Suhr BPSSC System?

[Rouse]

http://www.suhrguitars.com/pickups.aspx#bpssc

Does anyone know anything about this? It seems interesting, I'm not sure how well it would work though...

 

[Cagey]

I'm not sure how it works. From what I've read, it's pretty effective, although it's not a panacea and you have to not only pay the exorbitant price they want, you have to replace a pickup as well, raising the price even more. Also, apparently it only works to reduce 60hz hum. Other interference isn't eliminated.

 

[elfro89]

completely off topic, but who here would LOVE a suhr guitar? I've always been afriad to touch them because they are so expensive, but if i had the spare dosh i might have snatched one of those things up!

 

[Cagey]

They are nice. Grossly overpriced, but nice.

 

[Panthur]

That review on the website has it priced at $325 !.
I'm pretty sure it's just another coil hidden in a backplate designed specifically to pickup the hum and then phase it out of the signal. They may well have perfected the idea (because it's been around for years), but I can't see how they can justify that price for what is probably $30 worth of parts.  :icon_scratch:

 

[Patrick]

hey, thats the highest quality plastic around. if it were cloth, its thread count would be 1,000,000
and that wire came from the top rated hardware store in the country
:toothy12:

 

[whitebison66]

There are a lot of cheaper ways to get the same effect (or 90% of the effect for 10% of the price). dummy coils are a fairly easy, popular mod, and there's plenty of info on the net including photo tutorials and wiring diagrams.

Suhrs are nice, though.

 

[Doughboy]

I tried one & they do alter your sound quite a bit. I have no idea why they claim it doesn't. I could notice a great deal of high end loss & less sparkle.

Also, as nice as Suhr's are, they're grossly over priced. They're no better & infact less quality than my Warmoths with exotic woods. It's another case of a boutique shop charging more for the mystique. Same with Tom Anderson.

 

[imminentG]

I dunno, I've been thinking about SUHR a lot lately. I keep realizing in heindsight that I've been digging on their players' tone; Doug Aldrich and Guthrie Govan in particular.
YES, nearly every fiber in my being screams overpriced, but there's a nagging affection for their single coil tones that just SOUNDS like several thousand dollars.

Can't comment too too much about BPSSC, seems like an interesting but out of the way kind of way to go about it.
You know ME, I'd just rather go Barden or Kinman.

 

[Cagey]

I dunno, I've been thinking about SUHR a lot lately. I keep realizing in heindsight that I've been digging on their players' tone; Doug Aldrich and Guthrie Govan in particular.

Doug Aldrich and Guthrie Govan's sound has a lot to do with Doug Aldrich and Guthrie Govan. Simply playing the same guitar and amp they do won't help you a whole lot, any more than playing a Stratocaster through Marshalls makes you sound like Jimi Hendrix, Robin Trower, Eric Clapton, Eric Johnson, David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler... the list is long, and the tones those guys get is widely varied and distinctive.

 

[stultzies9]

I have one on my Chambered Strat, and personally, I've found it to work exactly as advertised.  I haven't noticed any change in the sound of my Rio Grande pickups, and they now hum about as much as any of my humbucker equipped guitars.  The only thing about it that bugged me was having to buy a non-RWRP middle pickup.  For whatever reason, the BPSSC doesn't work with an RWRP. 

 

[Wyliee]

I have one on my Chambered Strat, and personally, I've found it to work exactly as advertised.  I haven't noticed any change in the sound of my Rio Grande pickups, and they now hum about as much as any of my humbucker equipped guitars.  The only thing about it that bugged me was having to buy a non-RWRP middle pickup.  For whatever reason, the BPSSC doesn't work with an RWRP. 

I can echo Aaron's comments.  Comparing before and after with his Strat, the tone was still there.  The only thing missing was the hum.

 

[lidesnowi]

http://www.suhrguitars.com/pickups.aspx#bpssc

Does anyone know anything about this? It seems interesting, I'm not sure how well it would work though...

Check out this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3O1t_mLNC8
I agree with Scott the BPSSC System  DON`T change the tone!
Yeah it is very overpriced BUT it works REALLY GOOD and you only live once!

 

[imminentG]

Forgive me, but I didn't mention anything about writing songs like them or anything about "their sounds" (words you may note I did not use) aside from the fact that they're guitars are both SUHRS. :dontknow:
I like the tone of SUHR's pickups, dig? :guitaristgif: Their fills and techniques (largely) are irrelevant in the quality I am hearing.
I keep feeling that it has something to do with the midrange, but that is the big wide open shot where I am QUITE likely mistaken, myself.

I play a rinkydink epiphone les paul, and let me tell ya, no matter which way I pick, be it alternate, economy, hybrid, or sweep, the tone of the pickup is still underneath it all.
It's like saying if DA or GG pick up my guitar, they'll still get their tone that I love, which we all know, of course, will not happen.
It WILL sound every bit like THEM, but it will not sound a trife like THEIR GUITAR.

Anybody else smell where I'm comin' from?
I feel I was misread as someone who is looking into expensive gear as a confidence boost, when in fact, the situation is quite the opposite-
I do not even own a Warmoth because I know I don't NEED it, but I would very much like to build one once I am sure that it would either be completely necessary
or that every feature on it would at least be put to constant use.

If anybody hears what I'm catching off those two, drop it on me, otherwise I'll sift through SUHR's website; albeit reluctantly.

 

[arjepsen]

I haven't gotten any personal experience with the bpssc, but reading through the patent of it, I got enough specific details for trying out a diy solution.
MUCH cheaper than paying for a real bpssc.
Whether it works remains to be seen

 

[Cagey]

Have you got the patent number handy, or a link to it? I'd like to read that, too.

 

[bigguspickus]

Someone buy one and take it apart. :icon_biggrin:

 

[imminentG]

It annoys me that you can turn it off and on with that thing.  :icon_scratch: why not keep it off

 

[Cagey]

Someone buy one and take it apart. :icon_biggrin:

Don't need to. You can read the patent and see how it's built here.

They're doing just what I suspected - creating a humbucking pickup. They don't call it that because the pickup itself isn't humbucking, the total circuit is. The circuit is made up of the already installed single coil pickup(s), an antenna, and some level-adjusting pots. The antenna is just another coil of wire built onto a relatively large form. You wire that in series but out of phase with the existing pickup(s), then any common mode signal they both see gets cancelled. The pots are there to adjust the level of signal injection from the antenna so it balances what the pickup sees. Since the antenna is on the back of the guitar, it doesn't sense the strings at all. The only thing it picks up is ambient EMI/RFI. Since it's the same noise the pickup sees, being out of phase cancels the noise signal out. The string signal the pickup sees isn't seen by the antenna, so it has no effect. The end result is the only signal passed to the output is string vibration.

Where some people are still hearing some noise from the 2 and 4 switch positions on a standard Strat is because you end up with two pickups working, so the noise level from those is larger than what has been adjusted for in the case of the single pickups at positions 1, 3 and 5. Also, you have to change the center pickup from a RW/RP pickup, or it actually adds to the antenna signal, which would have the effect of increasing the noise output.

So, it's an extremely simple thing. Why it costs $350 is anybody's guess. One reason might be that the only people willing to try something so radical are the type who'd be willing to pay that much, so they just go ahead and gouge them for it. Another reason might be that since Suhr didn't invent this thing and licenses the patent for it, the patent holder may be charging an exorbitant amount of money per device for it. Wouldn't be the first time - Sony is famous for that kind of thing. But, actual manufacturing cost is probably on the order of $30 or so. There's nothing to it.

Mystery solved; no charge <grin>

 

[Superlizard]

Interesting design.

But seems no matter how ya slice it, you're gonna lose some high end sparkle using noiseless contraptions.

I know that 60Hz hum drives some people insane, but really... if you wire/shield well and/or position yourself properly (if necessary)...
and avoid head-chopping/face-melting/mondo-compressed distortion levels (the main culprit), you should be fine.