Question about (50s?) wiring on 2013 SE Custom 24, and volume knob mod suggestions.

[DanielKennethRego]

Hello everyone, and this is my first post here.

I own a PRS SE Custom 24 from 2013, and after reading about 50s wiring and treble bleed mods, and that post-2007 PRS guitars are wired 50s style, I opened the control cavity to investigate and verify that my SE 24 was also wired this way. I'm a complete newbie at electronics and guitar wiring, and I couldn't quite decipher the tangle of wires in there, with any degree of confidence.

So, do post-2007 PRS SE models also have 50s wiring, or is this something restricted only to the American PRS instruments? I was interested in the 50s wiring or the treble bleed mod because I wasn't completely with the tone when rolling the volume knob down below say, 5 or so - some amount of highs seemed to drop out, and the tone also seemed to lose some amount of body. This is much worse when in coil-tap mode, where the neck pickup loses brightness and clarity very quickly.

What I'm looking for is for the volume knob to act more like a gain control without bringing in much change to the tone.

Does my PRS SE Custom 24 have 50s wiring, and what mods should I look at, to get the volume control to behave more like a gain control with little change in tone?

 

[DHW]

The se is wired Asian style, just like ever Asian guitar I've ever owned. The cap bleeds the treble to ground. You'll want to swap the pots for some short shaft premium cts 550s and get a good pio cap.

 

[DanielKennethRego]

The se is wired Asian style, just like ever Asian guitar I've ever owned. The cap bleeds the treble to ground. You'll want to swap the pots for some short shaft premium cts 550s and get a good pio cap.

So that's the treble bleed 'mod' that's stock, right?
Are there any specific suggested values of the cap that I should swap in, to get the guitar to sound better at lower volumes?

This is, in detail, how the SE Custom 24 sounds to me, when the volume knob is worked below 7 or so.

Regular Humbucker mode
Bridge humbucker - retains decent clarity, but starts to sound thin and lacking some body.
Neck humbucker - retains clarity and a fair amount of body too, but sounds a little wooly in the upper midrange.

Coil split mode
Bridge single coil - starts to sound lacking body
Neck single coil - loses some top-end and gets muddy and wooly, just like the neck humbucker.

Are there any suggested wiring mods or circuit component changes I should make, to make everything sound more even?

 

[DHW]

So that's the treble bleed 'mod' that's stock, right?
Are there any specific suggested values of the cap that I should swap in, to get the guitar to sound better at lower volumes?

This is, in detail, how the SE Custom 24 sounds to me, when the volume knob is worked below 7 or so.

Regular Humbucker mode
Bridge humbucker - retains decent clarity, but starts to sound thin and lacking some body.
Neck humbucker - retains clarity and a fair amount of body too, but sounds a little wooly in the upper midrange.

Coil split mode
Bridge single coil - starts to sound lacking body
Neck single coil - loses some top-end and gets muddy and wooly, just like the neck humbucker.

Are there any suggested wiring mods or circuit component changes I should make, to make everything sound more even?

With 50's wiring the volume knob won't affect the tone at all. It will clean it up as it does now but won't change the tone. The trade off is a slight volume drop when twisting the tone knob but it's acceptible and will actually make the tone knob more useful. Get something like a Sprague vitamin q or one of mojo tones ppaper in oil caps. The luxe bumblebees are just recovered Russian caps at a premium price. .022 should work just fine. Follow the 50s wiring. There are diagrams all over the place on how to do it or you can just buy a prebuilt harness. You can pm me for more info if you like.

 

[DanielKennethRego]

With 50's wiring the volume knob won't affect the tone at all. It will clean it up as it does now but won't change the tone. The trade off is a slight volume drop when twisting the tone knob but it's acceptible and will actually make the tone knob more useful. Get something like a Sprague vitamin q or one of mojo tones ppaper in oil caps. The luxe bumblebees are just recovered Russian caps at a premium price. .022 should work just fine. Follow the 50s wiring. There are diagrams all over the place on how to do it or you can just buy a prebuilt harness. You can pm me for more info if you like.

Thanks for the help. I'm a complete dud with electronics (so far), so I think I'll send the guitar off to a local luthier for the mod. All the schematics I've seen show simple tone pots, but when I opened the control cavity on my SE Custom 24, the push-pull circuitry and the switching confused me and I couldn't quite tell what was going where.

So if I understand this correctly, my SE 24 has the treble bleed mod stock already? I spent some more time with my guitar, playing with the volume knob with and without the coils tapped, and I've confirmed that the tone gets a bit too weak and undefined when rolled off in split coil mode.

Also, I feel like the tone pot doesn't have much effect when rolling off, until about 7. Is this a side-effect of the treble bleed? Will 50s wiring rectify this?

 

[DHW]

Thanks for the help. I'm a complete dud with electronics (so far), so I think I'll send the guitar off to a local luthier for the mod. All the schematics I've seen show simple tone pots, but when I opened the control cavity on my SE Custom 24, the push-pull circuitry and the switching confused me and I couldn't quite tell what was going where.

So if I understand this correctly, my SE 24 has the treble bleed mod stock already? I spent some more time with my guitar, playing with the volume knob with and without the coils tapped, and I've confirmed that the tone gets a bit too weak and undefined when rolled off in split coil mode.

Also, I feel like the tone pot doesn't have much effect when rolling off, until about 7. Is this a side-effect of the treble bleed? Will 50s wiring rectify this?

Yes, it should fix it right up. Talk to your luthier and make sure he is on board with putting the quality stuff in it. You want the premium pots and either a vintage paper in oil cap or one of the mojo tones ones. Everything needs to test In spec before going in. He should also be replacing the switch and Jack and wire it all up with high quality wiring.that was it is done and done right.

 

[henryr]

The total length of wire used in a harness is relatively small so what is thought of using 18 AWG solid silver .9999 single strand in teflon tubing, 1 or 2% hi-end pots like Penny & Gilles and 1 or 2% hi-end capacitors like Obbligato or M Cap Supremes, just to use a few names.

 

[pac90]

I'm no mathematician but I'm pretty sure the answer = the square root of cluck all :laugh:

PRS don't even use fancy caps or wiring in PS models, where the margins are >> core models, and even orange drop caps for example are relatively cheap

I don't know what brand or taper of pots they use for S2 or core models, but the SE's have alphas, which I actually like