Pickups for PRS custom 24, Help!

S

Snowdog

New member
Thnx for looking folks,
Ok, I want to replace the stock pickups (HFS and Vintage bass) with something more modern. The guitar is a 24 fret custom, rosewood fingerboard with rotary switch. Eventually I want to replace the pods and switch with push/pull plus a three way toggle, but that's another story. Any advice on this type of mod would be greatly appreciated, really.

For now I'll just be replacing the pickups.
Genres: Rock/hardrock/pop/fusion/jazz/funk. I'm going for more of a modern sound rather vintage. My gear is all old school Gallien Krueger amps and pre-amps.

I like the way the HFS sounds, I just want to add some more bright and crunch to the bridge position. For the neck I'll go for what ever works in the bridge to balance them out.

This forum is great and very useful but after reading and reading some more I'm more confused now.
The Wizard on Seymour site recommended the following:
SH-4 JB model (bridge
SH-2 Jazz model (neck)

Thank you
 
Re: Pickups for PRS custom 24, Help!

Snowdog said:
Thnx for looking folks,
Ok, I want to replace the stock pickups (HFS and Vintage bass) with something more modern. The guitar is a 24 fret custom, rosewood fingerboard with rotary switch. Eventually I want to replace the pods and switch with push/pull plus a three way toggle, but that's another story. Any advice on this type of mod would be greatly appreciated, really.

For now I'll just be replacing the pickups.
Genres: Rock/hardrock/pop/fusion/jazz/funk. I'm going for more of a modern sound rather vintage. My gear is all old school Gallien Krueger amps and pre-amps.

I like the way the HFS sounds, I just want to add some more bright and crunch to the bridge position. For the neck I'll go for what ever works in the bridge to balance them out.

This forum is great and very useful but after reading and reading some more I'm more confused now.
The Wizard on Seymour site recommended the following:
SH-4 JB model (bridge
SH-2 Jazz model (neck)

Thank you
Click to expand...


Hey man welcome to the forum!

Have you looked at the other CU24 thread that is active? If not you might want to take a gander at it.

If you are wanting more crunch than the HFS gives you then you should go on and buy a distortion. The JB is going to give you a bit sweeter sound than the HFS has. (IMO)

For the neck I would go with the Distortion neck or Jazz bridge. The Distortion neck is a high output neck bucker that lots of folks really like. The Bridge model Jazz will be a bit hotter and have some more mids and slightly less highs along with more output.

The thing is that if you are wanting more crunch you aren't going to be able to pull off the Jazz and funk as easily as you would with a lower output pup.

What kind of amp are you using? Would it be possible to get a lower output pup and crank the gain?

Luke
 
Re: Pickups for PRS custom 24, Help!

Distortion or perhaps a custom shop diablo if you want more output. I need to ask why you think you need more output? The HFS is pretty hot. Are you simply wanting more gain? If its simple more bite you want, its possible you need to go back to go forward. You may consider lower gain with more treble bite like a C5 or a 59 and get your gain increase from the amp.
 
Last edited:
Re: Pickups for PRS custom 24, Help!

Thanks for the replies

Basically I'm looking for a change. I own two PRS, both are stock custom 24's. One of them I'll leaving it asis, stock. The other one will be my Frankenstein. Pimp my axe if you will.

The HFS is very hot and I don’t want to go any hotter. Just brighter. Do you guys know if a nickel plate cover can be put on the HFS? I'm looking for appearance change as well but with the same characteristics of the HFS.

Thnx.
 
Re: Pickups for PRS custom 24, Help!

Snowdog said:
Thanks for the replies

Basically I'm looking for a change. I own two PRS, both are stock custom 24's. One of them I'll leaving it asis, stock. The other one will be my Frankenstein. Pimp my axe if you will.

The HFS is very hot and I don’t want to go any hotter. Just brighter. Do you guys know if a nickel plate cover can be put on the HFS? I'm looking for appearance change as well but with the same characteristics of the HFS.

Thnx.
Click to expand...

You can achieve a brighter sound by also switching pots from 500k to 1M. If you like the sound of the HFS but want more brightness....but it will also increase the output slightly. I don't know about a cover but I imagine you could get one from PRS. The HFS has some pretty in-your-face upper mids so if you cut them down in favor of actual treble you might like the tone better. In which case you might want to look into the C5.

However if you want a looks change AND a brighter tone try a Full Shred set. Hex poles not too hot, bright, and crunchy.

Also as far as installing a 3 way goes you'll have to either ream the current switch hole, or use a dremel to make the hole big enough to accomodate a switch.

Luke
 
Re: Pickups for PRS custom 24, Help!

Thnx for all the input,
There is a mod kit for converting the rotary setup to the three switch push/pull setup for $60 bucks. When I inquired on it I wasn't told anything about making mods to the body by the sales team. I'm going to look into this some more.

In your opinion which pickup comes closest to the HFS.
 
Re: Pickups for PRS custom 24, Help!

You will need to ream the hole to accomodate the 3 way switch. I've done it.

The Custom is the closest to the HFS in my opinion
 
Re: Pickups for PRS custom 24, Help!

TheArchitect said:
You will need to ream the hole to accomodate the 3 way switch. I've done it.

The Custom is the closest to the HFS in my opinion
Click to expand...

+1 on both accounts.

The thing about the HFS is that it is pretty nasally in my opinion.

Luke
 
Re: Pickups for PRS custom 24, Help!

TheArchitect said:
There is only one Custom. The others are Custom Custom and Custom 5
Click to expand...

Right!

Snowdog, when someone says Custom they mean the Ceramic magnet pup, Custom Custom (CC) is the alnico 2 version, and Custom 5 (C5) is the alnico 5 version. They all three have the same coil configuration, just different magnets.

On the forum you'll see guys referring to pups by their name rather than number.

Luke
 
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