NGD: PRS Custom 24 Piezo

Oh next week is it? I didnt know that. Most of the guitars are gone, not sure about amps. Was gonna buy a metro board but the site showed $320 in fedex…

Wonder how many will pop up on kijiji for the original prices lol
 
Budda said:
Oh next week is it? I didnt know that. Most of the guitars are gone, not sure about amps. Was gonna buy a metro board but the site showed $320 in fedex…

Wonder how many will pop up on kijiji for the original prices lol
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Honestly this is why I bought the guitar. If I don't like it after a couple months, it's mostly just a rental price if I flip it for what I bought it and lose a couple hundred bucks. Not a big deal.
 
So no photos (yet, hoping I'll find some time this weekend to take nice photos of it), but I've been playing it a fair bit over the past day and a half (and have already used the Piezo in a recording session).

I have a lot of notes. This is my first core PRS; I've only had SEs up to this point, so here are some thoughts:
  • This thing looks amazing. Everything is basically perfectly assembled (a little bit of polishing compound on the fretboard is the only cosmetic flaw I can find, but that's a non-issue). It's a pity you don't get book-matched tops at this price point, but the actual work here is immaculate.
  • It's a very warm, dark sounding guitar. The pickups sound close to a 50s Les Paul to me ears in their nature, which I typically think of as a sweet-sounding, vocal guitar. The Custom 24 is much warmer than my LP and my Telecaster, but those are both extremely bright guitars with a lot of sizzle. I'll often play the C24 with a preset using settings from my LP and wonder what's wrong, turn up the presence one notch, and suddenly get an amazing sound. My solution will probably be to bump up the presence knob everywhere and just roll down the bridge tone on my LP, like a sane person.
  • This makes my Custom 24 SE sound like a brittle, grating toothbrush. No comparison at all.
  • It's also lower output than my Les Paul. Granted, I have a Slash LP, so it's a little overwound, and it's got way more mids. The LP is a straight-up rock machine, but the PRS feels much more versatile. I originally experimented with adding mids to the PRS, but adding presence seems to achieve more predictable results.
  • I expected the neck to be thinner, but I didn't need to worry. It's surprisingly beefy for something called Pattern Thin.
  • That all being said: it sounds amazing. There's a vocal quality here that is extremely pleasing to my ears. I used to roll my eyes at Paul Reed Smith making vowel noises in videos to demonstrate what they're trying to do with pickups, but I can absolutely hear it here. The darker tone makes the acoustic sounds you can get out of the Piezo pickups sound phenomenal. I tried out some of the Worship Tutorial IRs and I was extremely impressed.
  • Action out of the box was much higher than my preference: around .65mm to .7mm at the 12th fret (with the 1st) depressed. Doesn't sound like a lot, but is huge. This seems to happen with every new guitar I've ever tried in Canada, so either factory preferences are medium-high action, or our climate just screws things up. Everything else was set up great. The neck is flawless. I lowered the action down to around .5mm or so after trying it high for the first few hours. Feels a lot better now.
  • The strings feel really stiff. The same thing was true on the Les Paul I bought last year too, and you'd never know it now, so I'm chalking this up to new guitar syndrome.
Still bonding with the instrument. It's unbelievably comfortable to play, and I'm impressed with the versatility. The fact that it can do acoustic sounds, Strat-like quacks in the second position, and Telecaster middle in the fourth, along with all your usual humbucker sounds — I'm impressed.

I'm still surprised by how dark it sounds, but I honestly think it needs to be broken in — I felt the same way about my Telecaster, which I'm certain has only become brighter the more I've played it. (Or I've gotten used to it and learned how to play it.)

If I had one regret, it's just that it's not a Yellow Tiger finish, but I also saved $3,000, sooooo I'll take what I can get.
 
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Pickup height definitely needs an adjustment. Haven't done that yet, but these seem very low to me, now that you mention it. (I had forgot to mention it above.) This is admittedly a terrible photo, just a quick shot taken with my phone, but hopefully you can see the pickup height, which is the important part.

IMG_1023.jpg
 
It may also just be dead shop strings. You’d be surprised.

As for string stiffness, it probably has 4 trem springs. Try 3, its a good time.

Let me know if it needs a CE24 sibling ;)
 
Budda said:
It may also just be dead shop strings. You’d be surprised.
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This is a fair point too, and I would not be surprised at all (lol). I've had shops swap out strings for me when the strings are obviously dead. They don't sound lifeless through the Piezo pickup, though, so I'll try adjusting the pickup heights a bit and report back if I can get it sorted.
 
@OrganicZed was bang on the money: raising the pickups to my usual height (1/16" bridge, 3/32" neck) solved the issue entirely. I have no idea why PRS would set their pickups so low, though. Is it to get better note separation or something? It just makes them sound dark compared to my other gear.

The Custom 24 is now as bright as my LP, or at least in the ballpark. Thanks for the help!
 
My newer core PRS were all les paul adjacent (2x 594, custom 24) so I am surprised yours were set so low. Does prs list factory height on their site? Maybe someone wanted it darker and didnt buy it?
 
Budda said:
My newer core PRS were all les paul adjacent (2x 594, custom 24) so I am surprised yours were set so low. Does prs list factory height on their site? Maybe someone wanted it darker and didnt buy it?
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It's listed here. Looks extremely low to me, unless I'm reading it wrong. How it was set up when I got it is pretty close to their site.

Edit: I forgot I lowered the strings. The pickups would have been lower from this out of the factory. Must have just been a mistake.
 
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After several more hours of experimentation, I just wanted to record where I ended up with on pickup measurements for the sake of internet posterity, in case Google should ever lead anybody here. For both pickups, the bass side is at 3/32", which is PRS' guiding recommendation. The treble side on both is around 1/8", which is 1/64" higher than recommended, but gives just a hair more bite without sacrificing clarity on my particular instrument.

Both these measurements are probably about 1/32" higher than what the guitar shipped with. The strings are also about .25mm lower than what they shipped with from the factory, so the pickup height from the factory was probably around 3.5/32" too low out of the gate.

With these measurements, the guitar has all the clarity I'd expect from PRS, but similar amounts of attitude and brightness to my Les Paul.

Still going to take photos for everybody. Sorry I'm keeping this thread alive. Probably should have just written a blog post or something.
 
Meant to pull out my big camera this weekend and document this but, but I have food poisoning, so all my plans are cancelled.

Here are some quick snapshots I took with my phone:

IMG_1022.jpeg

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It’s not the most beautiful PRS I’ve ever seen, but it looks really good when somebody is actually playing it. Which is the important part.

Also took it to church this morning for worship (yes, I managed to play a six song worship set and a 1 hour rehearsal while running back and forth to the bathroom, which was certainly something), and I’m not sure I’ve ever been so loud in the house mix. Judging by that alone, I’m going to assume people like how it sounds. Got to use the split sounds and the Piezo too. Great instrument!
 
nathan_393 said:
Meant to pull out my big camera this weekend and document this but, but I have food poisoning, so all my plans are cancelled.

Here are some quick snapshots I took with my phone:

View attachment 126160

View attachment 126161

It’s not the most beautiful PRS I’ve ever seen, but it looks really good when somebody is actually playing it. Which is the important part.

Also took it to church this morning for worship (yes, I managed to play a six song worship set and a 1 hour rehearsal while running back and forth to the bathroom, which was certainly something), and I’m not sure I’ve ever been so loud in the house mix. Judging by that alone, I’m going to assume people like how it sounds. Got to use the split sounds and the Piezo too. Great instrument!
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Beautiful guitar, and that's some serious dedication to The Lord to play with The Horse's Head (Big D)...
 
nathan_393 said:
Pickup height definitely needs an adjustment. Haven't done that yet, but these seem very low to me, now that you mention it. (I had forgot to mention it above.) This is admittedly a terrible photo, just a quick shot taken with my phone, but hopefully you can see the pickup height, which is the important part.

View attachment 125976
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Turn all the pole piece screws out a bit if it's dark. It will make the screws coil a hair louder than the slugs coil, which helps bring in just enough extra presence and zing. Turn them out a bit more on the neck pickup if it sounds woofy in the lows. Bridge pickup doesn't usually have a woofiness issue.

I like to do a pattern similar to the bridge saddles, i.e., a half turn closer on the D and skinny E, and a half turn further on the G and fat E.
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