S2 Custom 22 With Gibson 498

[YetAnotherRushFan]

I've got an S2. Love it. Most playable guitar I have, and sounds great. I also have a LP Studio with the 498/490 pup pair. This guitar does not play quite as nicely as the S2 but the GROWL from that bridge pickup is just amazing.

I know this is a dumb question, kind of, but I'm wondering how closely I can replicate that sound if I buy a 498 and stick it in my PRS guitar. Yes the scale length is a bit different but materials are very similar (maple on mahogany) and I'm thinking a lot of the sound must be due to the pup.

Has anyone stuck a 498 in their PRS? Does it make it sound like a growling Les Paul? 90% there?

 

[shimmilou]

Sounds like a good idea to me. I really like the 498/490 that I had in a GLP, killer sound, but the guitar itself was poor quality and I eventually sold it.

I have the same set in an ELP Prophecy, and they sounds just as killer, in a much better quality guitar.

 

[pauloqs]

A friend of mine has a set of Gibson Burstbucker 1 & 2 in his S2 Custom 22. I really like that guitar. Is probably the guitar that got me into PRS. If you don’t want to gut your LP Studio, you can get a set of 498/490 pretty cheap because a lot of Gibson fans look down on those pickups. Personally I really like them.

 

[YetAnotherRushFan]

So does a Custom 22 with Gibson pups sound a lot like an LP then? On the bridge pup especially?

I would probably change only the bridge...

 

[pauloqs]

So does a Custom 22 with Gibson pups sound a lot like an LP then? On the bridge pup especially?

I would probably change only the bridge...

Depends on your definition of close. Like you said there is the different scale, different bridge and different body thickness. I think it gets you pretty close, but others might disagree. I conjecture the 498 will get even closer than the Burstbuckers would, as they’re Gibson’s take on a modernized hotter PAF. You’ll probably lose some clarity, but get much more of the growl you’re after. It’s possible that because of thinner body on the S2 Cu22, you’ll get a slightly more refined to e and cut through a band mix with a bit more easy than your LP and possibly get a sound that do not suffer from some of the criticism those pickups get among Gibson fans.

 

[shimmilou]

Surmising, the same pups will sound better in a PRS than in a LP. By better, I mean richer, fuller, more musical...... just a suspicion though.

 

[pauloqs]

Surmising, the same pups will sound better in a PRS than in a LP. By better, I mean richer, fuller, more musical...... just a suspicion though.

I know it’s tongue in cheek comment. But in all seriousness, I think it’s how the parts interacts with each other. The 498 are a bit on the darker side of things. You put it on a 594 with mahogany neck, then the same people who find them muddy on the LP will also find them muddy on the 594 as well. If you put them on a S2 Singlecut Standard, the thicker all mahogany body and neck could possibly sound even worse to the people who complain about the 498. Personally, I think the 498 are underrated pickups. I have an R0, two LP Standards, one a T and one an HP, and a Studio. The Studio came with 498/490 and both Standards had Burstbucker Pros. The Standard T now has Classic 57/57+ and the Standard HP has a Bare knuckle Mule (neck) and sometimes Riff Raff sometimes a Black Dog (bridge). I fell in love with PRS after I got my McCarty because that was the first time I felt the fiz with a guitar other than Gibson LP. It was its own thing, but it had the thing in the sound. That raw gutural primal thing in the sound that makes me want to play it. I love my Custom 24-08 and it gets me almost there tonally and it’s possibly the most comfortable guitar I’ve ever played. However, tonally, the McCarty is the one that has the thing.

 

[Barquentine]

I have a Gibson Firebird Studio that came with the 490/498 set. I didn't like them much so replaced them with a BK Rebel Yell set. Huge improvement - gigged that guitar for five years. Three years ago I got into PRS. First I got a Bernie which received a BK Abraxas set which sound incredible. The Bernie took over as my main gigging guitar. Next was an S2 Singlecut. I decided to move the Rebel Yells into the S2 and was astounded at the result. They sound WAY better than they did in the Firebird. Same pickups, different guitar, very different result. It's worth trying the 498 in your S2 but there's no real way of predicting how it will sound. However, your S2 is closer in construction to an SG than an LP and I've read a lot of people say that, though they don't like the 498 in an LP, they love it in an SG.

 

[MichaelS]

I'll be curious about the end result.
On the other hand, I do appreciate the different sounds of my guitars and haven't tried to get any of them to sound like one of the other.

Maybe you can find a good tech who can get the LP to play nicer?
I took all my (3) GibsonUSA LPs to a really good tech for setup and more importantly recrown the frets so they're not "school bus" anymore. They're now like the CustomShop would have them and all 3 LPs ring out forever.

But yea, I second trying something other than the Koreans in an S2.

 

[pauloqs]

I'll be curious about the end result.
On the other hand, I do appreciate the different sounds of my guitars and haven't tried to get any of them to sound like one of the other.

Maybe you can find a good tech who can get the LP to play nicer?
I took all my (3) GibsonUSA LPs to a really good tech for setup and more importantly recrown the frets so they're not "school bus" anymore. They're now like the CustomShop would have them and all 3 LPs ring out forever.

But yea, I second trying something other than the Koreans in an S2.

This is a really good suggestion. A well setup LP can play amazingly well. I was lucky all my LPs didn’t anything done to the frets, so just simple DIY setups did wonders to my guitars. And yes experimenting with pickups on those S2s can make those come to life. Although, I really like some of their stock Korean pickups, like the #7 S and the Mira S.