software

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum!

I've just recently bought one of the last PRS SE Soapbars (MK 1 - the single cut) available here in Germany. I think it is a fine guitar for the price - still I am quite unhappy with the quality of the stock hardware.

First thing I noticed was that the stock PUs didn't suit my taste. Maybe all this P90 thing is just not my case. I like the neck PU though, but I'll certainly replace the bridge pickup. This one is at the same time thin and muddy. It fails at reproducing the fine grained sound of chords - even at low gain settings :-( Now, my fave would be to have a mini-humbucker in there, probably the SM3, Seymourized Minihumbucker. But the nice guys from SD customer care told me that I would need to have a frame made out of a P90 cover to hold the mini HB. Has anybody of you had any experiences with placing a mini HB into a P90 route (shouldn't depend on the guitar model, just on the pickup model...)?

Has anybody else replaced the stock bridge PU with some sort of humbucking pickup? What are your experiences?

The next issue is the bridge. I have never heard any high strings (high b and high e) die out so quickly - they have basically NO sustain at all :-( I attribute this to the cheap bridge and the material of the bolts/screws that connect to bridge to the body.
As for intonation: I play D'Addario .010-.046 tuned down 1/2 step to Eb. After fiddling around for some 2 hours, I managed to have every string intonate properly. Good job guys with the string compensation!
Still: Has anybody replaced the wraparound bridge with some sort of one-piece bridge that allows separate adjustment for each string? I have seen some weird tune-o-matic-plus-stoptail in one piece in that other thread about groupiegirls custom guitar. Can anyone please tell me the maufacturer and exact name of that piece (also the sugg. ret. price...) so that I can try to find one of these here in Germany?
Do you have any suggestions on replacing the large screws? Would this improve sustain?

There has been said enough about the quality of the pots, so I think I'll just wait for the best occasion to replace them - I never use the tone pot, so that doesn't bother me at the moment...

The last major flaw of the guitar are the tuners. They lose tune very very quickly! Also the guitar is a bit too quot;head-heavyquot; (is this the correct word for that?). So I think I'll go for quality replacement parts - plastic knobs (to save weight) would be perfectly okay. Any suggestions? My Godin has some sort of Schaller tuners with black plastic knobs, these should be fine... Does it make any sense to have locking tuners on a non-tremolo guitar? Are locking tuners a lot heavyer than normal ones?

Thanks,
Hendrik

locking tuners are a bit heavier, but this depends on the style. I think there are Kluson style locking tuners that have plastic heads and are not very heavy at all.

As for the pickups, SD's please!! PRS makes a great product, but I'm pretty sure that the SE series doesn't have very great pickups. SD makes a great soapbar model that will remedy most of your sound woes.

You might want to try something with the pickups. When I broght my SE home I noticed that the contrast between the neck and the bridge pickup was really odd and like you, I thought that the bridge pickup sounded very thin. To make a long story short, it turns out that the pickups were mounted and wired up wrong. The bridge pickup was where the neck pickup should have been and the neck pickup should have been in the bridge spot. Of what I gather this was a problem that PRS was aware of. This might be the case with your guitar too. But even after i switched the pickups I still was'nt satisfied with the sound. I wound up installing a set of Lollar P90's and could'nt be happier.

Thanks for your suggestions.

But I am still into this mini humbucker thing...

Hasn't anybody made any experiences with fitting mini HBs into a P90 route?

What about DiMarzio's DLX humbucking pups in P90 format? Are they any good?
I am most interested in a pu that delivers a lot of clarity in between semi-clean and overdrive (the famous crunchy range) when playing open chords or complex chord voicings, but still pumps tightly over a distorted amp channel, e.g. when playing muted power chords.

The stock P90s are nothing but muddy in crunch and thin and harsh in distortion... :-/ (well, you can work with the neck pup, but the bridge pup definitley doesn't fulfill my expectations)