PAF Style Pickups and Optimal AXE Settings

JRod4928

JRod4928

Power User
I have a PRS Cu24 with 57/08 (PAF style pickups). I'm trying to dial in a slash style tone and I'm getting close - I'm trying a Jumped Plexi or a JCM800 Models using @2112 TV Mix 2 IR. My amp settings are mostly stock, except input gain, Bass, Mid, and Treble and Presence are somewhere between 3 and 7, and the JCM MV is around 6 (edit - double checked and it's at 4... input gain around 3.5)

However, I've found that a characteristic of my guitar pickups is there seems to be a spike in the mid/highs that hits the front end of the amp so hard that it causes overdrive and thus loses articulation. Think about playing a G Chord and instead of hearing a growl with note articulation, instead you hear "Blaaagghhh". It works for some songs, but for like GNR stuff it isn't what I'm shooting for. This behavior happens on just about every amp I've tried over the 8 years I've owned this guitar.

Yes I've adjusted input trim to stay in yellow or tickle reds. And no there's no input boost or drive pedal. All settings are basically untouched except as mentioned above. And I've tweaked everything to try to remove this behavior but hasn't seemed to help, except...

One thing that seems to help a lot with the Blah sound is if I turn off the Bright Switch. It seems to bring back that articulation. But at the expense of some mid punch that'll cut through the mix. Though I suppose I could GEQ it back in after the amp block.

Anyone else experience this with PAF style pickups? Any suggestions? Seems turning off the bright switch helps, but doesn't seem like that should be necessary.
 
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That seems odd to me. I don’t have any PAF style in any of my guitars unfortunately, but historically, they hit the front end of amps/pre-amps with less energy.
Maybe toss a GEQ immediately after the input block, and see if you find a narrow frequency band that you can reduce to offset what you are experiencing?
Do you have another guitar you can try?
Do you have another guitar cable you can use?
Both of these to remove variables.
Best of luck,
Lee
 
I have a prs sc245 57/08. Awesome guitar,however I can’t seem to bond with it. Nor past prs I’ve owned. I realized this past week why the bridge pickup never sounds right. The bridge pickup is located 1/4 inch closer to the bridge than my gibsons or fenders.
 
Which firmware are you on? If you haven't upgraded to Cygnus and soft reset the amps, with Plexi and JCM800 you are missing a treat. With JCM800, MV at 6 is too high for me. The sweet spot is between 3 and 4. I tend to keep the mid and presence quite high on these amps, which makes the bass and treble settings kind of irrelevant because those controls stop doing very much. Entirely authentic behaviour, I have or have had a lot of Marshalls from that era.

I use PAF style pickups in a lot of my guitars (mainly Les Pauls), and was getting great sounds from the Plexi models, but since Cygnus, the JCM has really come to life in a much. more authentic way. I always set up on the neck pickup with the tone and volume rolled off a little. Bridge and middle positions tend to take care of themselves if I can get a good clear tone from the neck pickup.

Liam
 
JRod4928 said:
Yes I've adjusted input trim to stay in yellow or tickle reds.
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Just FYI, that reference is about the Global Instrument Level setting. That setting is for optimizing the AD conversion for best signal to noise ratio. Except at extreme low values (5% or less) it has NO impact on tone.
 
unix-guy said:
Just FYI, that reference is about the Global Instrument Level setting. That setting is for optimizing the AD conversion for best signal to noise ratio. Except at extreme low values (5% or less) it has NO impact on tone.
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Yes I know, but people come in trying to claim that as a solution so I just said it anyway.

Keep ideas coming. I'll reply when I have more time
 
RDH said:
I have a prs sc245 57/08. Awesome guitar,however I can’t seem to bond with it. Nor past prs I’ve owned. I realized this past week why the bridge pickup never sounds right. The bridge pickup is located 1/4 inch closer to the bridge than my gibsons or fenders.
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mr_fender said:
How close are your pickups to the strings?
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That's a great point. Did adjusting your bridge pickup help? How far away is the pickup from strings on your Gibson?
 
Have you seen Cliff's write-up (titled "Input Trim") in the Tech Notes forum about how the Input Trim and Input Drive work together in how treble frequencies are handled in the beginning of the amp block? I don't completely understand it (I just read it today), but seems like it may be something to explore, as its design is to compensate for different PU's, as I understand the basics of the reasoning behind those 2 parameters.
 
If the problem is mostly the bridge pickup, and you're up for tinkering a bit, maybe try turning the bridge pickup around, so the screw coils are on the side away from the bridge. I've done that on most humbucker guitars I've had, since I like full tones over piercing.
 
LiamH said:
Which firmware are you on? If you haven't upgraded to Cygnus and soft reset the amps, with Plexi and JCM800 you are missing a treat. With JCM800, MV at 6 is too high for me. The sweet spot is between 3 and 4. I tend to keep the mid and presence quite high on these amps, which makes the bass and treble settings kind of irrelevant because those controls stop doing very much. Entirely authentic behaviour, I have or have had a lot of Marshalls from that era.

I use PAF style pickups in a lot of my guitars (mainly Les Pauls), and was getting great sounds from the Plexi models, but since Cygnus, the JCM has really come to life in a much. more authentic way. I always set up on the neck pickup with the tone and volume rolled off a little. Bridge and middle positions tend to take care of themselves if I can get a good clear tone from the neck pickup.

Liam
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I'm actually still on Ares, I'm on FM3, but figured this forum is OK since it's not a specific FM3 question. Looking forward to Cygnus. I'll try backing off the MV but I did try various settings already and probably tried that.

Lighter picking does help. Haven't tried different picks.

I think I'm playing standard string gauge. DR blues
 
Try different picks. You might just not gel with those pickups though, in which case try swapping them for something else. If the spike stays, it's a frequency your guitar has inherently.
 
Budda said:
Try different picks. You might just not gel with those pickups though, in which case try swapping them for something else. If the spike stays, it's a frequency your guitar has inherently.
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The guitar itself has a resonant frequency with a G in the mid range. It starts to feedback and sounds awesome on leads. But wonder if that's playing into this as well.
 
Try lowering the treble side of the pickup (doesnt have to be a ton), and try different speaker curves too?
 
RDH said:
I have a prs sc245 57/08. Awesome guitar,however I can’t seem to bond with it. Nor past prs I’ve owned. I realized this past week why the bridge pickup never sounds right. The bridge pickup is located 1/4 inch closer to the bridge than my gibsons or fenders.
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Pickup height can be closer if the magnet isn't as strong, and, if I remember right, a PAF-type pickup has a weaker magnet than non-PAF type pickups. Single-coils are more prone to string pull so I don't put mine as close as I do my humbuckers

Check the PRS pickup setup guide and adjust as necessary.
 
Dave Merrill said:
If the problem is mostly the bridge pickup, and you're up for tinkering a bit, maybe try turning the bridge pickup around, so the screw coils are on the side away from the bridge. I've done that on most humbucker guitars I've had, since I like full tones over piercing.
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Won't that put the pickup out of phase when in the middle position, requiring a change to the wiring or reversing the magnet? Unless you want the Peter Green sound of course.
 
JRod4928 said:
That's a great point. Did adjusting your bridge pickup help? How far away is the pickup from strings on your Gibson?
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Around 1/16-3/32 high E , 3/32-1/8 low E I usually raise the screws a tad on the Gibson and lower the screws on the PRS ( helps some to compensate for the closer pickup position)
 
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Greg Ferguson said:
Won't that put the pickup out of phase when in the middle position, requiring a change to the wiring or reversing the magnet? Unless you want the Peter Green sound of course.
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No, don't think so, and it never sounded like it did to me. Why would you think it would? The wiring is unchanged.
 
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