SE Mods

Don't start modding till you know the guitar. It might be fine out of the box. They're all different.
 
Don't start modding till you know the guitar. It might be fine out of the box. They're all different.

No, I most certainly won't start changing things on it unless it needs it. I haven't had a chance to play it long enough to pass judgement on how well it holds its tuning. I do know that it's wiring needs a little work, the bridge pickup buzzes really bad... more than likely a ground issue though and the tuners don't all feel nice and tight when I turn the key. But those are all easily fixed. So here's a pic of my Tremonti, not taken by me... the camera on my phone blows big time lol, but this is my exact guitar.

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The color is drop dead gorgeous. When I bought my custom, I got the neck and body only, all the parts had been stripped. I always put Hipshot open back locking tuners (made in the USA) with the U.M.P. Mounting kit on my SE`s. I have old USA Mira pickups in me Tremonti as well. I find the trem to be excellent. On some of them, the nut is a problem. If it`s got a trem, I`ll use a USA PRS nut. Every other part can be replaced as needed. When I do replace parts, I always use the highest quality USA parts available. I`m a player, not a collector, so originality is unnecessary for me. I also keep a guitar for a month unaltered before I start modding.
 
The color is drop dead gorgeous. When I bought my custom, I got the neck and body only, all the parts had been stripped. I always put Hipshot open back locking tuners (made in the USA) with the U.M.P. Mounting kit on my SE`s. I have old USA Mira pickups in me Tremonti as well. I find the trem to be excellent. On some of them, the nut is a problem. If it`s got a trem, I`ll use a USA PRS nut. Every other part can be replaced as needed. When I do replace parts, I always use the highest quality USA parts available. I`m a player, not a collector, so originality is unnecessary for me. I also keep a guitar for a month unaltered before I start modding.

I hear ya there, this is my 3rd guitar for on stage. It was going to be for my lesser used tunings but after playing it... I'm not so sure of that now lol, I think this might get bumped up in the rotation! I do like the sound of the stock pickups so, as long as the excessive buzzing is able to be fixed by my guitar guy, I'll probably stick with them. If not, I was thinking of getting some passive Duncans for it. Something like invaders since I play a lot of hard rock / metal. As far as tuners, If I end up replacing those, I was going to go with the Grover 406c mainly because 1) I have them on one of my other guitars and like them and 2) From what I have read, I wont have to do any extra drilling or anything to swap them out. I hadn't heard of the Hipshots tuners. I typically don't do a whole lot of modding to guitars unless they need something swapped. Most of the time I don't even hear about all the modding options until I'm looking to mod that particular component. If it aint broke don't fix it right?
 
I hear ya there, this is my 3rd guitar for on stage. It was going to be for my lesser used tunings but after playing it... I'm not so sure of that now lol, I think this might get bumped up in the rotation! I do like the sound of the stock pickups so, as long as the excessive buzzing is able to be fixed by my guitar guy, I'll probably stick with them. If not, I was thinking of getting some passive Duncans for it. Something like invaders since I play a lot of hard rock / metal. As far as tuners, If I end up replacing those, I was going to go with the Grover 406c mainly because 1) I have them on one of my other guitars and like them and 2) From what I have read, I wont have to do any extra drilling or anything to swap them out. I hadn't heard of the Hipshots tuners. I typically don't do a whole lot of modding to guitars unless they need something swapped. Most of the time I don't even hear about all the modding options until I'm looking to mod that particular component. If it aint broke don't fix it right?
Most tuners, including Grovers, are made overseas. The hipshots are dead on reliable, and made in upstate New York. American parts always see to be more reliable to me. and then there are American jobs at stake. The tuners cost the same as Grovers.
 
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Just got a Mark Tremonti . . . that some people have had an others haven't in regards to holding tune
I've had one since 2014 and it holds it's tune fine, so does my singlecut and my Paul Allender. I've never had an issue with it or any of my other guitars. Play around with it for a while before you start changing things. Slap some HB pencil on the nut slots just in case. I replaced the pups in mine for SD hotrodded pups, there was zero wrong with the originals I just wanted to experiment with coil tapping. I'm probably going to get shot here but I think if you install the strings properly, wrap them correctly etc. you shouldn't have an issue.
 
I've kind of lost track of how many bridge pickups have been in my '03 Santana SE since I bought it in 2011.

PRS USA SC245
Stock G&B bridge
G&B bridge with UOA5 magnet
Anderson H2+
PRS RP (set)
PRS DGT uncovered Zebra coil
PRS DGT uncovered black coils
PRS 59/09 round bobbins
Dimarzio Air Zone
DiMarzio 36th Anniversary bridge

...and I'm sure there have been others, but I don't have any record of them. Normally with this many pickup swaps I'd have moved the guitar by now, except for several reasons with this particular one. The neck carve is *exactly* like my main CU22, the stock neck pickup sounds great, it is solid, with low action, no buzzing, and stays in tune beautifully, I haven't had to do a setup on it since I got it, and the market value for these is way less than I think it's worth.

I think I finally found the right bridge pickup. Of all things, a run of the mill Duncan Custom Custom with the Alnico 2 magnet. The guitar is on the bright side, and most of the above pickups didn't bring the BEEF I wanted (or if they did, it was to the sacrifice of something else). The extra windings of 43 AWG wire plus the warmth of Alnico 2 combine nicely to get the most out of it. I thought overwound alnico 2 pickups would be muddy, but this pickup in this guitar combine extremely well. It doesn't sound like an overwound pickup in this guitar - it's got a nice, open and airy vintagey tone and tames the brightness that plagued the guitar with some of the other pickups I tried.
 
So with the help of Mixstar (thanks again!), I was able to get my Zach Myers back to stock. I bought the guitar used and the previous owner had put an SD Perpetual Burn in the bridge and a Dimarzio Air Classic in the neck. After spending a few months with it, I just really wasn't wild about the pickups that were in it so I'm going to see how I like it with the SE245 pickups. If these don't work out, the search will be back on!

On a side note, this is the first time I've ever done a pickup swap myself. I have always just had my tech do it, but after reading up on SD's website, I managed to pull off the swap myself! Woohoo!
 
So with the help of Mixstar (thanks again!), I was able to get my Zach Myers back to stock. I bought the guitar used and the previous owner had put an SD Perpetual Burn in the bridge and a Dimarzio Air Classic in the neck. After spending a few months with it, I just really wasn't wild about the pickups that were in it so I'm going to see how I like it with the SE245 pickups. If these don't work out, the search will be back on!

On a side note, this is the first time I've ever done a pickup swap myself. I have always just had my tech do it, but after reading up on SD's website, I managed to pull off the swap myself! Woohoo!
Nice! I love it when things go well on the first attempt! Way to go!
 
Tremonti SE with USA Tremonti pickups and Schaller M6 mini locking tuners as upgrades

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Tremonti SE with big brother...

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PRS Custom 24 SE 7 string with Dimarzio Titans. I will probably order more Schaller locking tuners for this also.


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Any pics or tone report?
Sorry I disappeared, been a busy week. I've got a pick of it right after I installed the pups:
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The tone is great! I haven't had a lot of time to play with it but so far, I'm loving it. The tone is definitely a lot more balanced. I'm still messing around with adjusting pickup heights but I'm very happy with how it sounds overall.
 
Nice, they look like they grew there! :D
Definitely! I'm going to spend some more time tweaking them, but I'm thinking about putting some nickel covers on there. Partially to temper the hotness of the pickups but also because they look bada$$. I'll be sure to post pics if I do.
 
Well, since you asked for it, here's a terrible cell phone clip of a song I'm working on. It's my Zach Myers running directly into a Blackstar HT-5R, with a good bit of gain and tiny bit of reverb for taste.

 
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