NGD - Musicman Silhouette

antonyiv

I've always wanted one of these! 

And finally here it is, a 2011 Silhouette in Sterling Silver with matching headstock. 




Soon I will write a proper review. 

grungebob

very nice. 

I have a cheap USA  version of the silo still. 

https://imgur.com/a/zRc7t

Sold my two silos sometime ago and regretted it. 

Funkfingers

Hardtail. Wise choice.

TheBigDipper

Lovely! 

Here's a gratuitous pic of the Silhouette that's been my main guitar since 1989... 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mxc7hkgv4sj7viw/IMG_1710.jpg?raw=1

JMP220478

my Silo Special - sports a HB in bridge now 

https://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff362/jmp220478/Mobile Uploads/C7C34739-6030-41BF-B87D-A35E7904A0E6.jpg

Bennyboy-UK

Thats a proper guitar. Lovely. I've had 4 since 1994 and still have 2

Dan_Halen

Looks great. Superb guitars. Enjoy!

KrisGee

Very cool. Lovely finish too, looks very good with a matching headstock, unlike some other finishes. Congrats!

richardhomer

Nice!

andy1839

All the EBMM guitars I've played have been superb quality instruments.  

Classy looking guitar that.

llew

That's a beaut. 

Kebabkid

Nice and I recently discovered them. Loved the feel of the neck and whilst not big, I preferred it to the Luke models. Also, the quality and useable sounds from a HSH model really appealed and impressed me. 

I'm on the hunt for one  

prlgmnr

How similar is the neck on these to the Axis?

My Axis is currently my favourite guitar but I wish it had 24 frets.

grungebob

prlgmnr said:

How similar is the neck on these to the Axis?

My Axis is currently my favourite guitar but I wish it had 24 frets.

Their not the same really. The axis is asymmetrical and a touch wider in the hand. 

maltingsaudio

Nice buy, love my Silhouette, it’s my No1 go to single coil guitar. Used to belong to Joe Brown but has been “tastefully “ modified since I’ve had it with DiMarzio hot rail in the bridge and a mate made me a custom scratch plate for my 50th

i.call it Bouncer because it’s been nicked twice but came bouncing back!

bazxkr

Nice silos on here. Great snag for the op. Not sure I seen one in silver. Never been near a silo. I believe the original 4 pup morse was based on the silo.....anyone know how close body and neck are to the morse ?

antonyiv

Thank you all for the kind comments. And thank you for posting pictures of your amazing guitars.

Now, since I spent 3 full days playing only the Silo, I can write something like a review/overview. 

Prerequisite 

I was really excited about this guitar. I’ve red so many cool reviews and opinions over the Internet. I even bought marching Ernie Ball strap, knobs and strap locks while I was waiting for the guitar to arrive. 

The good stuff

- Extremely light instrument
- Probably the most comfortable guitar that I’ve ever played. The counties of the body are simply amazing. I really enjoy playing it standing up.
- The satin neck feels great 
- Those DiMarzio virtual PAFs are really good sounding and versatile. Besides that I have coil taps. I could get modern sounds out of it and almost mimic Strat and Tele sounds. 

- The finish is lovely
- The build quality seems to be very good
- Access to the upper frets is super easy due to the neck joint

The bad stuff

- Only one - the neck. It feels too small/narrow for me. I expected it to be thinner. Maybe it’s because of the frets, don’t know. But I have difficulties adjusting to that guitar. I don’t lose speed but I lose accuracy. 

As you can see, there are so many things which I like about the Silo. However, the neck is pretty important. I will continue to play it and will see how it goes. 

Philly_Q

antonyiv said:

The bad stuff

- Only one - the neck. It feels too small/narrow for me. I expected it to be thinner. Maybe it’s because of the frets, don’t know. But I have difficulties adjusting to that guitar. I don’t lose speed but I lose accuracy. 

As you can see, there are so many things which I like about the Silo. However, the neck is pretty important. I will continue to play it and will see how it goes. 

It's interesting how often opinions on Music Man guitars come back to the necks.  Nearly everyone loves the finish on them, but a really high percentage of people say they're too thin and - especially - too narrow.  And that's despite the fact that individual models have different neck profiles - all of them thin!

Surely they'd sell even more if they offered a choice of neck profiles?

TheBigDipper

Philly_Q said:

antonyiv said:

The bad stuff

- Only one - the neck. It feels too small/narrow for me. I expected it to be thinner. Maybe it’s because of the frets, don’t know. But I have difficulties adjusting to that guitar. I don’t lose speed but I lose accuracy. 

As you can see, there are so many things which I like about the Silo. However, the neck is pretty important. I will continue to play it and will see how it goes. 

It's interesting how often opinions on Music Man guitars come back to the necks.  Nearly everyone loves the finish on them, but a really high percentage of people say they're too thin and - especially - too narrow.  And that's despite the fact that individual models have different neck profiles - all of them thin!

Surely they'd sell even more if they offered a choice of neck profiles?

Obviously I like mine, coz I've been playing it for (yikes!) 30 years. As it was an early model, I've got the 6 bolt neck, not the improved 5 bolt version. Regarding necks, at the time they offered two radii and 2 widths. I've got the standard width, 1 5/8in, but (according to my StewMac gauge) a 12in radius. The wider neck was 1 11/16in and the other radius was 10in. The neck finish is glossy, not satin. I knew none of this at purchase time - I just loved that specific guitar and bought it. Paula at Chandlers kept trying to sell me a PRS, but I wasn't having any of it!

The original pickups were radio-receptive-friendly Di Marzios. The keen-eyed will have seen that I replaced them with Kinman noiseless. Ernie Ball hadn't started fitting their noise cancelling circuit when they made mine. The Kinmans work much better at being quiet on stage at volume with lots of interference flying around. 

The last thing that I've got, but have never used, was the concept of easily-detachable scratchplates. The idea was you could have a different pickup/control configuration and just swap them without any soldering or string removal - just a screwdriver. Have they dropped that feature now, I wonder? 

TheBigDipper

bazxkr said:

Nice silos on here. Great snag for the op. Not sure I seen one in silver. Never been near a silo. I believe the original 4 pup morse was based on the silo.....anyone know how close body and neck are to the morse ?

I've just been reading the EBMM specsheet that came with my Silhouette but covered their entire range. In 1989, the (first) Steve Morse model body was 12 1/2in wide instead of 12 3/8in, same depth, poplar. The neck width was the same, but only 22 frets instead of 24 and jumbo frets instead of the higher but vintage width of the Silhouette. 12in radius.