I have a PRS SE Santana model that was my brothers. I'm trying to love it, but it sounds muddy. Will switching the .033 cap to an .047 on the tune pot make a noticeable difference? Are there any wiring mods that you know of, I can't see to find any. My last resort will be putting new humbuckers in it.
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If you predominately play with the tone up full changing the cap won't really make much difference imo. It's when you're using the tone pot the taper changes. Is it one of the really early Santana se's? If so I'd change the pickups tbh.
If you get new humbuckets make sure to get something with 4 wires so you can split those coils with push-pull pots.
Quote from: Aentons on June 09, 2018, 01:43:04 PM
If you get new humbuckets make sure to get something with 4 wires so you can split those coils with push-pull pots.
I have that action on my les pauls, and frankly, I never use them that way. But I don't have to want to, I just have to be able to! Bwahahaha
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Like Adam said, tone cap change probably isn't going to anything drastic at the fullest setting, so you're either going to have to learn to like it or do something more. Pickup change is a good suggestion--that's probably what I would do. But if there's room you could also look into a different tone control configuration/circuit. I had a very dark sounding strat and used a TBX and it worked out. I'm not sure what the options are for a PRS on that front, but surely there's something out there.
You could rewire the tone control to act as a bass cut.
https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/24592-the-recording-guitarist-the-fabulous-focus-knob
That is, if you don't ever use the tone control on it as it is.
I have a similar problem with an old MIM strat my dad got me way back as my first guitar. I love that guitar, it plays amazing, but recently I've noticed its pretty dark when compared to my crappy frankin strat I put together from an old guitar my friend gave me. I spray painted it white, added a Mighty Might neck, the body was a weird thick squire style so I plugged the bridge holes and put a Gotoh vintage style bridge on it. Both have the same pickups and the white strat is way brighter.
Could be the wood, but could also be the wiring. The MIM strat has a tbx tone control, which I don't like (just not for me) and I was planning removing that to see if that is a reason for tone suck, because it really does feel like there is some sort of tone suck going on. But also people say, don't know how true, is that the trem block has a lot to do with the brightness. I think that PRS SE Santana has a trem, check the block cause why not? The Gotoh is a really solid block whereas the MIM strat has this somewhat soft, possibly zinc type block. It does make me wonder if that has something to do with it... like the highs are getting lost because the block is not transferring the resonance. Haven't tried switching that out yet.
Also I as I understand it the value of the pots makes a difference in the brightness of the guitar. Check the pot values, with humbuckers traditionally you have 500ks, you could up that to 1 meg for more brightness.
But yeah, might need new pickups. The muddiness might be nice for that Santana overdrive sound, but it might not translate well to your needs.
Quote from: Aristatertotle on June 09, 2018, 04:56:14 PM
You could rewire the tone control to act as a bass cut.
https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/24592-the-recording-guitarist-the-fabulous-focus-knob
That is, if you don't ever use the tone control on it as it is.
I like this idea. I raised the bass side of the pickups, that helped. I inherited the guitar from my brother when he passed, so I really am not keen on changing in the pickups just cause. But, if I do, it will be pafs.
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Quote from: Ralfg on June 09, 2018, 05:14:18 PM
The MIM strat has a tbx tone control, which I don't like (just not for me) and I was planning removing that to see if that is a reason for tone suck, because it really does feel like there is some sort of tone suck going on. But also people say, don't know how true, is that the trem block has a lot to do with the brightness.
I don't disagree with what you're saying. I found the TBX sounded weird on all of the kind of classic strat sounds, and I haven't been using it in my main guitar for years now. In theory when the TBX is below the detent it works like a normal tone circuit, but for some reason those sounds just never sounded right to me. But what I did like it for was to give a treble boost on the bridge pickup. It sounded really good to me with distortion/OD--a hot bridge pickup with the TBX tone basically all the way up. Especially for a strat. But I didn't like the other sounds, which always seemed enemic or at least "not quite right."
I am curious, though, if there is an established boost-type circuit for dual humbucker guitars. It's just not something I know much about, but I figured there has to be something like that out there.
Sounds like it could use a magnet swap on the humbuckers. This is a surprisingly easy mod to do, especially since those don't have covers soldered on. I'm guessing they're using an Alnico magnet, maybe as low as a 2. Increase them to Alnico 5's, or even swap them out for ceramic magnets for increased treble and punch. This will keep the guitar as stock and original as possible, but give you the brighter tone you're looking for.
Another mod that works well is to swap out the steel slugs for Strat-style alnico slugs. This will give a brighter, strat single coil type character to the overall sound. The bar magnet underneath can be completely removed in that case.
Have you measured the dc resistance of the pickups that will at least tell you if they've used 42 or 43 gauge wire? A magnet swop as mentioned above is a good idea and pretty good fun imo. I bought a bunch of different magnets for a set of paf style pickups which were overly aggressive and tried them all before settling on alnico iv.
Thanks guys, I didn't even k ow a magnet swap was a thing. That sounds like a great idea.
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Quote from: jimilee on June 10, 2018, 01:45:40 PM
Thanks guys, I didn't even k ow a magnet swap was a thing.
Yeah, I didn't know about swapping magnets in humbuckers either until about two weeks ago. I had one of those Epiphone HOTCH bridge pickups that sounded terrible. It was thin and bright with no punch, even though it measured around 16K! In that case, I made it into a hybrid-type humbucker in which I put alnico V slugs into the non-adjustable coil side, then cut the bar magnet down and moved it to the outside of the adjustable screws coil (where the plastic spacer usually is). Now it is one of my favorite-sounding pickups...kind of sounds like a P90/hot strat single coil, but with zero hum.
Another simple mod to always consider is just changing the resistance of the volume pots. I know many people swear by 250k pots for everything, but my experience has been that the volume pot resistance should be adjusted based on the pickup resistance. Pickups in the 5-10k range sound great with 250k pots, but when you start bumping up to high-output humbuckers in the 12-18k range, the pots really should be 500k - 1Meg, IMHO.
Pickup heights will make a big difference in brightness so feel free to play around with that some more.
They may be darker in general though because his sound isn't overly bright.
Disconnect the tone pot if you're not using it. That will def. make a difference in the sound. That's what I did on the MIM strat I once had. Night and day difference. After that, pickup swap.
Quote from: Rockhorst on June 11, 2018, 08:24:03 AM
Disconnect the tone pot if you're not using it. That will def. make a difference in the sound. That's what I did on the MIM strat I once had. Night and day difference. After that, pickup swap.
This^
If the pickups have adjustable pole pieces you can lower the pickup then raise the pole pieces. This is supposed to brighter the tone a bit
Not sure how it's wired but 50s style wiring seems a bit brighter to me
Lastly, I recently read about a mod where you put a cap between the pickup hot wire and the pickup selector switch. Smaller cap = less bass
Be careful not to adjust the pickups too high or the strings won't properly interact with the magnetic field and the tone will suffer.
I'd look into a magnet swap, myself.
Quote from: AntKnee on June 13, 2018, 04:16:56 AM
Be careful not to adjust the pickups too high or the strings won't properly interact with the magnetic field and the tone will suffer.
I'd look into a magnet swap, myself.
True their are limitations but it takes 5 minutes and zero dollars to try it
I use a nickel on the treble side and 1 nickels on the bass side to set string height. It's general, but it works. Sometimes I do have to tweak it a little. For the one, it's 1 nickel on both sides.
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