Potential Neck Replacement PUP

mitchewr

New Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2013
Messages
86
Location
Michigan
So, I have one of the new PRS Se 245s. I absolutely love the guitar. Best value I've ever purchased. When I first got it, it came with the factory 9s and was setup perfectly- intonation and action was beautiful. Also, the neck pickup was sweet when playing on the clean channel on my Alchemist. However, I felt that the drive was lacking, being that the strings were 9s, so I had my luthier set it up for 10s and add a push pull tone pot on the neck pickup. Now the bridge pup is fine and sounds great with the 10s, but the neck sounds too thick and muddy, unless I activate the coil tap. It's no longer chimey =( I've tried raising the action and raising/lowering the pup, but I just can't get the same sound I was getting before.

So I turn to you all.

Has anyone else out there swapped out the neck pup on their SE with a different/ "better" PRS pup that could alleviate my issue? Your experience & knowledge is requested. :)

OR, am I just out of luck due to the difference of the strings thickness?
 
I swapped my neck pup for a Bare Knuckle Mule (Bridge for a Suhr Doug Aldrich after disliking the bridge Mule). It's setup with 10's but I'd have to say my Mule is thicker sounding than the stock SE245 pup. Not muddy though. I didn't experience any muddiness with the stock Se245 pups at all with 10's.

Nothing you can do with the EQ's of any pedals / amp?

I don't, personally, have any experience with US PRS pups so there's nothing I could recommend. Id do everything you can to see if you can get some more high end with the stock pups just so you save yourself from disappointment / cost.

May be worth temporarily going back to 9's and seeing what the difference is. See if it sounds as you remembered.
 
Every guitar seems to be different. I've had a few guitars where I'd struggle to get a non-muddy tone from the neck pickup - namely a Mira I used to have, but my current Mira has one of the brightest neck pickup tones I've ever gotten from a humbucker guitar with the stock Mira pickup. Same model, same pickups, totally different neck pickup responses (the bridge pickups sound pretty similar).

I don't know if the stock SE245 pickups come with a coil split wire, did the tech add that for you? It's possible something changed unexpectedly while the pickup was disassembled if so.
 
The tech did add the split coil for me, so I suppose that could have something to do with it. I could try bumping up the treble and reducing the lows, but treb is already 75% up an the bright switch is on. If I did go back to 9s, then I'd need to get a new nut put in as I've already had the slots widened.
 
You should be able to switch back to 9's with no ill effect from the widened nut slots. I've had good luck using a Duncan Jazz pickup in the neck. They are pretty clear and brighter sounding in my experience.
 
I have never switched pickups in anything. I am usually quite satisfied with stock stuff.
 
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