SE Mods

I've modded my SE SOAP SC with winged tuners, PRS adjustable wraparound bridge, CTS pots, sprague caps and BG Pups P90s.
I'll try and upload a photo or two.
 
Love this stuff :congrats:, was thinking of doing a similar thing to my SE Tremonti UK Custom as your SE Standard.
What kind of Tremel-No did you use on it?:dontknow::dontknow:
How easy are the Schallers to put in?:dontknow:
Can you coil tap all Bareknuckle humbuckers?:dontknow:
Would you recommend replacing all pots, jacks and switches?:dontknow:
Thanks!!:cheers:

I used the pin type tremel-no, but at the time is was the only option available. Now I would get the large clamp type. I had to enlarge the spring hole with a drill bit to use the pin type.
The 3X3 Locking Schaller tuners are drop in replacement for the SE tuners. No drilling and the screw holes line right up.
I'm not sure if all Bare Knuckle humbuckers cat be coil tapped. As long as you get the 4 wire sets you should be fine.
Personally I would replace the pots, jack, caps, and switch. I have owned several SE's as well as some other imports and those things tend to start acting up over time. Import 3 way switches seem to want to fail on me after a few months use. If you are going to rewire for new pickups and add new caps and such, you might as well gut all of the electronics while you are at it.
 
I used the pin type tremel-no, but at the time is was the only option available. Now I would get the large clamp type. I had to enlarge the spring hole with a drill bit to use the pin type.
The 3X3 Locking Schaller tuners are drop in replacement for the SE tuners. No drilling and the screw holes line right up.
I'm not sure if all Bare Knuckle humbuckers cat be coil tapped. As long as you get the 4 wire sets you should be fine.
Personally I would replace the pots, jack, caps, and switch. I have owned several SE's as well as some other imports and those things tend to start acting up over time. Import 3 way switches seem to want to fail on me after a few months use. If you are going to rewire for new pickups and add new caps and such, you might as well gut all of the electronics while you are at it.

Thanks a bunch! I did some looking into the BKPs and the Nailbomb (the one I'm looking at as I want to put an H sized P90 in the neck, the Stockholm if you're interested.) in the bridge can be coil-tapped with the 4 way wires!
Will put some pictures up when i'm done, but I've got a Head and Cab project first in the queue!
 
Hey guys, I'm new here. My SE Custom 24 is a 2009 model in Black Cherry, and I absolutely love it to death, it's the only electric guitar that own.

At first, I wanted to do some costless mods, so I experimented with wirings. Firstly, there's the out of phase middle position, which I flipped the magnet, but then it became somewhat neglected due to the reason i don't play peter green stuff, and so I rewired it backwards. I did notice a bit more clarity (or was it just me?) in the neck humbucker after doing so. Secondly, I also tried doing a permanent coil split thing as I am pretty fond of the telecaster's neck pickup sound for strumming. Had to solder an extra wire from the pickup to the selector switch. But then after some time, I found out that I actually missed the neck humbucker tone, and so I rewired it back. Some crazy stuff that I do LOL.

I must say, although the stock bridge was quite decent, it just doesn't cut it for me. Not enough clarity in heavy distortion, mild overdrive classic stuff was okay, maybe a little bit lacking in the higher frequencies for me. And so, I was very much into heavy rock and metal at that time, so I dropped a Dimarzio D Activator in the bridge position. So, it nails pretty much all my favourite tones from modern rock ranging from Alter Bridge to *ducks from rotten tomato* Nickelback stuff. The neck humbucker stays as I can't find any reasons to replace it yet, it's got a really sweet and smooth leads tone, at least for me. Rolling down the tone control actually gives me a nice jazzy or "woman" tone a la Clapton or Santana.

I also did the budget Tremsetter thing, which i installed a 50mm door latch in the trem cavity (no guitars were hurt in the process) and then tried to balance the trem springs in an unorthodox way. Pretty useful when I'm playing in drop tunings.

Lastly the easiest mod that I had done, was to flip the truss rod cover. I had thought of that when I adjusted the truss rod once, while I was changing strings. It helps to get rid of the "cramped up" look at the headstock.

Sorry, still figuring out how to post pictures here, can anyone shed some light for me? :dontknow:

edit: forgot to add that I had lightly sanded the gloss finish on the neck (inspired by Mikael Akerfeldt's signature model), it played like butter ever since then.
 
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On my PRS SE Santana, I replaced the volume and tone knobs with the Seymour Duncan blackouts modular preamp. sounds really amazing with the stock zebra pickups. I also split the humbucker's coil wiring because it was wired in a series with only 2 leads coming off of each humbucker. I split the coils to make 4 leads and wired each coil to its own terminal on the BMP preamp. This really made a difference in the sound of playing with the 3-way set in the middle, both humbuckers, it is really super quiet at high gain levels.
 
At first, I wanted to do some costless mods, so I experimented with wirings. Firstly, there's the out of phase middle position, which I flipped the magnet, but then it became somewhat neglected due to the reason i don't play peter green stuff, and so I rewired it backwards. I did notice a bit more clarity (or was it just me?) in the neck humbucker after doing so. Secondly, I also tried doing a permanent coil split thing as I am pretty fond of the telecaster's neck pickup sound for strumming. Had to solder an extra wire from the pickup to the selector switch. But then after some time, I found out that I actually missed the neck humbucker tone, and so I rewired it back. Some crazy stuff that I do LOL.

I must say, although the stock bridge was quite decent, it just doesn't cut it for me. Not enough clarity in heavy distortion, mild overdrive classic stuff was okay, maybe a little bit lacking in the higher frequencies for me. And so, I was very much into heavy rock and metal at that time, so I dropped a Dimarzio D Activator in the bridge position. So, it nails pretty much all my favourite tones from modern rock ranging from Alter Bridge to *ducks from rotten tomato* Nickelback stuff. The neck humbucker stays as I can't find any reasons to replace it yet, it's got a really sweet and smooth leads tone, at least for me. Rolling down the tone control actually gives me a nice jazzy or "woman" tone a la Clapton or Santana.

Sorry, still figuring out how to post pictures here, can anyone shed some light for me? :dontknow:
For the neck pickup, when you go in and cut that wire, just add a 3rd wire to it for the coil splits and wire it to a push/pull tone pot. Push/pulls are like $10 or something... near costless, but then you get the best of both worlds.

And while the bridge pickup will never be a D-activator, clarity and definition can be greatly improved with a magnet swap. I don't know which alnico comes standard in there, but a rough cast unoriented Alnico 5 magnet does wonders for that pickup. Once again, not costless but just afew bucks on ebay.

For pics, upload the image to a hosting provider, there are so many it's impossible to count. Imageshack, Photobucket, Google+ Facebook flickr, heck even your ISP might provide space for that sort of thing. Then, copy the URL of the image and paste into the thread using the picture thingy.

uploadphotobutton.jpg
 
I have a 2007 Tremonti SE incoming, supposed to be clean and original save for a Tusq nut. I grabbed a new 59/09 squabbin this morning for it and have a couple of volume pots from an American PRS to throw at it; don't imagine i will be spinning the tone knobs on this one much so i will leave them alone. Looking for a covered neck pup to give it the proper Tremonti look.

What are some other 'must do' mods you can suggest? I am thinking locking tuners and a USA bridge maybe.
 
Why not add a cover to the stock neck pickup? Look for a 50mm pole piece nickel cover. I really like the stock neck pickups in SEs as do many other folks. It's easy to do and there's a bunch of info on the net about how to do it.

As for the rest, why not play it for a bit before doing the mods. I had a Tremonti SE recently, and while there was nothing wrong with it, I played it for a few days and at a band practice and decided to return it to GC rather than do my planned upgrades. The guitar was fine, it just didn't speak to me the ways others have.
 
Moderators - how about making this thread "Sticky"

Posters - how about including parts details when listing/showing modifications?

I fitted Grover Mini Locking Rotomatic tuners to my SE Custom Semi-Hollow - straight swap, no drilling.
 
Can anyone that has installed Phase II locking tuners on their SE post a pic of the back of the neck? I have a set and can't decide if I want to have holes in the back of my Santana. Leaning more towards my Custom 24 as its older.
 
Can anyone that has installed Phase II locking tuners on their SE post a pic of the back of the neck? I have a set and can't decide if I want to have holes in the back of my Santana. Leaning more towards my Custom 24 as its older.


No problem.
I had an old Santana SE that I gave the full USA treatment to.
Here it is with Phase II tuners:

DSCN2476.jpg

DSCN2470.jpg
 
Thanks Pete, I think I will install them on my custom. Lot more dive bombing with that anyway. Also have the tusq nut to install with the tuners.
 
I'm thinking of putting a set of Seymour Duncans in my Custom 24. I have a dumb question, do I need to get the trembucker because of the tremolo? Looking at the JB and 59 model as a set and want to make sure I get the right ones.
 
I'm thinking of putting a set of Seymour Duncans in my Custom 24. I have a dumb question, do I need to get the trembucker because of the tremolo? Looking at the JB and 59 model as a set and want to make sure I get the right ones.

yup, you need trembuckers for the bridge, the neck position will be normal spacing though. When i was replacing my bridge pickup, i used a f-spaced one, the pole spacing is accurate, all strings were right above the pole screws. Then for my neck pickup, i used normal spacing, also perfectly aligned.

I yanked out my "budget tremsetter" already, wasn't doing much help at all, and I finally got over the "drop-tuning for METUHHHLZ" period in my life. The original trem's working but I think the saddles have coarse or sharp surfaces. I had snapped 3 strings in a month! Two high E string, and a D string, which would be impossible for me to break it by bending (no way, seriously.) And I impulse-purchased another new neck pickup for her, a D-activator neck. I gotta say, that pickups works as more than just a metal pickup. I tweaked it for a couple of hours and it gave me some really sweet and smooth neck tone, not bright at all. I think it definitely nailed the tone that sounds like a mix of John Petrucci and Slash. The high notes down the neck have a really nice vibe with these pickups on. I have no idea why but the middle position sounds like singlecoils when you back down the volume. Not stratty, but very singlecoil sounding. And the best part of it? It's CREAM!!

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edit: sorry for the bad lighting here, the real thing definitely looks sexy with the flame veneer under black cherry finish :D shame it's an older flat-top model from 2009.

edit again: oh and thanks for the tips on posting pics John Beef :D
 
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I have a 2007 Tremonti SE incoming, supposed to be clean and original save for a Tusq nut. I grabbed a new 59/09 squabbin this morning for it and have a couple of volume pots from an American PRS to throw at it; don't imagine i will be spinning the tone knobs on this one much so i will leave them alone. Looking for a covered neck pup to give it the proper Tremonti look.

What are some other 'must do' mods you can suggest? I am thinking locking tuners and a USA bridge maybe.

why do you not use the tone knobs? you can get pretty fantastic sounds from it! :D

Now, it's just a suggestion and I can't guarantee that it'll work for you but, since you don't use the tone pots, why not pull out the tone pots? (or just remove the wires connecting to the tone pot) It will scream, seriously. I've done it for my bro's telecaster, and it definitely transformed into a beast.
 
yup, you need trembuckers for the bridge, the neck position will be normal spacing though. When i was replacing my bridge pickup, i used a f-spaced one, the pole spacing is accurate, all strings were right above the pole screws. Then for my neck pickup, i used normal spacing, also perfectly aligned.

Cool thanks, so I will get the TB-4 JB & the SH-1 '59
 
I have some Duncan Invaders I've been contemplating for my 25th SE Custom 24! Otherwise, at this point is completely stock!
 
hey guys, i was curious about how you guys got the headstock done with the eagle/signature-on-rosewood veneer/decal? Where'd you guys get that stuff? I guess my SE's headstock's looking pretty fine now, but damn, that PRS signature on my headstock will be like a dream come true for me! :cheers:
 
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