Alrighty, so I recently got a very nice CE 24 semi-hollow in a custom color. Amazing guitar, great pickups, gorgeous top. No idea why the dealer had this sitting in storage for 2 years. Absolutely nothing to complain about EXCEPT: in my opinion it’s ridiculous that a guitar this expensive does not come with the ‘proper’ PRS tremolo. I think a PRS CE 24 semi-hollow is about 600 USD more here in Germany than in the US, by the way. Don’t get me wrong – the SE trem worked perfectly fine and was very stable, but it still kind of bugged me. Makes sense on SE guitars, makes sense on S2 guitars – on CEs not so much. There just is no Core version of a bolt-on semi-hollow without violin carve (and that’s exactly what I wanted!).
So I bit the bullet and ordered a Mann tremolo (2040). I ordered it on a Thursday and it arrived on the following Monday. As I mentioned, I live in Germany, so this is incredibly quick!
Comparing it side by side with the SE trem, it is obvious that the Mann trem is of much higher quality. The string saddles are 100% smooth and the whole unit is significantly heavier. This translates to an improvement in sound as well, especially when playing unamplified (which I actually do quite a lot). The guitar now is slightly louder and more resonant. With the SE trem, the low e-string sounded a tiny bit ‘rubbery’ even with a new set of strings. This is gone with the Mann trem. In terms of tuning stability there honestly wasn’t much to improve on, and I think the SE trem and the Mann trem are on par. Something that really annoyed me was the ball ends getting stuck in the SE trem block. I mean REALLY stuck. I often had to push the ball ends out with another piece of string and even that barely worked sometimes. Doesn’t happen with the Mann trem at all. Swapping the trem was no big deal by the way, thanks to the excellent instructions provided by the man himself.
One more thing I did about a week after the Mann upgrade: I put .11 strings on the guitar. I’ve got .11 on all of my other guitars and just don’t feel 100% comfortable with anything lighter than that (in E standard). I’m not a light-handed player and my style of music requires me to tremolo pick (both single notes and chords) quite often. This is where lighter gauge strings tend to feel too wonky for me, and they also have a tendency to go sharp. Picking lightly doesn’t give me the sound I want and the pick noise kinda gets annoying as well, so heavier strings it is. This required me to widen some of the nut slots a little bit, but that’s easily done. I also threw in another tremolo spring. I find those to be of higher quality than the ones that came with the guitar as well, by the way.
This change in string gauge made it come alive even more. This guitar acoustically is so loud and resonant now (more so than my Les Pauls that weigh about a metric ton each), it’s pretty insane. I don’t think it gets any better than this. So if you have never played a heavier gauge set before, maybe give it a try. Might be a bit intimidating, but I don’t even think it’s THAT much harder on your fingers when bending. You might get away with lower action/less fret buzz as well.
Maybe this is interesting for some of you
So I bit the bullet and ordered a Mann tremolo (2040). I ordered it on a Thursday and it arrived on the following Monday. As I mentioned, I live in Germany, so this is incredibly quick!
Comparing it side by side with the SE trem, it is obvious that the Mann trem is of much higher quality. The string saddles are 100% smooth and the whole unit is significantly heavier. This translates to an improvement in sound as well, especially when playing unamplified (which I actually do quite a lot). The guitar now is slightly louder and more resonant. With the SE trem, the low e-string sounded a tiny bit ‘rubbery’ even with a new set of strings. This is gone with the Mann trem. In terms of tuning stability there honestly wasn’t much to improve on, and I think the SE trem and the Mann trem are on par. Something that really annoyed me was the ball ends getting stuck in the SE trem block. I mean REALLY stuck. I often had to push the ball ends out with another piece of string and even that barely worked sometimes. Doesn’t happen with the Mann trem at all. Swapping the trem was no big deal by the way, thanks to the excellent instructions provided by the man himself.
One more thing I did about a week after the Mann upgrade: I put .11 strings on the guitar. I’ve got .11 on all of my other guitars and just don’t feel 100% comfortable with anything lighter than that (in E standard). I’m not a light-handed player and my style of music requires me to tremolo pick (both single notes and chords) quite often. This is where lighter gauge strings tend to feel too wonky for me, and they also have a tendency to go sharp. Picking lightly doesn’t give me the sound I want and the pick noise kinda gets annoying as well, so heavier strings it is. This required me to widen some of the nut slots a little bit, but that’s easily done. I also threw in another tremolo spring. I find those to be of higher quality than the ones that came with the guitar as well, by the way.
This change in string gauge made it come alive even more. This guitar acoustically is so loud and resonant now (more so than my Les Pauls that weigh about a metric ton each), it’s pretty insane. I don’t think it gets any better than this. So if you have never played a heavier gauge set before, maybe give it a try. Might be a bit intimidating, but I don’t even think it’s THAT much harder on your fingers when bending. You might get away with lower action/less fret buzz as well.
Maybe this is interesting for some of you
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