HSH in 1988 Studio - dead/thin tone...need help!

[lowaction]

I have a 1988 Studio PRS that I love the action and playability, but the tone has always seemed very brittle and bright. It was setup originally with two single coils and a bridge humbucker, 5 way rotary switch, volume and sweet switch. Years ago, I tried to fatten it up by dropping a Dimarzio Tone Zone in the Bridge position. This marginally improved the sound, but the whole thing still sounded thin/bright. I then got the bright idea of putting a single-coil-sized humbucker (single sized Dimarzio Tone Zone) in the neck position to replace the single coil. I wired so that it did not have a phase issue with the middle, but again, it was not a big improvement. I even swapped out the volume pot for a 250K pot and that made it darker, but the difference between the positions in terms of tonality is pretty bad compared to all my other guitars. The sound is not an out-of-phase type thin sound...its sort of plain mid-rangey and does not sound as good as my mexi strat with HH or ibanez HSH

What I think I'm realizing is that the original config using the 5-way rotary was treating the two single coils and the humbucker as a combined HH config and splitting the coils the same way as the two humbucker config at that time. The rotary switch is hardwired per the PRS site so when I tried to make it a HSH, I'm getting some weird combo of the humbuckers and middle coil.

I'm thinking I should pull the original 5-way rotary switch out and put in a 4-pole 5-way rotary switch and rewire from scratch for HSH. I've scoured the internet for HSH using 5-way rotary, but have found nothing. Has anybody here modded the wiring for a 1988 era Studio? Any advice or pitfalls to watch for....is there something I'm missing here? I really appreciate the help as I would love to make this guitar my main axe.....

 

[justmund]

If you don't use the middle pickup by itself I'd be tempted to do a complete rewire (paying particular attention to cap values) and install a 3-way toggle, with a push-pull to activate the middle pickup, to get those "in-between" sounds.

Another push-pull could be used for coil splits if your pickups can do that.

I'm fond of that switching system though (I have it on a couple of guitars now).

 

[lowaction]

cool idea! This would be nice and straightforward without dealing with the rotary switch and I could use the same guitar holes....could even keep the sweet switch in. Would the push/pull be on the volume knob? Any wiring diagrams close to this? ...thanks!

 

[justmund]

Yup if you're just using one push-pull, just replace your volume knob.

All you do is wire your grounds like normal, and then run the hot of the middle pickup to one side of the normally open switch/contact on the push-pull, then a wire from the other side of the contact to the hot of the 3-way toggle. That way when the push-pull is pulled, the hot signal from the middle pickup gets connected in parallel to whatever is currently selected on the 3-way.

You also get the option of all 3 pickups, which I think is an interesting, and usable tone.

Don't forget to play with the pickup heights (especially the middle to maximise the spank!)

Hope that helps

 

[lowaction]

Here's the update......I had already purchased a 5-way rotary and had some push-pull 250k pots. I ended up wiring it in a strat config with coil split and bridge select....I have it wired with the 5-way switch, a push-pull tone and a push-pull volume (I took out the sweet switch since it was too bright anyway).

so with both push-pulls down, I have neck,Neck+middle, Middle, Bridge+Middle, bridge with the humbuckers in full humbucking mode.

with the volume push-pull up, I have the same with the Neck and bridge coil split to give it more strat sounding tones

with the tone push-pull up, I add the bridge to all configs....this allows me to do Neck+bridge Les Paul style when the selector is in neck position. the wild thing is that it significantly boosts the volume when in bridge + neck....

I'm amazed that the sound is much more thick overall than with the original PRS wiring (same pickups). I think the original 1988 PRS 5-way rotary had weird phase selections that made it incompatible with getting the full tone from the Dimarzio's I added. I'm super thrilled cuz now my best playable guitar is more than a 1-trick pony!

 

[jcolmn]

Interesting.

with the tone push-pull up, I add the bridge to all configs....this allows me to do Neck+bridge Les Paul style when the selector is in neck position. the wild thing is that it significantly boosts the volume when in bridge + neck....​

It sounds like you have it wired in series if the output goes up like that. Usually the middle position puts both pickups in parallel, so that the sound stays relatively the same (assuming both pickups had the same volume output to each other)

As to how to wire them to be in parallel while both on with that 5 way. I have no idea.

 

[lowaction]

yea....I have no idea what I did 3 months later! It sounds good and works for me. I am thinking about switching the bridge pickup from a
Tone Zone to something a little brighter.....