NDG: Black Friday Haul #4 (Warning PRS content)

MichaelW

MichaelW

Well-known member
In the spirit of Christmas peace, love and understanding for my fellow man, I decided to put a warning in the title so as to not offend @Paradox916...:ROFLMAO:
(I bet you didn't know that I moonlight as BOTH a dentist AND a lawyer aside from my day job in IT...😛)

So this is a bit of a premature post as the pickup mods I have in mind have not arrived yet.

This came in about 3 weeks ago but I was able to leave it alone in the closet until Christmas.

As some of you know, I already have a Cherry S2 Vela Semi-hollow that's made an appearance in a number of my pedal demo videos.

By far my favorite PRS guitar. It just fits me so well and I love that big fat single coil neck pickup. It's probably the closest in sound to a Dearmond Dynasonic single coil, just big, fat and warm, yet still has a touch of that Strat neck pickup tonality. The bridge pickup is a DS-02, a slightly beefed up version of the same pickup in the PRS Starla series. It sounds like a cross between a Dynasonic and a Filtertron. I swapped them out of my PRS S2 Starla a few weeks back in an NPUD thread for Filtertrons.

Ever since I got my first Vela and fell in love with it, I've intended to get a second one in a solid body and make some pickup mods with it.
I was looking around during the Black Friday blitz and there was an open box one at ProAudioStar for a very attractive price for a used Vela. ($900)
So I ordered it. And within a few minutes after getting confirmation of my order, one of the sales reps emailed me and told me they were blowing out some brand new guitars and they had a new one in the Mcarty Burst for $150 more. These list for $1749 and usually can be had for around $1400 discounted off map.
But at just a tad over a $1000 for a new one was a steal. So of course I jumped all over it.

So the plan for this guitar is to put a Firebird pickup in the neck position and a PAF in the bridge. I'll document that upgrade when I get the pickups.

I decided to go with a small custom winder in Australia. D'Urbano Magnetics. He winds them to order and it took a couple weeks to get them shipped.
Very favorable exchange rates from AUD to USD so they were quite affordable. I chose his Firebird and his 59 PAF for this guitar. I've never tried his pickups but they seem very well reviewed. I have no clue how long it takes to get something from Oz to the US but hopefully they'll show up in the next couple weeks. But then, shipping and logistics in the US have slowed to almost a complete stop this week with the "once in a generation" arctic blast that has affected most of the country.

Anyway, what I hope to end up with is a crazy cross between Firebird, SG and Tele. It "should" work out well.... :p, but it's a bit of an experiment.

I'm planning to leave my Semi-hollow Vela with it's stock pickups which will give me some nice tonal variety between the two guitars. More to come.....

IMG_4134.JPG

IMG_4133.JPG

IMG_4132.JPG
 
Paradox916 said:
It’s all good man, you do you boo, there are only a few ways to offend my senses and you don’t seem like the type to make fun of handicapped kids or used black tape in a build… with any luck I will post a gratuitous NGD thread of my own in a few months.
Click to expand...
All in good fun man, all in good fun. Looking forward to your NGD post brother!
 
Update:

Despite feeling worse than a bag of dirt, I just had to install these today.

I posted these in the "What's in the Mailbox" thread. My pickups from D'urbano Magnetics in Australia arrived today. Just about a month after ordering them. 2 weeks for him to get them made and another two weeks in the mail to the US. Not too bad.

IMG_4142.JPG

The Firebird neck pickup is a bit hotter than vintage at 9.3k, the '59 PAF bridge is right in there for a vintage PAF at 7.6k.

Had to play around a bit with the pickup heights to balance them out but it works great. So I have to say that these pickups came in a little "messy". Potting was all over them, and he used a lot more solder on the covers than necessary. However, they sound FANTASTIC!

So I'll just shut the F about the less than stellar presentation and play them....hahah. As mentioned above this is a bit of an experiment on the PRS S2 Vela platform to get a cross between a Firebird, SG and Tele. I have to say it all works really really well.

The bridge humbucker is just another really great sounding vintage style PAF and the Firebird is everything I was looking for, fat, single coil-ish. honkey, snarly with gain. For about 1/3 the price of a Lollar or Fralin Firebird pickup and about 1/2 the price of a Duncan Anitquity.

I ordered a tortoise pickguard so it was nice to do most of the wiring "off-guitar", since basically I was replacing everything except the output jack. PRS uses Switchcraft jacks on their S2 line, but uses asian electronics otherwise.

IMG_4148.JPG

I installed a CTS 500k pot and a CTS 500k Push-Pull pot for the tone to split the bridge pickup. I'm not a huge fan of push pull pots but there's not a lot of options on this pickuard with a 3 way toggle. I also raise the pot slightly so the knob sits up a little higher making it easier to pull up.

The CTS push pull is HUMONGOUS. I used one in my other Vela as well. But it all fits. It's actually a neat little contraption with a small PCB board that maps to the lugs, making it easy to do trick wiring like reverse phase, series-parallel, etc.
IMG_4149.JPG

I wired it to PRS Vela spec, which I think works very well for this guitar. The only exception was I used a Cap+Resistor treble bleed instead of a single 180pf cap that PRS uses. I really like the way PRS does their coil tap, it's not a true split. By adding a 2k2 resistor to ground it's actually more like a coil and a third instead of tapping the full coil. This gives you a single coil sound with less volume drop.

On my original Vela I actually installed a trim pot to play around with different values to see which sounded the best, and it turns out the stock 2k2 resistor PRS uses is pretty much spot on.

I did not split the neck pickup as I don't see much use in that for a Firebird.

Couple of finished shots.
IMG_4150.JPG

IMG_4151.JPG

I decided to go with the black top hat reflector knobs to pay homage to the Gibson Firebird and used knob pointers. Wasn't sure if it would work aesthetically but I think it kinda ties things together well. (Even if they're both "Tone" knobs hahaha)

IMG_4152.JPG

One last thing I did was dress up the tuning keys with some rosewood Tone Ninja tuner knobs.
I really can't stand the big huge chrome Schaller style stock knobs.

IMG_4153.JPG

My two Vela's...
IMG_4154.JPG
IMG_4155.JPG

Super pleased with how this guitar sounds with this pickup combo. Gonna work on getting a demo together.
 
MichaelW said:
Update:

Despite feeling worse than a bag of dirt, I just had to install these today.

I posted these in the "What's in the Mailbox" thread. My pickups from D'urbano Magnetics in Australia arrived today. Just about a month after ordering them. 2 weeks for him to get them made and another two weeks in the mail to the US. Not too bad.

View attachment 39324

The Firebird neck pickup is a bit hotter than vintage at 9.3k, the '59 PAF bridge is right in there for a vintage PAF at 7.6k.

Had to play around a bit with the pickup heights to balance them out but it works great. So I have to say that these pickups came in a little "messy". Potting was all over them, and he used a lot more solder on the covers than necessary. However, they sound FANTASTIC!

So I'll just shut the F about the less than stellar presentation and play them....hahah. As mentioned above this is a bit of an experiment on the PRS S2 Vela platform to get a cross between a Firebird, SG and Tele. I have to say it all works really really well.

The bridge humbucker is just another really great sounding vintage style PAF and the Firebird is everything I was looking for, fat, single coil-ish. honkey, snarly with gain. For about 1/3 the price of a Lollar or Fralin Firebird pickup and about 1/2 the price of a Duncan Anitquity.

I ordered a tortoise pickguard so it was nice to do most of the wiring "off-guitar", since basically I was replacing everything except the output jack. PRS uses Switchcraft jacks on their S2 line, but uses asian electronics otherwise.

View attachment 39327

I installed a CTS 500k pot and a CTS 500k Push-Pull pot for the tone to split the bridge pickup. I'm not a huge fan of push pull pots but there's not a lot of options on this pickuard with a 3 way toggle. I also raise the pot slightly so the knob sits up a little higher making it easier to pull up.

The CTS push pull is HUMONGOUS. I used one in my other Vela as well. But it all fits. It's actually a neat little contraption with a small PCB board that maps to the lugs, making it easy to do trick wiring like reverse phase, series-parallel, etc.
View attachment 39328

I wired it to PRS Vela spec, which I think works very well for this guitar. The only exception was I used a Cap+Resistor treble bleed instead of a single 180pf cap that PRS uses. I really like the way PRS does their coil tap, it's not a true split. By adding a 2k2 resistor to ground it's actually more like a coil and a third instead of tapping the full coil. This gives you a single coil sound with less volume drop.

On my original Vela I actually installed a trim pot to play around with different values to see which sounded the best, and it turns out the stock 2k2 resistor PRS uses is pretty much spot on.

I did not split the neck pickup as I don't see much use in that for a Firebird.

Couple of finished shots.
View attachment 39329

View attachment 39330

I decided to go with the black top hat reflector knobs to pay homage to the Gibson Firebird and used knob pointers. Wasn't sure if it would work aesthetically but I think it kinda ties things together well. (Even if they're both "Tone" knobs hahaha)

View attachment 39331

One last thing I did was dress up the tuning keys with some rosewood Tone Ninja tuner knobs.
I really can't stand the big huge chrome Schaller style stock knobs.

View attachment 39332

My two Vela's...
View attachment 39333
View attachment 39334

Super pleased with how this guitar sounds with this pickup combo. Gonna work on getting a demo together.
Click to expand...
Thoroughly enjoying all your guitar and pickup related threads man! I just decided to go with the Durbano Phoenix set of three for my baritone tele. I was all over the place with trying to figure out what to put in there and I chatted with Fabian for a bit and decided to take the plunge.
 
The Phoenix set sounds pretty cool from the demo’s I watched. Bet they’ll knock your socks off in the bari!

I’m super impressed with these pickups. So much so that I took advantage of his sale and picked up another set of his 59’s. unpotted this time destined to go into my Tokai Goldtop. I have feeling they will go toe to toe with the Wolftones I have in my PRS.

I really like the Porter Anthems I have in the Goldtop now but they don’t quite have the same level of character as either the Wolfies or the D’urbano’s. And with the exchange rate where it’s right now the D’urbano’s are a downright steal.
 
Last edited:
MichaelW said:
The Phoenix set sounds pretty cool from the demo’s I watched. Bet they’ll knock your socks off in the bari!

I’m super impressed with these pickups. So much so that I took advantage of his sale and picked up another set of his 59’s. unpotted this time destined to go into my Tokai Goldtop. I have feeling they will go toe to toe with the Wolftones I have in my PRS.

I really like the Porter Anthems I have in the Goldtop now but they don’t quite have the same level of character as either the Wolfies or the D’urbano’s. And with the exchange rate where it’s right now the D’urbano’s are a downright steal.
Click to expand...
So awesome to hear you like them! I read a lot of good things about his pickups so I felt it was worth a shot. I think the chime and clarity will work well with the low register of the baritone. I’m really interested in a neck PH90 for my Peavey EXP to pair with a dimarzio AT-1.

The exchange rate definitely factored into it 🙂
 
MichaelW said:
Update:

Despite feeling worse than a bag of dirt, I just had to install these today.

I posted these in the "What's in the Mailbox" thread. My pickups from D'urbano Magnetics in Australia arrived today. Just about a month after ordering them. 2 weeks for him to get them made and another two weeks in the mail to the US. Not too bad.

View attachment 39324

The Firebird neck pickup is a bit hotter than vintage at 9.3k, the '59 PAF bridge is right in there for a vintage PAF at 7.6k.

Had to play around a bit with the pickup heights to balance them out but it works great. So I have to say that these pickups came in a little "messy". Potting was all over them, and he used a lot more solder on the covers than necessary. However, they sound FANTASTIC!

So I'll just shut the F about the less than stellar presentation and play them....hahah. As mentioned above this is a bit of an experiment on the PRS S2 Vela platform to get a cross between a Firebird, SG and Tele. I have to say it all works really really well.

The bridge humbucker is just another really great sounding vintage style PAF and the Firebird is everything I was looking for, fat, single coil-ish. honkey, snarly with gain. For about 1/3 the price of a Lollar or Fralin Firebird pickup and about 1/2 the price of a Duncan Anitquity.

I ordered a tortoise pickguard so it was nice to do most of the wiring "off-guitar", since basically I was replacing everything except the output jack. PRS uses Switchcraft jacks on their S2 line, but uses asian electronics otherwise.

View attachment 39327

I installed a CTS 500k pot and a CTS 500k Push-Pull pot for the tone to split the bridge pickup. I'm not a huge fan of push pull pots but there's not a lot of options on this pickuard with a 3 way toggle. I also raise the pot slightly so the knob sits up a little higher making it easier to pull up.

The CTS push pull is HUMONGOUS. I used one in my other Vela as well. But it all fits. It's actually a neat little contraption with a small PCB board that maps to the lugs, making it easy to do trick wiring like reverse phase, series-parallel, etc.
View attachment 39328

I wired it to PRS Vela spec, which I think works very well for this guitar. The only exception was I used a Cap+Resistor treble bleed instead of a single 180pf cap that PRS uses. I really like the way PRS does their coil tap, it's not a true split. By adding a 2k2 resistor to ground it's actually more like a coil and a third instead of tapping the full coil. This gives you a single coil sound with less volume drop.

On my original Vela I actually installed a trim pot to play around with different values to see which sounded the best, and it turns out the stock 2k2 resistor PRS uses is pretty much spot on.

I did not split the neck pickup as I don't see much use in that for a Firebird.

Couple of finished shots.
View attachment 39329

View attachment 39330

I decided to go with the black top hat reflector knobs to pay homage to the Gibson Firebird and used knob pointers. Wasn't sure if it would work aesthetically but I think it kinda ties things together well. (Even if they're both "Tone" knobs hahaha)

View attachment 39331

One last thing I did was dress up the tuning keys with some rosewood Tone Ninja tuner knobs.
I really can't stand the big huge chrome Schaller style stock knobs.

View attachment 39332

My two Vela's...
View attachment 39333
View attachment 39334

Super pleased with how this guitar sounds with this pickup combo. Gonna work on getting a demo together.
Click to expand...
GASing for some of the D’Urbano Supernatural pickups now for the SG or LP. The PH-90 look interesting for the LP as well.. how’s the PAF going?
 
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