Custom 24-08 Questions

scotticus

New Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2023
Messages
10
Hello all, just a couple quick questions about the 24-08. I bought a 2021 model and fell in love with everything about it, especially the pickup sounds/options. As far as I know, these came with standard 85/15 pickups. Several months after that purchase, I bought a 2016 24-08 with nicer appointments thinking I'd keep the nicer one and sell the other one. However, the pickups sound drastically different. They are 85/15 MT's, and both the humbucker sounds and split sounds just aren't the same. One thing I had read about was that the earlier 85/15's had the neck pickup reversed, and that turning it around so that the screw coils were closer to the neck might have a beneficial effect. But that doesn't explain why the bridge pickup would sound so different. I understand all pickups will have some variance, but these two sets are night and day, and the split sounds on the 2016 don't even sound like single coils, just slightly quieter humbucker settings, whereas the 2021 has nice humbucker growl and clear, spanky single coil type sounds.

So I guess my first question is why there might be such a drastic difference in the pickups that are supposed to be the same model. Did something change in the 85/15's over the years to explain this? Second would be, if I end up not loving the pickups in my 2016 model, can I swap in a set of 53/10's and still utilize the mini toggles and 24-08 switching setup?

Thanks so much for any help that anyone can give!
 
I did not think there was a 85/15MT pickup , I just thought there was a 58 /15 MT pickup , have you pulled the pickups to look or measured them , there would be a pretty big difference between 85/15 and 58/ 15 pickups
 
Yes I have pulled the pickups in both guitars, though I have not measured them. I guess I assumed that the measurements would be roughly in the same ballpark, but I will do that just out of curiosity.
 
There were indeed a few models with 85/15 MT pickups (24-08 being one of them, but I don’t know over which years). Good news is that yes you can swap basically any pickup and use the mini toggles for splitting.
 
Here's a pic of the hang tag. Are the 85/15 MT's different than the standard 85/15's? I'm new to PRS pickups so I'm still trying to figure all this out.

wD1xn0k.jpg
 
According to the PRS site, new 24-08 Cores have 85/15, S2s have 85/15 "S", and SEs have TCI "S".

I'm looking at getting a 24-08 Core. Played one at Danville Music with the 85/15s over the weekend. I loved it, but a) I'm not really buying right now, and b) It was a satin finish and I want the conventional gloss. But man is that one beautiful guitar.
 
Not sure if or what is the difference between 85/15 TCI and 85/15 MT, or what MT stands for but the reason the neck pickup is flipped 180° is that the active coil "sensing" the strings in split mode is further away from the centre and as close as possible to the neck of the guitar. PRS pickups in split mode make the screw coil disconnected. In 24-08, 35th Anniversary and the Pauls Guitar it sounds better to PRSH. It sounds better to me too, even with other PRS pickups. 59/09 in my other 24 frets PRS is also flipped 180°

Hope it helps
 
I personally do not like the flipped neck sound. Not earth shattering different but enough not to like.
 
I personally do not like the flipped neck sound. Not earth shattering different but enough not to like.
I hope we are on the same page - it's not phase flip, it's literally just the place the split HB is sensing the string vibrations from. It makes no difference in full HB mode
 
Here's a pic of the hang tag. Are the 85/15 MT's different than the standard 85/15's? I'm new to PRS pickups so I'm still trying to figure all this out.

wD1xn0k.jpg
MT = multi-tap which is a different wiring scheme to achieve better coil split sounds. The HB mode should be nearly identical to any other 85/15 though.

TCI = tuned capacitance inductance which is a process PRS uses to improve consistency in pickup response. This is a newer feature like 2020+ standard on core pickups.
 
Last edited:
Do you know in what way multi-tap is archived?
If you *really* want to know the nitty gritty details it’s essentially: one coil is a normally wound (say 4k for illustration sake) and the other is really far overwound (say 6k) so it can give you a convincing true single coil sound. The trick in that the overwound coil has a tap (ex at 4k) so in HB mode you’re only getting part of the larger coil. In split mode the whole ground/hot shifts so you only get the 6k coil.

Long story short it’s much different than most coil split schemes out there, but does (to my ears) make superior single coil tones.
 
If you *really* want to know the nitty gritty details it’s essentially: one coil is a normally wound (say 4k for illustration sake) and the other is really far overwound (say 6k) so it can give you a convincing true single coil sound. The trick in that the overwound coil has a tap (ex at 4k) so in HB mode you’re only getting part of the larger coil. In split mode the whole ground/hot shifts so you only get the 6k coil.

Long story short it’s much different than most coil split schemes out there, but does (to my ears) make superior single coil tones.
Awesome. Another PRS pickup I will spend an eternity looking for
 
The 85/15 TCI pickups in my 2021 model sound much better than these, they sound louder and fuller, and the single coil splits sound so much better. I personally am in love with the TCI sounds, and the MT's are really leaving me wanting more.
 
FWIW, 85/15's sound great to me on almost any guitar. (I've swapped 85/15 S pickups onto a bunch of PRS and non-PRS guitars, with fine results.)

I've heard the TCI pups only on SE Paul's Guitars and SE Cu 24/35th Anniversary's. They sound divine to me when split, but kind of cloudy in humbucker mode. I hope that isn't endemic to the mutl-tap scheme, because it's brilliant – almost zero volume drop when you split from HB to single-coil.
 
I haven't heard older pickups on the 2408 Cores, but the new ones really do sound great.
 
So if I were to swap a set of 53/10's into the guitar, is there a wiring diagram that would show how this is done? The 53/10's are 3 conductor and the 85/15's are 4 conductor.
 
So if I were to swap a set of 53/10's into the guitar, is there a wiring diagram that would show how this is done? The 53/10's are 3 conductor and the 85/15's are 4 conductor.
Yeah, can help you with that. I could do it with a little adaptation of mine. Essentially a mix of traditional Mccarty partial split and LPF 24-08 metode. I will see if I can find the time to do it tomorrow
 
So I did a bit of digging, and they are indeed Multi-Tap. They must be, with a combination of coil outs summed into one wire. Sadly, I can't say what the crosses look like without having them in my hands and probing with a DMM.

Layout for 85/15MT below

...and the schematic if it's easier to read

 
So the 53/10 layout.

If the colour codes are like for the 59/09:
TREBLE PICKUP
Black = hot
White = ground
Red = coil split

BASS PICKUP
White = hot
Black = ground
Red = coil split

You can wire it as a simple split:


Or doing it more ambitiously, which will also take advantage of two dual-section switches. The layout below will let you do a partial split with a resistor, just like it's done in McCarty's. Thanks to that, the volume drop is less pronounced. Additionally - when the pickup is in split mode, a small value capacitor is added to the hot signal, taking out the edge of high frequency, essentially making the split sound slightly more pleasant. This trick was used in the 35th Anniversary model (although wired differently)



The second layout sounds wonders with 59/09, not sure how well it will sound with 53/10's
 
Back
Top