Pickup recommendations for my PRS SC250

[justin.yoon20]

Hi all, I have a particularly dark, bassy, resonant and dull sounding PRS SC250 from 2007 that I had a Polymath bridge fitted in it. The damn guitar is stubborn as a mule, it went through three pickups counting the stock ones and its still too dark/bassy/ etc. It has a chamber body which isn't working magic for me. My shoulders and back do like the light weight though.

I'm into bands like TOOL, Mastodon and Alice In Chains.. the "metal but not super brutal or modern, more rock oriented" type metal you know. From the non BKP line I am considering Duncan Customs or Distortions as my recent Polymath purchase left me a somewhat happy but broke man. On the BKP side a mid/high output pickup that would be in the ballpark of those two Duncans would do fine.. I've narrowed down to the Rebel Yells and Cold Sweat, whatever thats brighter will work considering how dark my guitar is.

I find the Polymaths to be a quite neutral sounding pickup that brutally reflects not only the shortcomings of the player but the guitar's body as well. In my case, again too dark/bassy/resonant/dull. I've started using really thin 0.88 Nylon pickups to mitigate this and it helps quite a bit.

All replies appreciated.. thanks y'all in advance.

[darkbluemurder]

For a dark guitar I would definitely avoid the Cold Sweat bridge, as the midscoop of that pickup could make the guitar appear even darker. Rebel Yell could work, so could the True Grit bridge.

Cheers Stephan

[ericsabbath]

rebel yells and lighter strings if you're over 010

cold sweats are quite edgy but might become muffled in the mids if the guitar is not not upper mid heavy

those are likely my top favorite bands too, and my 73 lp custom has similar tonal characteristics and had many bkps
I always go back to riff raff/mule, but both rebel yell and cold sweat worked quite well for a lot of stuff

[timmy_pix]

I also had a PRS SC250 from 2007, also chambered, and I also found it to be incredibly fussy with pickups. I could not get it to sound anything close to how I liked, and a lot of that was the acoustic tone of the guitar, it had a very stiff attack. Switching from 10-52 to 9s just on that guitar made a massive difference, weirdly!

It had all kinds of pickups in it - Dimarzio, Bare Knuckle, Oil City, Suhr.... and in the end it was happiest with the stock pickups, which weren't fantastic but weren't awful either, and suited better than anything else. Pickups that I loved in other guitars just would not get on with it. The second happiest in it were a set of Oily City Scr@pyard Dogs, so the closest BKPs to that kind of design would be the Riff Raffs.

[justin.yoon20]

I ended up putting back the stock #7s and yup.. this is the way my guitar is supposed to sound. Its funny how my sc250 seems to be somewhere in between a les paul and a 335, beefy and very dark. I'll dwfinitely try a rebel yellor even a riff raft but for now the stock set will do.

Its a shame that I had to return the Polymath as I really, really liked that pickup. Fortunately I'll own a guitar that would make a great pair with the polymath

[darkbluemurder]

Hi all, I have a particularly dark, bassy, resonant and dull sounding ...

Dark, bassy, resonant guitars are the most difficult to find pickups for as you have to compensate for that to avoid the overall tone being dull. My PRS Single Cut is that way, and I went through a lot more pickup sets than only three. Nothing seemed to please me in the long run, even though I had a few BKPs in it which I liked for a while (Nailbomb, Holydiver, Black Dog in the bridge, VHII, Abraxas, Black Dog and Riff Raff in the neck - all neck models). I have now settled on a set of pickups from another winder, which are humbucker sized split coil pickups, and a lot brighter than any PAF style pickup.

Also - during the journey I put back the stock #7 pickups four times - and was not impressed by the bridge pickup and was appalled by the neck pickup each time. To each his own.

Cheers Stephan

[justin.yoon20]

The bridge #7 lacks the upper mid punch and topend that I hear on my Les Paul. Mids are too broad and lowend too big. From the website the Riff Raft seems to suit this guitar very well, have you only tried the neck RR? The #7 is still the best pup this guitar has went through ime.