New Limited Run with video from Paul

So I've read several times here that the 58/15 and 85/15 pickups are the same, but the 58 is covered. In the vid, he seems to say that they may not be...or if they are the same, it's kind of a coincidence. That they were after making a better '58 PAF with one, and a better '85 PRS with the other?
Yeah, I didn't get that until I rewatched the video with this thought in mind, and I have to admit, now I do. It's not so much a coincidence, as...he's shooting towards an ideal, and he's gotten close enough to the ideal with both these pickups that they end up sounding the same.
 
Yeah, I didn't get that until I rewatched the video with this thought in mind, and I have to admit, now I do. It's not so much a coincidence, as...he's shooting towards an ideal, and he's gotten close enough to the ideal with both these pickups that they end up sounding the same.

I don't think PRSh addresses the difference between 58/15 and 85/15 in the video.

From the video I think there was some randomness and some luck involved. It appears that the big deal with the 58/15 and 85/15 pickups was discovering a slightly different coating formulation that seems to be some real secret sauce​. Whatever it is, I'm buying!

I did happen to have a conversation with PRSh about these pickups at NAMM last January. I'd noticed that the bobbins on the 85/15s had a very similar (and unusual) design which looked exactly like the bobbins on the pickups on my Series I Collection McCarty. He said that they were, but they had figured out how to dial back the ice-picky highs on those Collection pickups.

Not an untypical PRSh comment: tell a customer that his guitar isn't as good as what they are building now. OTOH, regardless of the evolution of the pickups, the bottom line for me is: the one in the photo I posted above is a way better guitar ​for me than the Collection guitar. Which it should be, as I had a fair amount of input in the new one whereas Paul et. al. built the Collection guitar for themselves.
 
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I thought it was obvious from the video that:
1.) the 85/15 pickups are an updated reissue of the original T&B pickups that graced the early PRS guitars starting in 1985.
2.) the 58/15 pickups are a tweaked update of the 57/08 pickups.

As to the idea of removing low mids from guitars in mixing, that is FAR from universal convention. an A/B comparison of the 57/08 and 58/15 sets would be ideal.
 
I don't think PRSh addresses the difference between 58/15 and 85/15 in the video.

Um, ok...

What I heard was that the first two numbers were the year that they seemed to sound like, and the second number pair was the year they were "recreated in a better way." Implication being that the 58/15 sounded like a '58 PAF done better in 2015. Then about 0:50 he describes the 85/15 as being what they "started their guitars with back in '85 redone in 2015." Both of those seem like fairly specific statements to me that imply differences. I have an old '86 with original pickups, and I have never found them to be PAF-like.

I agree with some other posters: more useful would be recordings comparing the two pickups on the same guitar, or even just personal experience of comparing the two in the same guitar.

I like the 85/15s okay, but I don't know that I think of them as great. Curious about the 58/15s, though.
 
I thought it was obvious from the video that:
1.) the 85/15 pickups are an updated reissue of the original T&B pickups that graced the early PRS guitars starting in 1985.

Not only did I not get that impression from the video, but I have the 85/15s and have had the T&Bs, and they are not even remotely similar. So far, the 85/15s on my CU24 30th PS are my favorite PRS pickups.

2.) the 58/15 pickups are a tweaked update of the 57/08 pickups.

As to the idea of removing low mids from guitars in mixing, that is FAR from universal convention. an A/B comparison of the 57/08 and 58/15 sets would be ideal.

The 58/15s, according to Paul's interview in Guitarist, are the same as the 85/15s, only they have covers, thus a warmer high end. They are very different from the 57/08s in sound.

Most mix engineers will remove low mids to some degree from guitar tracks to carve out room for bass and kick drum; in fact, it even helps the vocal. Just about everyone in the pro mix world uses the technique to one degree or another.
 
Not only did I not get that impression from the video, but I have the 85/15s and have had the T&Bs, and they are not even remotely similar. So far, the 85/15s on my CU24 30th PS are my favorite PRS pickups.

This - I really dislike T+Bs. And 85/15s are my favourite too. They don't even seem like they're from the same dimension to me.
 
Looks great...but not thrilled with the colors :-( I have my heart set on a CU24 Floyd anyways.
 
Considering that the T&Bs have completely different magnets, wire, and bobbins than the 85/15s I don't see how there's any way the two are related except in the fact that both are uncovered and both went in CU24s. I can see how one might draw the inference that they are related by extrapolating from what Paul said in this video, but he only specifically mentions the 57, 58, 59, and 53 versions.
 
Most mix engineers will remove low mids to some degree from guitar tracks to carve out room for bass and kick drum; in fact, it even helps the vocal. Just about everyone in the pro mix world uses the technique to one degree or another.

That was about the first piece of advice I got from a couple of pro engineers when I got up and running with my home studio.

It's pretty instructive to listen to some of the now-available solo guitar tracks from famous tunes. More often than not it's obvious they had a fair amount of this sort of slimming down applied at some point in the signal chain.
 
That was about the first piece of advice I got from a couple of pro engineers when I got up and running with my home studio.

It's pretty instructive to listen to some of the now-available solo guitar tracks from famous tunes. More often than not it's obvious they had a fair amount of this sort of slimming down applied at some point in the signal chain.

Plus 1 , here. The same goes with acoustic guitars. I have some incredible acoustics that sound outrageous in a room played out of the case.
Put them through my Neumann KM184 and they are way to many low mids to them. Funny how much mud we love just because we get a high horsepower pick up, or an acoustic cannon that we are not used to.
This won't reward most ensemble recordings.

Now if you're a power three some have at it!
 
As to the idea of removing low mids from guitars in mixing, that is FAR from universal convention.

True, there are a ton of sh!tty sounding records out there. I've mixed a few of them.

Most mix engineers will remove low mids to some degree from guitar tracks to carve out room for bass and kick drum; in fact, it even helps the vocal. Just about everyone in the pro mix world uses the technique to one degree or another.

That was about the first piece of advice I got from a couple of pro engineers when I got up and running with my home studio.

It's pretty instructive to listen to some of the now-available solo guitar tracks from famous tunes. More often than not it's obvious they had a fair amount of this sort of slimming down applied at some point in the signal chain.

These points also true.

If we define the "lower mid range" as being the frequencies between 200-500hz you'll notice that most instruments get their sense of "power" in this range. It's the area where a snare drum gets its "weight" from (about 250hz), the upper limits of definition for a bass drum before getting "boxy" sounding (about 300hz), the higher range where electric and upright bass have their fundamental frequencies, where pretty much any electric piano or organ's entire middle section of the keyboard lives, and the bottom spectrum of the range for vocals.

Everything sits there, that's one of the reasons why recordings with too much frequency build up in that area are referred to as "muddy".

There are a bunch of WMD metal and modern rockabilly albums with guitar tones that will "scoop" out 400-750hz (ala Metallica/Korn..not so much rockabilly, they're more concerned with big vocals and let that eat up the space) and leave a ton of information from 300hz on down, which is why you can't hear the definition of the bass or kick drum unless you add that "clicky" sounding upper frequency range to it.

If your album is all about guitar, and you hate your bassist, drummer, keyboardist, and singer... by all means, you shouldn't carve out the lower midrange of your guitar tone. While you're at it, turn the bass control on your amp all the way up too.
 
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That looks like a guy who's happy with his tone!
 
Bummer that it's a limited run! I dig covered pickups, and would love a 24 with these 58/15's, but don't need the associated price tag of a limited run!
 
I have the 85/15s and have had the T&Bs, and they are not even remotely similar.

I'll take your word for it. The point in the video was that the first number (57, 59, 53, 85, 58, etc.) is the year of the original pickup that they're using as a point of reference. There's nothing special about 1985 in regards to pickups, as far as I know, except that this was the first year of production for PRS... PRSh did say they weren't supposed to be an exact copy of that year, but rather a new spin on it, but if they're completely different wire and magnets, then... I have no idea what they were aiming for.

The 58/15s, according to Paul's interview in Guitarist, are the same as the 85/15s, only they have covers, thus a warmer high end.

That just doesn't make any sense to me. 59/09s have come in both covered and uncovered versions, and there was no need to change the name. Between that and the fact that the first number is meant to be the year of the reference pickups, I find it hard to believe that these are just covered 85/15s. I think somebody got some wires crossed in that interview.
 
That just doesn't make any sense to me. 59/09s have come in both covered and uncovered versions, and there was no need to change the name. Between that and the fact that the first number is meant to be the year of the reference pickups, I find it hard to believe that these are just covered 85/15s. I think somebody got some wires crossed in that interview.

I don't think I've seen that interview but I wonder if Paul was asked about the differences and he just said that one is covered and one is uncovered because he's not about to tell all the secret stuff in his pickups. That's certainly one difference between the pickups.
 
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