1994 PRS CE24 Trem Question

[andyg_prs]

Hi there,

First post, so good to meet you all! I bought my PRS when I was living in Valencia, Spain playing with a charting reggae band. I had it modded a few years ago changing the 5 way rotary for a 3 way switch and a push pull coil tap on the tone control - much easier for me to change sounds playing live....but not convinced those sounds are as nice as the originals....

Anyhow, I was always disappointed with the trem not keeping properly in tune. At the time I got the PRS I had been playing a floyd rose original equipped guitar and assumed that was the only thing that would stay in tune - despite their endorsees such as rockers 'RATT' saying it kept in tune like a Floyd.

Anyhow, roll forward, I had it set up in the UK by World Guitars who are maybe the top PRS stockists here.....and it was no better. Recently I had a tremol-no fitted by a really good guitar tech, but still no joy. Conversely I have tried American strats with a two point trem, locking tuners but no lock nut, that dive much further than the PRS will, but come back in perfect tune....I've also played plenty that are awful.

The point is that I love my PRS, I can now use the tremol-no to allow me to stay in tune for drop D tuning (by using dive only mode) but stay away from the trem because of the tuning issues. It doesn't go way out of tune....but enough to bother me....

Any experience out there with this kind of thing? I thought the early PRS guitars, and the early trems were supposed to be amongst the best? Sorry for rambling on!

Thanks,
Andy

 

[AP515]

Welcome Andy,

I was in Spain many years ago but mostly in Barcelona. Your complaint isn't new but is rather rare. PRS trems are some of the best around. It usually isn't the trem, it is most often the nut binding. If it does happen to be the trem it may be that the knife blade is not riding in the grooves in the 6 screws correctly. I have a CE24 and 22 both with trems and both stay in tune just fine after normal trem use. I happen to have them out right now and I just treid them with full dive bombs and they come back perfectly in tune. If you are the original owner it is still under warranty. You could also send it to the PTC and they could check it out for you.

 

[andyg_prs]

Hi there, Thanks for the reply. I'd love PRS to take a look at it, and I am the original owner, but I imagine I'd have to ship it to the US and back which would be extremely expensive to do fully insured. I got some 'nut sauce' recently which I could try to see if it helps. As far as the knife edge not riding in the 6 grooves correctly, is there any more info or pictures to explain what might cause this and how to fix it? Thanks, Andy