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Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

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  • Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

    First post here, so please be gentle. - also posted at the PRS forum.

    I’m revisiting a CE24 that has been a bit of a case queen from the last few years - one reason for that was the Vintage Bass/HFS combo. I’ve never been partial to them, or the rotary, so I ordered up a new 3-way toggle harness to align with my SAS and my McCarty, and set about installing a combo that I’ve used and liked before - a Pearly Gates in the neck, and a JB in the bridge.

    I decided to skip doing coil tap since I rarely use it and just set them up for series - red and white on the Duncans soldered together, green and shield to ground, black(s) to the selector switch. I’m... deeply underwhelmed. It sounds like a giant wool sweater is muffling my tone.

    Harness - all pots and caps - are brand new out of the PRS Accessories bag. I suppose one could be bad, but seems unlikely. Selector functions. Volume functions. Tone does too, but due to all the wool, it’s hard to hear a difference.

    Strings are D’Addario XL120s fresh out of the pack, which I’ve played for nigh on 25 years.

    These pickups came out of another guitar, where they sounded like they should. Have confirmed good solder joints everywhere.

    I’ve had all kinds of problems over the years, but never _this_ one. Totally stumped.

    Is there something obvious I’m missing here? Thanks in advance for any help.

  • #2
    Re: Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

    It's hard to judge how wooly you mean by wooly without a clip. If we had a clip it would be super easy to say oh that's just the pups or no somethings up. How wooly is it? If there's nothing wrong you can change your controls for more brightness.
    The things that you wanted
    I bought them for you

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    • #3
      Re: Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

      I would normally suggest checking the tone cap value. But if you got all the parts from PRS, it's probably not the issue.

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      • #4
        Re: Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

        As has been stated, it is hard to tell what is causing this. You suggest that the tone control is not making much difference -- I would double check your connections, especially those relating to the tone pot and tone cap, to make sure they are wired correctly. If I were in your position, I would temporarily re-solder the controls to completely bypass the tone pot to see if that makes any difference.

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        • #5
          Re: Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

          Sounds like something isn't quite right.

          Can you post a picture of your wiring?

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          • #6
            Re: Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

            Originally posted by limbo View Post
            Is there something obvious I’m missing here? Thanks in advance for any help.
            Maybe the pickups and the guitar just don't match. I've had a JB fart in my general direction after a transplant. Essentially same situation as yours.

            My 2 cents is that some combinations just suck. It can be my favorite pickup in my favorite guitar but if they aren't meshing, they are getting disassembled at the next opportunity. There is a shipload of pickups on the market so rather than try polishing this turd to high gloss, I'd rather get busy picking my next option for a swap.

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            • #7
              Re: Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

              Did you measure the pot values before popping them into the guitar? Is it possible one of your 500k pots is really 250?
              Join me in the fight against muscular atrophy!

              Originally posted by Douglas Adams
              This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

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              • #8
                Re: Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

                JB isn't at its best in every guitar; it might simply be a poor match for this one.

                But yeah, definitely check the pots - it may be that you need higher values.

                Did the original volume pot have a treble bleed attached? If so, did you transfer it onto the new pot?
                .
                "You should know better by now than to introduce science into a discussion of voodoo."
                .

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                • #9
                  Re: Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

                  Originally posted by eclecticsynergy View Post
                  JB isn't at its best in every guitar; it might simply be a poor match for this one.

                  But yeah, definitely check the pots - it may be that you need higher values.

                  Did the original volume pot have a treble bleed attached? If so, did you transfer it onto the new pot?
                  Wow, thanks for all the feedback everyone. Really appreciated.

                  I got the combination dialed in today. Here’s what it took:

                  1. Swapping the magnet direction in the neck Pearly Gates.
                  2. Actually implementing the coil tap that I’d skipped to start. This made the biggest difference.
                  3. Setting pickup height higher than I would have believed necessary based on prior pickup height.

                  I did check the pot values - they are indeed 500k, and I did make sure to position the cap legs on the volume bleed such that there couldnÂ’t be an inadvertent touch. All solder joints of wire-to-wire were checked, and every joint has been heat-shrinked.

                  It now sounds about like I’d expect it to- much “better” than the VB/HFS combo, and with proper function of the tone and the added coil tap on push-pull.

                  Interestingly enough, this combo sounds fairly dark in this guitar, now that the wool sweater is off - pleasant, but much darker than i expected.

                  Happy to take suggestions on other combinations if someone has a “money” suggestion for a CE24. I’m gonna play it like this for a while and see if I gel with it, or whether another swap is in order.

                  Again, thank you to all who made a suggestion. You def. helped me with ideas of things to check!

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                  • #10
                    Re: Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

                    You can dial your controls for even brighter. Going to no a no load tone will make a subtle difference and going to a 1 meg volume with no load tone will make a more substantial difference.
                    The things that you wanted
                    I bought them for you

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Pearly Gates + JB in 06 PRS CE24 - sounds muddy?

                      Originally posted by limbo View Post
                      Wow, thanks for all the feedback everyone. Really appreciated.

                      I got the combination dialed in today. Here’s what it took:

                      1. Swapping the magnet direction in the neck Pearly Gates.
                      2. Actually implementing the coil tap that I’d skipped to start. This made the biggest difference.
                      3. Setting pickup height higher than I would have believed necessary based on prior pickup height.

                      I did check the pot values - they are indeed 500k, and I did make sure to position the cap legs on the volume bleed such that there couldnÂ’t be an inadvertent touch. All solder joints of wire-to-wire were checked, and every joint has been heat-shrinked.

                      It now sounds about like I’d expect it to- much “better” than the VB/HFS combo, and with proper function of the tone and the added coil tap on push-pull.

                      Interestingly enough, this combo sounds fairly dark in this guitar, now that the wool sweater is off - pleasant, but much darker than i expected.

                      Happy to take suggestions on other combinations if someone has a “money” suggestion for a CE24. I’m gonna play it like this for a while and see if I gel with it, or whether another swap is in order.

                      Again, thank you to all who made a suggestion. You def. helped me with ideas of things to check!
                      Well, that doesn't make any sense.

                      First of all, I've never heard a Pearly sound "muddy". It's a clean, bright, yet aggressive sounding pup, but not muddy.

                      Changing the magnet direction will only affect the sound when both pups are on but not when either is played by itself.
                      The "coil tap", which is actually a "coil SPLIT" would make NO difference at all in the sound of the pup until the split is implemented.
                      Setting the pup higher would actually make the sound MORE muddy.

                      If those are the only changes you made, then obviously there was something wrong with the way you originally had it wired. The fact that you say it now has..."proper function of the tone", indicates that it wasn't functioning properly before you did some manipulation with the wiring.
                      Last edited by GuitarDoc; 02-26-2020, 08:10 AM.
                      Originally Posted by IanBallard
                      Rule of thumb... the more pot you have, the better your tone.

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