The Mod Squad
Faced with a near-perfect PRS SE, Dave Burrluck comes up with a way to double its sounds – quickly
It’s been a busy few weeks, so I had to shelve any improvements to our loaned PRS SE Starla Stoptail. To be honest, a bit of a break like that doesn’t do most modding projects any harm – like a new song or arrangement you’re writing, you sort of come back to it with fresh ears and ideas. I had already installed new SE locking tuners and those neat TonePros locking studs – which meant I could quickly remove and reinstall the stud tailpiece without restringing, making it easier to initially investigate the scratchplatemounted electrics. Aside from that, I’d spent most of my time just tweaking the intonation and making sure the strings sat properly over the bridge saddles. Subtle, yes, but with a relatively low-end guitar like this, it’s all about maximising the potential before we start thinking about sound… or different sounds.
One reason I’d had to put the project on hiatus was covering the NAMM Show in Los Angeles, but it’s a great place for getting some inspiration. The guys at Relish Guitars were keen to show me their new Indonesian-made guitar with its push-in/pull-out pickup swapping system, which, for us sonic tinkerers, is rather smart, not least how it enables a quick listen to a new pickup or the ability to completely revoice a guitar in a few seconds. It gave me an idea for the Starla: if I could get another scratchplate, not only would it give me an easy way to change the guitar’s look but I could load that with completely different pickups and swap them over relatively quickly.
Okay, what’s the problem? Well, unlike a Strat or Tele, for example, where you can buy trillions of replacement scratchplates, the Starla is pretty niche. However, I didn’t have to resort to getting a custom ’plate made, because while I was chatting with the guys at the PRS booth about the project, they told me I should be able to buy a scratchplate for the Starla, left over from the previous S2 version. My plan began to take a little more shape.
Quite coincidentally, I bumped into Dwight Devereaux, the founder of TonePros, who I hadn’t chatted to for a few years. I explained what I was up to and he immediately suggested that I also fit a TonePros Nashville-style bridge, which locks to the posts and means it’ll stay put when I’m swapping scratchplates. I should have thought of that earlier!
But the dual-voicing idea of the two scratchplates still means I’d have to get the soldering iron out. Hmm. Could I go solderless instead? We looked at solderless pickup installation back in issue 451, but I don’t want to limit myself to any proprietary plug-in pickup/electronics system. I then remembered our Mod Squad buddies at Radioshop Pickups advertise a solderless install for their Strat scratchplates. A few emails later we had an idea sorted. I purchased two volume
“Unlike a Strat or Tele, where you can buy trillions of replacement scratchplates, the Starla is pretty niche”
controls with the push-in-and-screw connections for the hot and ground wires (from the output jack) and a third push-in slot for the all important bridge ground. Radioshop supplied me with a pre-wired output jack, with the solderless connectors already fitted, so firstly I could wire in the new volume pot and try out the install. Which was straightforward and, yes, the idea works!
The next part of my dual vision is to create the new scratchplate. Before I consider a pair of pickups that would enhance the Starla, or take it way off in another direction, I really wanted to see what difference a pair of PRS USA humbuckers had to offer. Are they really that good compared with the PRSdesigned, made-in-Indonesian DS-02 ’buckers of the Starla? A pair of 58/15s with a single a white ‘split’ wire were going begging, so I thought that would be the place to start. I have the (Radioshop) 500k volume and added a CRL three-way lever switch, and a push-push switched tone control, so I can split both the pickups simultaneously. I replicated the partial resistors, treble bleed cap and tone cap value that PRS uses – pretty much a replica of the Starla’s setup, then, but with different pickups.
The new black scratchplate with amber lampshade knobs gives a very different aesthetic, which I kind of liked, but how does the revoiced Starla sound? Different and a little more classic, certainly on the neck pickup, and a little more opensounding, too. Again, the hotter bridge has clarity, bite and thump with seemingly less ‘honk’. The coil-splits sound slightly less thin, too (though here they voice the screw coil, not the slug coil of the Starla’s original setup) – more usable in the context of the guitar, perhaps? There’s still the undercurrent of the Starla’s quite brash attack, a little punkier, less big and woody, compared with our reference 2001 PRS Singlecut. Throw in a third spanner, a CE 24 with USA 85/15 humbuckers, again with pretty much the same circuit as the Starla, and you have a slightly different, marginally woodier voice that sounds ‘hotter’, despite having lower DCRs than the 58/15. Proof, once again, that even with a similar style of pickup, resistance readings are just that – not an indication of sound or output.
As far as the SE Starla is concerned, not only do I have an alternative sound, the potential to try more dramatically different pickups is appealing, and, once the alternative ’plate is all wired up, actually swapping between the two, without rushing, takes around five minutes to being back in tune. It’s also an interesting comparison between a pair of pre-TCI USA 58/15s and the latest-spec DS-02s from Indonesia. I’d need to do a little more listening and perhaps a gig or two, but, in terms of sound quality, I’m not sure there’s as much difference as you might be led to believe. The USA pickups might win on clarity, but there’s quite a character to the DS-02s that, personally, I wouldn’t dismiss.
Basically, any standard humbucker-sized pickup will fit here and, with so much choice out there, there’s plenty to consider. As with any mod, when it comes to sound, you need to ask yourself the following questions: what is ‘wrong’ with what you have and how can you narrow the immense choice down before you spend your cash. Another way to use this dual-scratchplate idea is when it comes to component types and values: fitting the same set of pickups on both then swapping components would really begin to let you hear the effect. Above all, it’s a rather good way to quickly hear and compare a different set of pickups, with or without the same circuit, on the same guitar without having to warm up the soldering iron.
“When it comes to sound, ask yourself: what is ‘wrong’ with what you have and how can you narrow the choice before you spend your cash”
That should give you something to think about till our next issue. In the meantime, if you have any modding questions, or suggestions, drop us a line – The Mod Squad.