Pickups for PRS CE22

DefaultM

I'm thinking of changing the pickups on my maple topped CE22 but I'm not sure what to go with.
I feel that the Dragon IIs are a little dark for my tastes. I want something with clarity under high gain, but also need to have pristine cleans and great low gain. I'm going to be swapping out the 5 way rotary for a 3 way toggle.

Any suggestions? I'm willing to go as expensive as BKP, though to be honest I've owned the Cold Sweats, Nailbomb and Miracle Men sets and have never been blown away. The only reason I'd be willing to try them again is that those were all in basswood guitars (except the nailbomb in mahogany), and this is mahogany/maple.

octatonic

Suhr SSH+ and SSV.

Great modern rock tones without being too overblown- very versatile, great splits.

Not miserably expensive either.

I have them in most guitars now.

DefaultM

I'd never thought of those. I will have a look thanks.
Forgot to say that I play through a Fractal Audio Axe Fx II, so I suppose if anything they need to be able to cope with versatility.

grungebob

Not everyones cup of tea but the PRS HFS does work really well in the bridge and is a brighter more dynamic pickup, plus can be picked up cheap 2nd hand

DefaultM

The description of the Suhr pickups sounds like what I'd want. Are the guitars these come in as stock pretty much the same wood wise as the ce22?

DefaultM

Any idea where to buy a set in chrome that are f spaced?

ICBM

DefaultM said:

Any idea where to buy a set in chrome that are f spaced?

You need nickel and Gibson spaced for a PRS .

I would go with a Duncan '59 in the neck and a Custom 5 in the bridge, or something from one of our UK makers.

Forge

I like having lower output pickups for clarity, many bands do this including Lamb of God. If your amp has got firepower you can get away with this method.

I would say a PAF type in neck and something a little more muscular in bridge as @ICBM suggested. I would go for an alnico 8 pickup to be a bit different, the bridge pickup of the Destroyer I sold was seriously good.

The toggle switch is a good move too, just make sure you add a push-push pot to still be able to split the pickups if needed.

Adam_MD

I put a set of Ash's pickups in my maple top ce22. I've got a Nightfighter in the bridge and a scrapyard dog + in the neck. The output is very similar to the dragon iis but the frequency response is much clearer, a lot more open and sparkly where the dragons could be very dark. The splits are killer as well especially if you wire them up resistors to keep some of the split coil in the signal like most current Prs.
They've handled everything I've tried from vintage sounds through to metal.

Long shot but if you're anywhere near Northampton you can have a blast on mine.

ThePrettyDamned

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead with my usual...

Oil city, mojo, bulldog.

Great handwound pickups for Seymour Duncan prices.

Of course, there are some killer Seymour Duncan ones. The custom 5 is heavy and bright, the custom custom is more rounded. I love both.

ICBM

Adam_MD said:

The output is very similar to the dragon iis but the frequency response is much clearer, a lot more open and sparkly where the dragons could be very dark.

I actually don't think the Dragon IIs are dark - I hear them as quite bright, but oddly muddy at the same time... I know that sounds like a contradiction! It was the lack of clarity and depth that I didn't like about them. The Duncan '59 and Custom Custom I have in my Standard are actually slightly darker (the CC especially) but clearer and more open-sounding with much more depth.

octatonic

DefaultM said:

Any idea where to buy a set in chrome that are f spaced?

As ICBM says you can use Gibson spacing in PRS- although either will work really.

I've used both in the past with no real issue.

Peach have them: http://www.peachguitars.com/guitars/guitar-pickups/suhr-ssh-humbuckers.htm

Give John Priest a call at Peach.

I actually prefer the uncovered pickups myself.

Adam_MD

ICBM;195881" said:

Adam_MD said:

The output is very similar to the dragon iis but the frequency response is much clearer, a lot more open and sparkly where the dragons could be very dark.





I actually don't think the Dragon IIs are dark - I hear them as quite bright, but oddly muddy at the same time... I know that sounds like a contradiction! It was the lack of clarity and depth that I didn't like about them. The Duncan '59 and Custom Custom I have in my Standard are actually slightly darker (the CC especially) but clearer and more open-sounding with much more depth.

I'll agree with you on muffled that might be a better description than dark. When I fitted Ash's pickups it was like I'd lifted a blanket off my amp. Everything was much clearer and tones were easier to dial in.

DefaultM

I thought anything with a trem would be f spaced?
I have a spare dimarzio push pull pot, so I think for now as a test I might wire the dragons up to the 3 way and push pull to see if that changes the tone at all.
Kind of like when I took the S1 switching out of my Baja tele and the tone improved.

octatonic

DefaultM said:

I thought anything with a trem would be f spaced?
I have a spare dimarzio push pull pot, so I think for now as a test I might wire the dragons up to the 3 way and push pull to see if that changes the tone at all.
Kind of like when I took the S1 switching out of my Baja tele and the tone improved.

Nope- not with PRS.

As I said, either will work really but if you want to be more precise then Gibson spacing.

You can measure your existing pickups- I will bet they are 51mm, which is closer to Gibson's 50mm than F-spaced 53mm.

Adam_MD

DefaultM;195895" said:

I thought anything with a trem would be f spaced?
I have a spare dimarzio push pull pot, so I think for now as a test I might wire the dragons up to the 3 way and push pull to see if that changes the tone at all.
Kind of like when I took the S1 switching out of my Baja tele and the tone improved.

I don't think you'll see much tonal change on the humbuckers if you switch the 5 way for McCarty wiring but you will notice it with the split sounds especially if you use the 2012 Dave Navarro wiring diagram. The only change I made to this was to use a 0.022 cap in stead of a 0.033.

Oh and my pickups are also Gibson spaced.

https://www.prsguitars.com/csc/schematics/2012/navarro_2012.pdf

DefaultM

I'm no good with diagrams, what does the mod do?

Adam_MD

The resistors affect the coil splits. Instead of just cancelling out 1 coil altogether it keeps a bit of the cancelled coil in the signal beefing up the single coil sound and makes it a little more hum cancelling. The coil splits sound much better IMO.
I've tried it with the original dragon iis I had in the guitar and with the replacements I got from Ash and definitely preferred it with the resistors.

OilCityPickups

Adam_MD said:

The resistors affect the coil splits. Instead of just cancelling out 1 coil altogether it keeps a bit of the cancelled coil in the signal beefing up the single coil sound and makes it a little more hum cancelling. The coil splits sound much better IMO.
I've tried it with the original dragon iis I had in the guitar and with the replacements I got from Ash and definitely preferred it with the resistors.

I'm actually toying with supplying matched resistors with my four conductor pickups ... it makes such a difference.

Moltisanti

IMO Dragon IIs are not good sounding pickups, almost any of the usual suspects would be an improvement (59, JB, AII Pro, Suhr SSv, Aldrich)

Adam_MD

TheGuitarWeasel;196220" said:

Adam_MD said:

The resistors affect the coil splits. Instead of just cancelling out 1 coil altogether it keeps a bit of the cancelled coil in the signal beefing up the single coil sound and makes it a little more hum cancelling. The coil splits sound much better IMO.

I've tried it with the original dragon iis I had in the guitar and with the replacements I got from Ash and definitely preferred it with the resistors.





I'm actually toying with supplying matched resistors with my four conductor pickups ... it makes such a difference.

I'd be interested in seeing which values you recomended. When I looked on the prs site they use the same values for dgt, hfs and 57/08 pickups so I figured they'd be fine to use with the Nightfighter, scrapyard dog + combo. The scrapyard dog + has a great strat feel about it when split and the Nightfighter reminds me more of a tele when you split the coils.