PRS SE Custom 24-08 Stock Pickups vs 85/15 Comparison
Hello all,
tl;dr at bottom of post
I posted a few weeks ago about my latest guitar purchase (the SE custom 24-08 along with a set of 85/15 pickups) and there was some interest in hearing a direct comparison between the two sets of pups. I finally got around to completing the swap and recording the last of the clips. They've now been uploaded to Soundcloud for your listening enjoyment. The tests are all honestly pretty bland (especially the clean and dirty sounds, I tested every possible pickup configuration) and I'm not the greatest guitar player so this is really just for people that want to torture themselves and listen to like 20 minutes of my shitty playing. For science!
Anyway, I posted an overview of what you'll actually be hearing in the description over on Soundcloud but I'll post it here as well just for the hell of it:
All clips alternate between the stock PRS SE Custom 24-08 pickups and the PRS 85/15 pickups (in that order). In the Clean and Dirty tracks I tested all possible pickup positions in the following order:
Bridge Humbucker
Bridge and Neck Humbucker
Neck Humbucker
Bridge Coil Split
Bridge and Neck Coil Split
Neck Coil Split
Bridge Coil Split with Neck Humbucker
Bridge Humbucker with Neck Coil Split
In the Rock clips I only tested the three humbucker positions in the following order:
Bridge Humbucker
Bridge and Neck Humbucker
Neck Humbucker
In the Metal clips, the bridge humbucker was used for the first two riffs. The third riff starts on the bridge humbucker and switches to the neck humbucker halfway through (when the lick is repeated up an octave). Also please don't @ me about the wrong notes in that Petrucci riff. I realized I fucked up after recording with the old pups, and for the sake of consistency I played it wrong with the new pups too :)
edit: I realize the description above may be a little confusing, so just to clarify on EXACTLY what you're hearing: in the clean and dirty clips, you will first hear me play a riff using the old pickups with only the bridge humbucker selected, and then that exact same riff using the new pickups with only the bridge humbucker selected. Then you'll hear the same riff again on the old pickups but with both the bridge and neck humbuckers selected, and then the same riff on the new pickups with the bridge and neck humbuckers selected. And it continues on like that through all the possible pickup selections as listed above. For the rock stuff you'll hear the AC/DC riff using the old bridge pickup, then with the new bridge pickup, then the Audioslave riff using the old bridge and neck pickups, then with the new bridge and neck pickups, and then finally the Incubus riff using the old neck pup, and then the new neck pup. The metal stuff is pretty straightforward.
tl;dr I bought a new guitar and recorded some clips of my shitty playing to compare the stock pickups with some new ones. If you feel like torturing yourself, here's the link: