SE Custom 24 Upgrade to Bare Knuckles "Rebel Yell"

[OneEng]

I bought this guitar as a humbucker alternative for gigging with my band with my Strat (with Fralin pickups). I had a couple of complaints and have given the guitar a good 6 months or more to grow on me before I upgraded:

1. Flabby low E
2. Sticky nut when tuning (I don't use the whammy)
3. Brittleness to the high end with gain tones
4. lack of sustain

The stock nut is nearly useless IMO. Replaced with a Tusk .... much better. Tuning now is instant with no sticking.

Pickups changed to Bare knuckles "Rebel Yell"'s. This fixed a bunch of things, but let me itemize my findings with these updates in place on the SE:

1. The distortion is much more harmonic and rich now
2. Cords sing and sustain better. Note, I didn't change the strings so I could make a fair comparison
3. Sustain in general is much better (even single notes).
4. The low "E" is still not as defined as I would like; but I guess this may just be a side effect of my Strat with Fralins simply has the most gorgeous low end definition in the world. I may just have to give this a pass. Note, the definition is better than it was. This may be due to the fact that the pickups I purchased have the correct pole spacing while the ones in the SE original are not (both E strings are off-center from the poles before pickup change)
5. The high end brittleness is gone completely. In fact, I had to do some adjustments to get the volume a bit higher on the high 3 strings when with the old pickups, I tried to do the opposite, but was still unable to rid myself of the brittle highs.

So the total bill was about a half a day of my time, about $220 in parts, then another day of fiddling with the setup and tone fine-tuning.

The guitar plays beautifully ... but then, it always did. It plays better now due to the greatly increased sustain. I am not sure if the nut or the pickups or both were responsible, but the sustain is really improved.

I purchased the guitar for $750, so I am still under 1K for this guitar. I would put it up against pretty much anything out there for tone and play-ability. Of course, it doesn't look as nice as a core .... but hey, what does? PRS makes some seriously nice looking and very playable guitars.

FWIW, I could simply not have an ear for liking PRS pickups. I know there are lots of people that love them.

As for the install:

1. Bare knuckles documents are useless. I found a few sites on-line that had good documentation on the wiring needed for a single volume, single tone (with push pull coil split), 3 way switch setup. Note, the color codes for my SE matched that of the Bare Knuckles pickup wiring. there was lots of talk about some PRS pickups being different in color code though.... so watch out for yours if you do this.
2. The bridge pickup "barely" fit into place. Actually had to push inwards on the metal tabs to get them in, but then they were not touching after the very top cleared.
3. Inside the PRS, it looked like a few ground loops were created in the interest of simplicity. I never had any issues with this though and left the stock internal wiring design alone (I am an EE).
4. The pickups took about 4 weeks to get to the US from the time I ordered them.
5. For coil tap points (the white/green wires on both the SE pickups and the new BKP's), I had to use a box cutter to shave the heat shrink off of the coil tap leads on the BKP's.

If there are any other questions I can answer for anyone, just let me know.

 

[pac90]

There's only 1 problem with BK's, you want more, more, more.....



I love their MQs

 

[bodia]

There's only 1 problem with BK's, you want more, more, more.....



I love their MQs

Truth! Great pickups and customer service!

 

[OneEng]

Ok, I have had time to gig with these, tweak things in, and really make some A/B comparisons with other guitars.

I can honestly say that I haven't found another guitar that gives me the sound this one does. I mean that in a really good way.

Compared to other guitars, I get a very rich sound that works well in every situation I have placed it in. Distortions are complex and harmonic. Cleans are punchy and clear. These are now my favorite pickups I have had in over 30 years of playing.

I don't know if it is JUST the pickups, or the guitar and pickup combination, but this guitar now compares above all other guitars I have A/B'd it to .... and there have been plenty .... including stock American CU24's.

I honestly feel that I have a 1K guitar that sounds better than the best of the best money can buy stock..... of course, I still have a little "looks envy" for my friend with his American CU24. Man those things look great!