that?

I don't have the BPSSC, I have the SSC, which was done at the factory. It required the removal of the RWP/U and no additional controls (as to blend/enable/disable the SSC system). My understanding is that once installed, it's on all the time.

I did not notice any blend, or toggle switch to manipulate the SSC.

To be honest, even in your clip the BPSSC was not 100% quiet -- as is being marketed; and as demo'd by Scott Henderson.

Perhaps, I wouldn't have had these expectations if it had been marketed as technology similar to ...say a power conditioner -- which we all know helps, but not 100% effective in filtering electricity and it accompanying traits.

This thing was tauted as being 100% quiet --- and clearly, it is not.

[GaryMcT]

Maybe I just don't know what I am doing but.....how exactly do I do that?


I take it back. You should get Suhr to fix it. From what I can tell, they don't recommend mucking with the internals since the coil is fragile. I'd be pretty annoyed in your situation. You might ask them if they can wire it in such a way that you still use RWRP for positions 2 and 4 and only use the SSC in positions 1 and 5, that way you won't have to share a pot between pickups (since the middle one won't use SSC and can get the neck pickup tuned in better).


I don't have the BPSSC, I have the SSC, which was done at the factory. It required the removal of the RWP/U and no additional controls (as to blend/enable/disable the SSC system). My understanding is that once installed, it's on all the time.

I did not notice any blend, or toggle switch to manipulate the SSC.

They typically make one of your knobs (the middle one?) a push/pull (very hard to pull so it might not be obvious). They may have not added that. I think there are pots under the pickguard for tweaking the amount of signal from the SSC like there is with the BPSSC, but I'm not sure. I haven't personally looked inside of a guitar with SSC. If the middle pickups is quiet, I would hope that there is a pot in there that is for the neck pickup that you can tweak to get it to work better. There isn't with the BPSSC since one pot is shared between the neck and middle (unless you don't use the BPSSC for the bridge pickup). You basically get 2 pots to adjust the coil level where you have to share one of them between two pickups if you have 3 that you want to work with BPSSC.

Here's a picture of the insides of a guitar with SSC (not BPSSC) if this helps. It looks like the wires going into the electrical-taped green thing on the left side of image are color coded the same as with the BPSSC. I don't see any extra wires there, which makes me thing that your neck and middle pickups are likely sharing a pot:

http://home.comcast.net/~g.mctaggart/SSC_Inside.jpg


To be honest, even in your clip the BPSSC was not 100% quiet -- as is being marketed; and as demo'd by Scott Henderson.

The BPSSC is far from 100% quiet. The SSC seems to be a lot better, but still not near RWRP matched singles or a humbucker. The clip at least shows (hopefully) that the tone hasn't changed.


Perhaps, I wouldn't have had these expectations if it had been marketed as technology similar to ...say a power conditioner -- which we all know helps, but not 100% effective in filtering electricity and it accompanying traits.

This thing was tauted as being 100% quiet --- and clearly, it is not.

You are correct. I was a little surprised how noisy mine still is with high frequency, and that's why I made to clip when I asked Suhr if these were the expected results. My room is really really noisy, so it might be that it is a worst case for the high frequency noise, but maybe not. It's an improvement if you want realy single-coil sound, which I do.

I apologize for filling up the Anderson forum with SSC info. BPSSC is really most interesting to those with Anderson guitars.

[JAZZGEAR]

No, hey this is great info, because the poster originally asked about the system for his Andy, and it may be useful info for Tom to consider, should he choose to adopt/license this technology.

Thanks for the great pics and explanation.

I am definitely going to call Ed next week on this and possibly send the guitar back to them for rework/adjustment.

[JAZZGEAR]

E-mailed, John regarding this issue...funny thing is, that the problem was resolved as a result of the info posted in this thread.

Yes, the button to activate the SSC is the middle tone knob. I pulled the button out then down, and seemingly no effect. This was at home of course, where my power is conditioned....and all of my guitars are nearly noiseless.

However, on Sunday at my Church, where the electricity is abismally dirty, the SSC worked like a charm. Up, all kinds of drills, saws, planes, and wind blowing through my combo, pushed it down, just about all gone, 98-99% quiet, while not 100% (hard to achieve that with a flouresent and dimmer right next to my tube amp), very acceptable -- the 1-2% of noise is likely coming from my tube AMP...so it very well may be 100% quiet now.

I am now a:D camper

Thanks for the info Gary!!!

[GaryMcT]

No problem! Only problem is that I'm the guy debugging problems with Suhr guitars (which I don't own any of) in the Anderson forum. I think that deserves some time in the doghouse. :)