PRS SE Custom 24

[Nolly]

So...

Ordered the Abraxas. Learned how to solder. Asked a bunch of dumb questions of the amazing people at BKP.

They sound amazing. They look cool. Even coil split is decent.

The one thing that I wasn’t expecting though is that bridge and middle positions sound very, very similar. More so than on any guitar I’ve played.

Attached is a file with a play through of neck, middle, bridge first with humbucking and then split pickups.

Fantastic, I'm really pleased to hear you are happy with the Abraxas! In listening to your clips I didn't notice the bridge and middle positions sounding similar, but it's interesting that you find that to be the case.
As to adding a second push-pull to independently split the pickups, it's certainly something that gives you some cool bonuses. One of the coolest is being able "pre-set" the split on a pickup you're not using to get a seamless switch. Say you're playing a lead on the bridge pickup in full humbucking mode, you could have the neck pickup split and switch to it to get an instantly much cleaner and spankier tone. On top of that, the combination of full bridge with split neck can be very nice indeed and worth trying.

[optilude]

Could be all the soldering going to my head?

I still think they sound very close most of the time. But I’m learning the nuances by playing them more. Rolling off a bit of volume really nicely balances the tone too.

I’ve ordered a second push pull. I was considering experimenting with using one to switch the middle to an out of phase sound. Any thoughts?

[Nolly]

Haha it could be! It's certainly very rewarding to be able to tweak your guitar electronics - there are so many things you can do that make huge differences in the sonic capabilities of your instrument.

In my opinion, the out of phase sound isn't all that usable unless you have separate volumes for each pickup. To me, it's once you start playing with the relative volumes of the pickups that you can really extract all sorts of great unusual tones. With both pickups on full and out of phase, it's a bit too extreme an effect, I find.

[optilude]

That is really useful advice!

Any thoughts on serial/parallel switching?

[Nolly]

I love parallel, probably more than coil splitting. It's a fantastic sound in my opinion, and of course humbucking.

[optilude]

Is it possible to have both coil split and parallel switching (on both pickups) with two push pulls? I’m one starting to get my  head around the wiring logic and thinking back to high school physics class...

Pointers to diagrams or articles welcome!

[Nolly]

I don't think it is I'm afraid, not with a 2-position switch anyway. For parallel you need a switch per pickup too, unfortunately (you can't use one push-pull to switch both pickups between series and parallel simultaneously)

[optilude]

Yeah ok that makes sense I’m going to experiment but if you were going to pick one pickup to make series/parallel, would you go bridge or neck?

[Nolly]

Yeah ok that makes sense I’m going to experiment but if you were going to pick one pickup to make series/parallel, would you go bridge or neck?

Tough choice.. I guess I'd say bridge? I don't particularly love split bridge humbucker tones, but in parallel you get a really cool sound somewhere between a hot Tele and a vintage humbucker.

[b.gandt]

I've found that splitting a hot ceramic humbucker in the bridge will yield some decent Fenderish sounds, but a lower output humbucker tends to sound too weak or thin.  At that point, I like parallel.  I don't have a output level where that goes one way or another.  I stay series with my BKPs now, but in the past split worked well with a Gibson 500T and a SD Invader.  Parallel worked best with a Dimarzio Chopper T, a much lower output stacked humbucker.  All were bridge position.

As to bridge or neck, where would you prefer to have a more Fender like option?

[darkbluemurder]

I also prefer parallel to coil cut (or coil shunt) as the humcancelling properties are retained. I like this in particular for bridge pickups to get a cleaner tone from them. And I will do this in the guitar that has a True Grit in the bridge. For the neck pickup this can sound great as well.

Cheers Stephan

[optilude]

Hi,

I’m going to document some of my experiments here in case others come across it. I guess it’s a fairly common guitar to want to upgrade.

One thing to note: I bought the BKP 550k push pull pots, replacing both volume and tone. The Alpha pots that were there before were 1-2mm narrower in diameter so I had to carefully file the holes to be slightly bigger. Mildly scary but worked ok. I followed this guide using the tools I had: https://youtu.be/bKNAkTWC4xA

Secondly I ended up re-doing all the grounding and wire routing inside the cavity using push-back cloth wire (also from BKP). It just made it neater and easier to understand what was going on.

Anyway, the current wiring is:

- Volume pot push/pull is used to reverse phase on the neck pickup.
- Tone pot push/pull is used to split both coils using standard coil split wiring.
- 0.022f Russian tone capacitor from BKP.
- 3 way blade switch.

Basically https://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/upload/support/20_132fcee.pdf mixed with https://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/upload/support/1_hum_4_con_pushpull_pot_phase_reversal_with_another_hum_c8e3961.pdf (for the neck pickup and volume pot).

The sound file is a rough play through of the same sounds on all the settings in this order, played through a model of a Fender Pro Reverb.

Neck humbucking phase normal
Neck humbucking phase reversed (which I suppose is pointless)
Neck split phase reversed (which I think means it’s using the inner coil?)
Neck split phase normal

Middle humbucking neck phase normal
Middle humbucking neck phase reversed
Middle split neck phase reversed
Middle split neck phase normal

Bridge hum
Bridge split

[b.gandt]

Did the mounting flanges  fit in the cavity on yours?  On my SE Singlecut, the rout for the feet wasn't quite wide enough for the BKPs.  I ended using a drill bit to expand that part of the cavity.

[Dave Sloven]

Did the mounting flanges  fit in the cavity on yours?  On my SE Singlecut, the rout for the flanges wasn't quite wide enough for the BKPs.  I ended using a drill bit to expand that part of the cavity.

With my Schecter C-6 Pro the feet didn't fit (they also were direct mount, with a 3mm bolt) so I simply filed the feet of the pickup to match the stock pickup and drilled the holes in the feet out to 3mm.  It was a lot easier than modifying the guitar

[optilude]

Did the mounting flanges  fit in the cavity on yours?  On my SE Singlecut, the rout for the flanges wasn't quite wide enough for the BKPs.  I ended using a drill bit to expand that part of the cavity.

Yes they did. Not a lot of space but no tools required.