2014 S2 Singlecut - With issues..

[teratotality]

Hiya!

So my S2 came today, about a week earlier than I thought. Its nice, has some nicks in the paint but nothing too bad (should be able to see all those in the pictures. But the sound is just horrendous. I'll list the specs and upgrades and talk more about sound issues.

Upgrades:

• Bone nut - Seems nicely cut and didn't have issues with tuning with new strings
• Seymour Duncan Black Winters - Apparently these are more on the heavier/metal side of things. Not a big deal but there is problems with wiring I'll show in the pictures
• Adjustable stop tail bridge - Ebay guy said this was an upgrade, but I've seen some others with the adjustable bridge, so not sure if it was actually an upgrade or not. Regardless, its good to have it.

Going to show the guitar then on to the issues.

So on to the issues.

First off, it was absolutely filthy. The fret board required two passes of cleaner and some elbow grease to get clean and nice. Doesn't help I'm a bit OCD with that sort of stuff, I mean I wipe down my guitar after playing them every time. I also clean the fret board more than never.. so there's that.

Secondly, now I understand these pickups are a lot higher output than what I'm used to on my other models as they are designed more for metal players, but there was something REALLY off when I was testing the guitar. Even on the lowest volume setting it was all buzzy and sounded really really bad. So I pulled the back plate off and notice that the resistors on the tone pots were no longer soldered on.

I've said this before, I don't know guitar wiring too well just yet but I assume this isn't correct. So this post is to show off the new guitar but also get help to make sure my wiring is correctly done so it sounds good.

Overall I'm happy with the guitar, I do like the look of it, hence the reason I bought it. Just need a bit of work to get up to standard. Also, it did come with the original pickups. I may swap these out, but first I need it to sound correct before I make that decision. I may just keep the black winters as this guitar would be completely different sounding than the rest of my guitars.

Thanks!!

 

[Malloc]

The resistors are for PRS style coil splitting so the previous owner may have not understood how to incorporate them into SD pickup wirings. Cut off as is they’re probably not the source of buzzing.

 

[teratotality]

The resistors are for PRS style coil splitting so the previous owner may have not understood how to incorporate them into SD pickup wirings. Cut off as is they’re probably not the source of buzzing.

Ahh gotcha. What else could be causing the buzzing? Oh and it buzzes only once I pluck a string. and the Low E is the worst offender. Maybe I'll have to take a few audio samples so you guys can hear for yourself. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but it doesn't sound right.

 

[Malloc]

So as best I can tell from those shots it looks like they at least attached the pickup lines to the right places so I’d suspect a grounding problem. Will consider some more.

 

[Stephen J.]

https://www.prsguitars.com/documents/prs_s2_singlecuts_wiring_schematics.pdf

In case you haven’t seen this. Might be helpful as a reference.

And congratulations on the new guitar!

 

[teratotality]

https://www.prsguitars.com/documents/prs_s2_singlecuts_wiring_schematics.pdf

In case you haven’t seen this. Might be helpful as a reference.

And congratulations on the new guitar!

Thanks so much! That should help a lot. I'll have to dive into it tomorrow.

 

[veinbuster]

That guitar definitely wants to be a treasure again.
You’ll get the electronics sorted out and be golden.

The positioning of the bridge bits looks a bit atypical, so you might want to check intonation once you get the buzz looked after.

 

[88prs]

ok, so I'm anal but whoever installed the pickups did a lousy job of clean-up, wire stripping and soldering. All the joints are cloudy instead of nice and shiny. And, they are a fan of "the bigger the blob the better the job". You should be able to still see the outline of the wire. Me, I would grab the solder sucker and clean everything up and start over..... but I'm anal and have had 40 years of practice.

 

[teratotality]

That guitar definitely wants to be a treasure again.
You’ll get the electronics sorted out and be golden.

The positioning of the bridge bits looks a bit atypical, so you might want to check intonation once you get the buzz looked after.

Whats atypical about the bridge? Intonation is fine.

ok, so I'm anal but whoever installed the pickups did a lousy job of clean-up, wire stripping and soldering. All the joints are cloudy instead of nice and shiny. And, they are a fan of "the bigger the blob the better the job". You should be able to still see the outline of the wire. Me, I would grab the solder sucker and clean everything up and start over..... but I'm anal and have had 40 years of practice.

It looked like a mess to me too. I'm not very experience with soldering though so not sure how much better I would fair. Thinking about doing that anyway just for the practice.

 

[teratotality]

Ok, so I figured out the problem. Its not the guitar, it sounds great actually. Looks like some power tubes in my vox ac30 are dying and it was just coincidental that they started to have issues when I plugged in this guitar. Everything was fine two days ago, then the first time I played was when I setup this new guitar. Luckily enough I already had some tubes on order, so just gotta wait for them to show up. Luckily I have a Orange Tiny Terror to use while I wait.

 

[GuitarJammin]

Ok, so I figured out the problem. Its not the guitar, it sounds great actually. Looks like some power tubes in my vox ac30 are dying and it was just coincidental that they started to have issues when I plugged in this guitar. Everything was fine two days ago, then the first time I played was when I setup this new guitar. Luckily enough I already had some tubes on order, so just gotta wait for them to show up. Luckily I have a Orange Tiny Terror to use while I wait.

It's always a relief when it's something like this...I know sometimes this type of scenario happens to me and i'll have guitar parts everywhere and realize i was chasing a ghost. Glad you found the problem! Nice Singlecut!!

 

[teratotality]

It's always a relief when it's something like this...I know sometimes this type of scenario happens to me and i'll have guitar parts everywhere and realize i was chasing a ghost. Glad you found the problem! Nice Singlecut!!

Haha, yeah I bet! I did spend a good amount of time looking over the circuit again and again. Then I played a different guitar and had the same buzzing, popping noise and realized it was the amp. Looking at the power tubes I have two that are red plating.. easy enough to see once you are looking XD

 

[Malloc]

Glad it worked out! Now I have this strange urge to buy a white PRS...

 

[veinbuster]

Whats atypical about the bridge? Intonation is fine.

All that matters is that the intonation is right.
The saddle for the B string is closer to the pickup than I usually see it. It isn’t often ahead of the E. not wrong, just not what I see most of the time.

 

[Alnus Rubra]

That guitar definitely wants to be a treasure again.
You’ll get the electronics sorted out and be golden.

The positioning of the bridge bits looks a bit atypical, so you might want to check intonation once you get the buzz looked after.

Whats atypical about the bridge? Intonation is fine.


It looked like a mess to me too. I'm not very experience with soldering though so not sure how much better I would fair. Thinking about doing that anyway just for the practice.

Here’s an example of a typical bridge set up, which I believe is what veinbuster is referring to -



Your bridge appears to be high on the bass side, on the peg.

If I’m correct an adjustment to the set screw in the bridge, moving the bass side further away from the nut would probably be in order.

This is probably why the low E string bridge piece has been adjusted in the way that it has.

Obviously don’t make adjustments under tension. (Apologies if I’m telling you stuff you know).

 

[teratotality]

All that matters is that the intonation is right.
The saddle for the B string is closer to the pickup than I usually see it. It isn’t often ahead of the E. not wrong, just not what I see most of the time.

Here’s an example of a typical bridge set up, which I believe is what veinbuster is referring to -



Your bridge appears to be high on the bass side, on the peg.

If I’m correct an adjustment to the set screw in the bridge, moving the bass side further away from the nut would probably be in order.

This is probably why the low E string bridge piece has been adjusted in the way that it has.

Obviously don’t make adjustments under tension. (Apologies if I’m telling you stuff you know).

Oooh I see! I did think it was a bit weird I needed to move it up so much to intonate it properly. I didn't even consider the actual bridge was too far back or forward on the peg. And yes I know not to adjust the bridge under tension haha, but thanks for the tip anyway, never know! I'll have to play with it and try to get it correct. I'm still new to guitars and have only been doing my own work on them so I'm bound to miss things like that.

Thanks!

 

[teratotality]

Glad it worked out! Now I have this strange urge to buy a white PRS...

You should! I really like it the antique white, its just so different from everything else I have. I would love to find one in a bright pink if possible, not sure if they have those. I have seen some nice bonnie pink colors but they are all on higher end guitars so I've noticed.

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Oooh I see! I did think it was a bit weird I needed to move it up so much to intonate it properly. I didn't even consider the actual bridge was too far back or forward on the peg. And yes I know not to adjust the bridge under tension haha, but thanks for the tip anyway, never know! I'll have to play with it and try to get it correct. I'm still new to guitars and have only been doing my own work on them so I'm bound to miss things like that.

Thanks!

I hope is of some help.

Happy adjusting!

 

[teratotality]

well it took forever, but I got it to a better state of intonation.

 

[veinbuster]

well it took forever, but I got it to a better state of intonation.

That look perfect. Nice lighting too.