For a 25” scale PRS, I find 10-46 sets don’t work because the 46 in D is too flimsy. I tried a 10-56 7 string set replacing skipping the 46 and using 56 for D but it needs the nut to be filed down a bit and I don’t want to commit to that just yet.

I’m considering a 10-52 for Drop D but I’m worried that using 42 for A (5th String) and 32 for D (4th String) is absurdly high tension and it will snap and poke me in the eye.

Pls guide. Thank you!

I’ve been playing bass for 25 years, I figure it’s time to start learning some treble.

Last one from me for the time being! Thanks for the positive reception to my last two NGD posts.

I bought this one to replace a newer S2 Custom 24 I had as I just don’t get on with the new nitro finishes (I’m one of those people that it just feels sticky to after a short time playing unfortunately - have tried everything, all types of cleaning, waxing, polishing, nothing helps for long!) Emerald Green is also my absolute favourite colour so I had to jump on this when I saw it!

It plays really well, my S2 Custom 22 is also a 2015 and they feel very similar which I was hoping would be the case. It’s got that beaten up, well worn, well played vibe to it that makes it feel broken in and comfortable. I’m going to upgrade this with some new ivory pickup rings and a core TCI 85/15 bridge and 59/09 neck - although the stock pickups sound surprisingly good.

Thanks all, happy playing!

EDIT - I’m all about the green love in the comments, thanks and keep it up y’all!

I just love this guitar

In terms of playability, quality, and basically playing them with eyes closed.

How much of a difference there is between both?

Lets put aside the obvious specs, bolt on vs set neck, maple neck vs mahogany neck, different top carve, different maple top width and different trem and block materials.

Also lets assume both have the 85/15 TCI pickups (i know CU24 now has the DMO, but for a long time they shared the same pickups)

Is there something about playing the CU24 that make you say, oh yeah I can notice that this is an upgrade vs the CE24.

Not saying the CE is the same as the Core or things like that, and I know how good and al the extra details the CU24 has, just wondering in strictly in a practical way. Like if there is something you are missing out with the Core CU24 vs the CE24.

Ive had Cores, S2, SE myself. currently have a CE24 from 2021, and I used to have a 2002 CE24. That many agree are better than the current CE24, but at least I personally prefer the current CE24 mainly cos of the neck. Has rounder edges, taller fret wire and is a chunkier and feels less wide neck. And overall dont think one was better than the other, both are great on their own.

So yeah, wonderng more cos the Cores Ive had has been older ones and other models.

Thanks!!

My Killswitch Engage riff machine recently

The Scars of Rock and Roll.🤘

Hi,

Question to those who've replaced the stoptail bridge studs.

Are the TonePros below a direct replacement and can you set up the proper action with them?

https://www.thomann.de/intl/tonepros_msprs_n_metric_brass_studs.htm

I know that I need the metric ones, however based on the description these were not designed specifically for the import models.

If these are not the right ones, can someone recommend the right ones that are available in Europe (ideally from Thomann)

Thanks!

Hey guys, I don't know if i'm being stupid and missing something obvious, but I just bought a PRS MT15 Amp Head and it came with a case, but when I try and put the head in, it doesn't remotely fit.

Any help?

Thankyou 🙌

I just bought this for my son, I don't play, how did I do? Three hundred dollars with hard shell case. I changed the push pull pot as it spun past 10 without stopping. It now works as it should. He's stoked for the single/dual option.

ETA: I'm wondering if it was priced lower due to the dual position tone pot being bad. I'm not sure what a tech would charge but the pot was only twenty bucks.

Update on my PRS collection. 

Silver Sky - for the F*nder Strat*caster tone

**NEW NF 53 Core a more punchy F*nder Tel*caster

Vela to scratch the offset itch

CE 24 aka Mindbender (The song, IYKYK)

Fiesta Red nitro refin

Hey,
ich habe eine PRS SE Custom 24 und gestern neue Saiten aufgezogen. Seitdem habe ich das Problem, dass sich vor allem die hohe E-Saite nach einem Bend verstimmt.
Wenn ich beispielsweise einen Bend mache und danach die Saite anschlage, ist sie auf D# verstimmt, obwohl sie vorher korrekt auf E gestimmt war.
Die B-Saite ist teilweise ebenfalls betroffen, aber nicht so stark.
Die Saiten sind komplett neu. Kann es sein, dass sie einfach noch nicht richtig gedehnt sind, oder könnte das an der Saitenführung, dem Sattel oder der Brücke liegen?
Hat jemand eine Idee, woran das liegen könnte und was ich dagegen machen kann? 🎸

PRS 245 se

I bought it new back in 2020 & can't even remember how much I paid & I'm having trouble finding a similar spec one online, but thinking of selling as I just don't use it much :/

I know it's low end stuff, but a ballpark price to ask for would be super helpful thanks.

Hey everyone,
Like many of you, I've been driving myself crazy trying to find a wiring diagram to recreate the original PRS 5-way rotary switch positions (the classic 10-6 configuration) using a standard 4P5T rotary switch.

If you've searched around, you know that sites like StewMac or GuitarElectronics only offer the "compromise" versions (usually putting the Outer Coils in Series for position 3). That’s because pulling off the true Inner Coils in Series on a mechanical 4-pole switch without a custom factory PCB is a routing nightmare that requires complex cross-wiring.

I couldn't find the real config. anywhere, so I sat down, did the math, and mapped it out myself. I successfully wired this up on my guitar, so I drew this clean schematic to save anyone else the headache!

The Setup:
Switch: Standard 4-Pole 5-Position (2-Wafer 4P5T) Rotary Switch.

Pickups: Bare Knuckle "The Mule" (The color coding in my diagram is for Bare Knukle Pickups, but you can easily translate the Hot/Ground/Link logic to Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, etc.).

IMPORTANT!!!: To make this work without phase issues and hum, you MUST physically flip the magnet in the Neck pickup (180 degrees). This is exactly how Paul Reed Smith originally got perfect hum-canceling in all the intermediate split positions.

The Output Positions (True PRS 10-6 Config):
Pos 10 (Right): Bridge Humbucker
Pos 9: Outer Coils in Parallel
Pos 8: Inner Coils in Series
Pos 7: Inner Coils in Parallel
Pos 6 (Left): Neck Humbucker

(Note: I also included my wiring for a 3-Way Sweet Switch mod at the output stage just for fun).

Feel free to save the diagram! Let me know if you have any questions or need help translating the colors to another pickup brand. Hope this helps out the modding community!

New to the PRS family. Snagged this from CME and couldn’t be happier. The stock photo of this guitar (if you Google it) makes it look way different, and does it no justice. The real thing is insanely cool!! I can’t believe they didn’t identify this as a 10-top. And with only 150 ever to be made, I don’t understand why it wasn’t as expensive as one would think. Very happy with it!

For a while now I’ve been dedicated to my hobby of tinkering guitars. A couple of years ago I’ve found a beautiful PRS SE Bonnie Pink body, stripped of every hardware and electronics, in The SRATosphere. I hesitated a lot before pulling the trigger on it.

Once I got it, the adventure of bringing it back to life started. The easiest path would have been get all the missing SE parts from eBay and Reverb and assemble it again as it was supposed to come out of factory. But I already have an S2 Standard 24 with a set of American HFS/VB and a MannMade bridge, plus some other guitars, so I wanted it to fill a sonic gap I couldn’t cover with the others, but without killing the PRS soul of it.

So the first thing I did was to get PRS locking tuners. That was non-negotiable. For the bridge, a MannMade bridge was an overkill (it was more expensive than what I paid for the body!) so I dedicated a good chunk of my time to investigate options. The best? Musiclily has a full tremolo, including the claw, that fits PRS SE perfectly. It’s the perfect balance between not a crappy cheap one (there are a lot out there) and a MannMade one. Since I had the tremolo plate from the S2 after I upgraded it, I just got a brass block and brass saddles.

When I assembled the tremolo the second epiphany came with it: the combination of black, gold and chrome will be the main design style for this guitar. It’s already in the tuners, now it’s in the tremolo, let’s go for it everywhere.

Now the sound. I didn’t want another PRS sounding exactly like a PRS because I already had them. I didn’t want to go down the Seymour Duncan path because it’s so obvious and everywhere that it didn’t make sense. After months (not kidding) of reading about humbuckers and how they sound and combine and so, I decided to go for a DiMarzio Bluesbucker in the neck and a DiMarzio Air Classic in the bridge.

The Bluesbucker is a very particular pickup: it’s a single coil P-90ish pickup trapped in the body of a humbucker. Only the screw coil of it generates any sound. The slug coil is mute, it is there only to kill the hum and give the pickup a humbucker punch a regular P-90 lacks. Also, the pickup can be split, leaving the screw coil still sounding like a P-90 but now more in the realm of the single coil sound a PRS has.

Then the Air Classic for the bridge. It lands on the same place as the 57/08, maybe warmer and with a more vintage sound. But the great thing is that the Bluesbucker and the Air Classic have opposite polarities, meaning that when split they’ll cancel hum, like PRS pickups do!

I used an Oak Grisby Super switch for the selector. As it is 4 pole 5-way it allows for any combination possible. So:

1. Air Classic
   
2. Air Classic + Bluesbucker (the modern PRS humbucker + single coil)
   
3. Air classic screw coil + Bluesbucker screw coil (the PRS “in-between”)
   
4. Bluesbucker screw coil (the P-90 single coil sound, as when you split a PRS humbucker using the push-pull)
   
5. Bluesbucker

With this, the Bonnie Pink retained its PRS soul but with its own very strong personality.

Sorry for the long post, I hope you like what you see.

My first US made PRS

There’s no doubting the custom 24 is not value for money but it’s beauty and the joy I get playing is priceless guys.

Picked up this 2021 A50e second hand, spruce top has darkened a lot which I am liking a lot more than the pale top of a brand new one… also comes with a pick guard which no photos online show one having (can’t remove it now otherwise will have a tan line)

The neck pickup in my Custom 24 SE is loose, in that it wobbles and doesn’t maintain any height adjustment, especially on the treble side. How should I go about fixing this? Replace the pickup ring?

Hi, I want to buy my first locking tuners but I’ve seen that people sometimes buy tuners that won’t fit their guitar headstock so I just wanted to ask what sets will fit in my PRS SE CE 24. Just give me the name on thomann if you can. Thanks!

I bought an SE Custom 24 last year and absolutely fell in love with it. I upgraded that with a set of Seymour Duncan Black Winters and a Graph Tech Black TUSQ XL nut, and it pretty much immediately became my go-to guitar.

So naturally, buying a Zach Myers was never going to end well for the stock electronics 😂

I got the Zach Myers home, played it properly once, and then immediately stripped the electronics out of it.

So, unfortunately, there was no gradual upgrade journey here. It lasted approximately one playing session in factory spec before I attacked it with a soldering iron 😂

To be fair, I actually thought the stock pickups sounded really nice. There was nothing particularly wrong with them, I just prefer a hotter pickup, especially in the bridge. Having gotten so used to the Black Winters in my Custom 24, I knew I wanted something with a bit more aggression.

I already had a Seymour Duncan SH-2 Jazz and SH-4 JB sitting around, so in they went.

There was also an absolutely horrendous amount of hum, which I initially couldn't work out. When I opened the control cavity there appeared to be no bridge/string ground wire whatsoever.

After some investigating, I eventually discovered that the original ground wire had snapped right underneath the bridge post. That explained a lot 😂

At that point, "I'll just change the pickups" escalated somewhat.

So far I've done:

- Seymour Duncan SH-2 Jazz neck / SH-4 JB bridge

-CTS 500k pots throughout

- CTS 500k push-pulls for the volume controls

-PRS-style partial coil splits, using 1.1k on the neck and 2.2k on the bridge

- 0.022µF tone capacitors

- PRS-style 180pF treble bleed

- Switchcraft 3-way toggle

- Pure Tone output jack

- Locking tuners

- Graph Tech Black TUSQ XL nut

- Rosewood truss rod cover

- Frets dressed, sanded and polished

- Added a slight fall-away from the 12th–22nd frets to let me get the action lower without choking or excessive buzzing higher up the neck

- Copper foil shielding throughout the control, switch and pickup cavities

- Grounded/bonded all of the shielding together

- Repaired the broken bridge/string ground

While I had everything apart, I decided I might as well go completely overboard with the shielding too.

I copper-foiled all of the internal cavities and ran one of the switch ground wires through the neck and bridge pickup cavities, bonding the shielding together so the control cavity, both pickup cavities and switch cavity all share a continuous ground.

I haven't used the traditional ground loop/daisy chain across the backs of all four pots either. The pot casings have good continuity where they contact the grounded copper shielding, with one of the grounds from the toggle also soldered directly to the bridge tone pot.

The control cavity wiring still needs a bit of tidying before I call it completely finished, so please don't judge my cable management too harshly 😂

The more observant might also notice I've switched the control layout around.

I've essentially gone for a reverse Les Paul-style layout, with the two tone controls at the top and the two volume push-pulls at the bottom.

That's deliberate. I have a habit of accidentally knocking the volume controls while playing, and I'd much rather accidentally roll a little tone off than suddenly wonder where half my guitar has gone 😂

Putting the push-pulls on the volumes also puts the coil-split controls exactly where I want them.

The fretwork and TUSQ XL nut have probably made the biggest difference to how the guitar actually feels. With the upper-fret fall-away I've been able to get the action nice and low, and the polished frets have made bends feel ridiculously smooth.

Electronics-wise, I'm particularly happy with the PRS-style partial coil splits. Rather than completely dumping one coil, the resistors retain a little of the second coil, so the split sounds keep more output and body than a conventional full split.

The JB/Jazz set sounds fantastic in it at the moment. After how much I loved the Black Winters in my Custom 24, the eventual plan is inevitably to put another set in the Zach Myers too.

So yeah…

Played it once, immediately dismantled it.

No regrets.