Pickup recommendations

Anant Mohan

New Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2021
Messages
3
Location
Illinois
Hey everyone! I'm looking to upgrade the pickups on my PRS SE Custom 24. Looking mainly for covered humbuckers that have a warm and rich tone. There are so many to choose from, so I don't know where to start. Any recommendations?
 
I am huge fan of my 59/09 in my core Custom 24. I had Seymour Duncan JB/Jazz combo in SE custom 24 and really liked those. The guitar sounded quite beautiful for lack of a better description but kick in the JB in the bridge for more output with great splitting capabilities. The 59 is another good choice from SD. A great pickup winder to deal with is Wolfetone. He's more traditionally associated with Les Paul but he can get you the sound you are after. I'm actually talking to him now for a project under way.
 
I am huge fan of my 59/09 in my core Custom 24. I had Seymour Duncan JB/Jazz combo in SE custom 24 and really liked those. The guitar sounded quite beautiful for lack of a better description but kick in the JB in the bridge for more output with great splitting capabilities. The 59 is another good choice from SD. A great pickup winder to deal with is Wolfetone. He's more traditionally associated with Les Paul but he can get you the sound you are after. I'm actually talking to him now for a project under way.
Thanks so much! I'll be sure to check them out.
 
I am not even remotely familiar with any pf the PRS stock offerings.... So, I'll keep quiet on that side of things.

There are almost too many choices these days. So, I'll make my own suggestion. Talk to one of the custom winders and tell them what you want. I've done this a few times with David Plumber at Zhangbucker. His prices for custom pickups are quite reasonable... About the same as production Seymour Duncan stuff. lead times are stupid long, but every time has been well worth the wait for me.

But, many of the guys out there can do similar, probably for somewhat similar prices.

The advantage I found was getting EXACTLY what I wanted, without having any technical knowledge of how to get there! The first set I bought from him, we had a long email back and forth, including some youtube and song file swaps. He suggested some custom tweaks on a couple of his regular pickups and I liked what he was telling me. A number of weeks later I got a set of pickups and when I installed them and first plugged the guitar in, I was floored... Speechless, really. He had nailed the sound I had imagined... I don't mean he got close, he absolutely nailed it! He made a guitar I loved the feel of into a guitar I just plain out love!

I recently replace d a set of SE Santana Pickups with a set of his HB sized P-90's. I didn't have an exact idea of what I wanted, but gave hime some thoughts and general preferences. He knocked it out of the park again. But, the downside was it took quite a while to get my pickups.. Seems he's gotten busy winding pickups for a few boutique guitar companies.

I am not affiliated with David in any way, other than being a super happy (threepeat) customer. I am also not saying he's the only guy in the game. Not sure you can swing a dead cat on the Internet without finding guys winding pickups. So, reach out to a few of them and see how quickly they respond and if they give you answers you like. One fun thing, if you go this rout, is that you have a set of pickups wound just for you. You can have your own (subtly) unique sound!
 
So I’ve tried a lot of pickups over the years. 58/15LT’s are my favorite of all time. Admittedly I’ve not played a lot of other prs pickups. But have no doubt they’re awesome.

That said, I’ll second the Stew Mac pickups. I put some alnico 2 parson street humbuckers in my LP studio, and man do I like them. Aside from the aforementioned 58/15LT’s they’re my next to favorite. Warm and clear like a HB should be. They replaced some ThornBuckers that were kind of bright and wimpy by comparison.
 
Aren't the StewMac another Artec pickup like GFS? Another budget pickup people like. I've never used either. It always seemed like a sideways change to what I was swapping out. A different sound but Korean for Korean.
 
Aren't the StewMac another Artec pickup like GFS? Another budget pickup people like. I've never used either. It always seemed like a sideways change to what I was swapping out. A different sound but Korean for Korean.

I honestly have no idea. They’re more than likely imported. But my top 3 pickups of all time are the 58/15LT, the parson st alnico 2 humbuckers, and I have a custom bare knuckles Mississippi Queen p90 that absolutely slays.

Admittedly I’ve only gotten into low output vintage pickups lately. Before that I was more of a mid to high output humbucker guy. I’ve tried a lot of SD’s. Favorite I’ve tried being a custom 5 bridge. I had a 59 bridge I liked. Other SD’s I can think of include the jazz neck, lipsticks, and custom custom. None sounded bad. Just nothing that blew me away. I do want to try their antiquities sometime.

I’ve also had the rio grande Texas bbq set in a LP studio that I liked at the time. But that’s been a long time ago haha.

I recently put some ThornBuckers in the same LP studio, while trying to make it sound more like my 594 I was about to sell. Tonally they were close. But there was something about them that never clicked in that guitar. They just didn’t have the fullness or something. So that’s when I bought the parson st set that I found a great deal on. So far I’m super happy with them.
 
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