Prs 513 Wiring

[Matt]

Im looking to make a 'super Jem' (if they can get any superer and have PRS 513 wiring including a sustainer and an on-board distortion effects pot.

Anyone have any idea how they wire that thing up?

Cheers Matt

[Daniel Sorbera]

PRS 513 wiring including a sustainer and an on-board distortion effects pot.

If you can figure that out let me know because thats what just about every guitarist wants!

[lovekraft]

... thats what just about every guitarist wants!

Not the guitarists I know, but we probably run in slightly different circles.

A better approach would be to decide what sounds you want that aren't available with standard JEM switching. Overly complex switching setups like Paul's 5/13 are usually marketing tools designed to attract teenagers and over-40's. Personally, the JEM switching system gives me pretty much every sound I need, but a true Strat freak might want to add coil splits to positions 1 and 5 - the rest of the "options" are of extremely dubious value, at least so far as I'm concerned. As always, YMMV.

As for onboard distortion, it's a one-trick pony - you don't have room for a mini-pedalboard inside the cavity, so you're stuck with one fuzzbox with limited control options (unless you're going to have 6 or 7 knobs on the guitar). Thanks, but I think I'll stick to my stomps and my amp!

[GregP]

I disagree. I think the 513 offers an excellent range of possibilities, and adds something new to the mix that was previously unavailable.

What confuses me is this:

- the 513 does not include on-board distortion

- the 513 does not have a sustainer system.

All it is is a thorough way of coil tapping (as opposed to merely splitting, which is what most of us have been doing) so that you can have single coil, humbucker, and low-output humbucker modes.

I think it's fantastic in theory, and if it was available separately, I'd seriously consider going for it. No toy, this.

Greg

[mledbetter]

well i think it's a little more than coil tapping.. it's 5 single coils. Somehow with 5 single coils and 2 blade switches they get 13 sounds.. i've got my hunches what it is but i've never seen one.

I did some searching at the us patent website but didn't fine anything. will look further. There is one patent awarded to some dude in nashville that did something similar. 2 hums and a single coil, a 5 way and a 2 way switch.. basically the 2 way goes between strat and LP wiring.. interesting concept.

[GregP]

The big feature is coil tapping. I mentioned this in another post, but here's the skinny:

There are 3 modes:

1. Single coil

2. Normal ("heavy") Humbucker (single coils combined as humbuckers)

3. Clean Humbucker (single coils are combined as humbuckers, but coil tapped so that the full coil of each isn't used)

3 modes X 5-way selector switch = 15 combinations.

BUT, since the middle pickup is always the same, it's the exact same sound in all three modes and so it only counts once.

So, 13 actual different tones.

Greg

[frank falbo]

Right, so it's like a PAF living inside of a HFS for example. You can sneak in there and get the PAF winding, or you can take the full overwound output.

The phrase "coil tap" has been misused so much that we think he's just doing single/humbucker modes. Even I don't mind misusing the phrase coil tap for splitting a humbucker, because it's like you're "tapping into" just one of the coils. A single coil with a tap usually cuts out half the windings. So to cut out half of a humbucker and say that's a "coil tap" still seems like acceptable vernacular. That is, until someone like PRS actually starts using true coil taps again! Now I have to commit to differentiating splits from taps. Oh well. It seems like the 513 would be a great guitar.

Now if you start wanting a sustainer in there and a distortion effect too, you're just being silly. The guitar won't function well. You can achieve a good variance from a H/S/H guitar with a DPDT on/off/on switch. You can wire it so in the middle, you have humbuckers. Up you have the outside singles, and down you have the inside singles. That gives you full access to everything. If the middle pickup is a stack, you can even wire it to go from hum cancelling to true single coil mode, in the position where it would cancel hum with the split humbuckers. I have some guitars with a rails pickup in the center. On those, even the middle pickup alternates coils to cancel hum appropriately. That's the poor man's 513 IMHO. Put your sustainer/distortion in something else.

[Matt]

Now if you start wanting a sustainer in there and a distortion effect too, you're just being silly. The guitar won't function well.

well the distortion im looking at takes up VERY little space and is slightly larger than a pushpull pot (go to www.axesrus.co.uk and look at the electronics bit), it also would not effect the rest of the guitar when turned off. plus whats wrong with having the sustainer on it?

OK very complex wiring! But at least ill have one guitar that will do alot for me and be very versatile. I HATE having to build/buy more than two or three guitars at a time as it just soaks up too much cash which i dont have. At least ill have a guitar that i can sit down and mess about with for hours just finding my way around the controls as i would think with that thing.

If your gonna do something- do it properly

[crafty]

Seems to me like you could get a similar setup by using a couple of Lace Sensor Duallys and a single Lace Sensor in the middle. The Duallys aren't normal humbuckers, they're two independent single coils mounted next to each other so you can have two SC pickups in the same spot, similar to the 513 system.

I wonder if you could set it up with the Lace Duallys in the bridge and neck, and a Fernandes single-coil Sustainer in the middle. I'm just wondering if the Sustainer driver would still be able to function properly in the mid rather than the neck position.

[mledbetter]

Well that makes sense.. They said they are proprietary pickups.. so a stacked single coil that is tappable would make sense.

Then you can have a true single coil, a true humbucker (two half strength singlecoils) or a full on HB like the rio twangbucker, or the lace dually's..

Then you have a 5 way switch and a 3 way switch.. and the 3 way routes the wires to the 5 way to control which options are selectable. Hurts my head to think about it but i'm sure you could trace it out and figure out how to wire the thing.

Where I would leave off is the distortion and sustainer thing. Buy a pedal. True distortion comes from your amp anyway!! Guitars with built in distortion just scream "synsonix with theh built in speaker" to me.

[Matt]

Yea i see what you mean.

I Know this might sound odd but i was thinking along those line except having the sustainer IN BETWEEN the mid and neck PU and modding the Scrateplate to fit. but that was just an idea

Anyone know what the laces sound like?

I saw a PU once that was a humbucker but it had 3 coils (so it was like a HB and a half) so it was really big. Anyone know what tehse are and what it would sound like e.t.c.

cheers

Matt

[crafty]

Lace pickups sound pretty good. Fender was the exclusive user of Lace pickups for years with the Deluxe, Ultra, and Artist Strats and Teles. A lot of the sig guitars have switched over to the new Fender Noiseless pickups, but a few like the James Burton Tele still use the Laces. Any recording made by Clapton between 1988 and 2000 should have the Lace sound to it.

I have a feeling that the "proprietary" technology behind the 513 system was designed either by Lace or Seymour Duncan.

[Daniel Sorbera]

ok now that I see that It's a stacked single coil that can be, well, unstacked I will Draw out a schematic later today if I have time, and if not I'll do it tomorow.

Ok so in the humbucker clean mode it's tapped singles and in the humbucker heavy mode it's full singles. You could use some seymour duncan "custom" singles to give you a nice high output sound in humbucker mode.

I will have the schematic up as soon as I can...

Edited March 31, 2005 by Godin SD

[PaulNeeds]

ok now that I see that It's a stacked single coil that can be, well, unstacked   I will Draw out a schematic later today if I have time, and if not I'll do it tomorow.

Ok so in the humbucker clean mode it's tapped singles and in the humbucker heavy mode it's full singles.   You could use some seymour duncan "custom" singles to give you a nice high output sound in humbucker mode.

I will have the schematic up as soon as I can...

←

From what I've read on the 513, it's not quire that. It's 5 single coils, the outer 4 of which combine to make 2 humbers. Now, of these four, each must be tapped somewhere within the coil to produce the lower output necessary for the reduced output humbucker mode.

It is very interesting...

[mledbetter]

ok now that I see that It's a stacked single coil that can be, well, unstacked   I will Draw out a schematic later today if I have time, and if not I'll do it tomorow.

Ok so in the humbucker clean mode it's tapped singles and in the humbucker heavy mode it's full singles.  You could use some seymour duncan "custom" singles to give you a nice high output sound in humbucker mode.

I will have the schematic up as soon as I can...

←

From what I've read on the 513, it's not quire that. It's 5 single coils, the outer 4 of which combine to make 2 humbers. Now, of these four, each must be tapped somewhere within the coil to produce the lower output necessary for the reduced output humber mode.

It is very interesting...

←

Right.. and i think the only way to do that is a stacked singlecoil.. Now the two coils may not be the same.. it might be a 5k stection and a 2k section. I have no idea.. Someone can sneak into a prs dealer with their multimeter and let us know!

[Daniel Sorbera]

no you can get a "tapped" version of a true single coil from seymour duncan. I'm not quite sure what the inside of the coil looks like but it's a true single and it cuts half the windings.

[scott from _actual time_]

Right.. and i think the only way to do that is a stacked singlecoil.

uh, no -- like folks have said above, you can do it with tapped coils, and it looks like that's what the 5/13 is using. a coil tap is a wire that comes out of the middle of the pickup's windings. so on a tapped pickup you have the normal start wire, the normal finish wire, and a wire coming from the middle. the designer can have that tap wire put wherever in the windings they want, to tap the pickup at 50% or 70% or wherever.

this is not the same as a stacked coil pickup, which has two separate coils. the second coil can have pole pieces and be used to generate sound, or often it will have no pole pieces and be used jsut to cancel hum.

in the 5/13 system, it looks like they have the neck and bridge humbuckers with both coils tapable. that way they can combine the two taps to make a medium output series humbucking sound, use only one coil full on to make a single coil, or combine both coils full on to make a high output series humbucking sound. they could get even more sounds if they used every possible combination [one coil full + one coil tapped, outer coils full, outer coils tapped, inner coils both ways, etc, etc].

the 5/13 is a neat idea, but i don't know how practically useful it would be. i wire my H/S/H guitars with one push/pull pot that changes all 5 positions into a single coil mode. i love the 10 different sounds for recording, but i rarely use more than a couple of them live. the extra blade switch on the PRS also looks pretty ragged IMO.

[GregP]

I think it's very useful. The sound of a low-impedance humbucker (which is what you get with the tap) is very different and will overdrive an amp differently than a high-output humbucker. Plus, you get true single-coils, not just a 'half-humbucker' split.

I can't imagine a more versatile system unless you start adding active electronics.

Greg

[crafty]

I'm just curious, has anyone actually seen or played one of these 513 guitars outside of NAMM?

Seriously, I can find PRS Customs, CEs, Santanas, and even the occasional McCarty, but I haven't found a music store yet that's ponied up the dough for a $6,000 guitar.

[mledbetter]

I'm just curious, has anyone actually seen or played one of these 513 guitars outside of NAMM?

Seriously, I can find PRS Customs, CEs, Santanas, and even the occasional McCarty, but I haven't found a music store yet that's ponied up the dough for a $6,000 guitar.

←

No.. that's why it's so much fun to try to uncover the mystique!!

[Daniel Sorbera]

I haven't "played" it but a store near me does have one. It's sitting on the highest wall and NO one plays it without a down payment... Well it's still in PERFECT condition

Let me just say that the rosewood necks and that sweet body DOES look freakin awesome. It IMHO looks way better than any PRS I've ever seen. And the fingerboard inlays are really alot cooler than the normal bird inlays. I would like to see them put those inlays on all there guitars.

[mledbetter]

I would imagine that like was said before.. when it's all boiled down it's not much different than an HSH with coil taps. I think companies like that will go out of their way to get a new rig that they can patent.. makes people feel special that buy it. I think it's a creative use of singlecoils though and very few companies have figured out how to get true singlecoil and true humbucker sounds out of the same pickup.

I admit I was misunderstanding coil tapping.. Thanks for the explanation, whoever posted that. That makes a lot more sense. Not sure who, if anyone, sells a stock single coil with a tap but you could wind one yourself I suppose.

[scott from _actual time_]

Plus, you get true single-coils, not just a 'half-humbucker' split.

actually, a half-humbucker split with a high-output humbucker will give a very good single coil sound. most single coil pickups run 7-9 kohms, so coil cutting a humbucker in the 14-18 kohm range will match that. the bad tonal rep that coil cuts have in some quarters comes from splitting lower output humbuckers. if you start with a 12 kohm PAF clone, running just one coil is definately going to sound weaker than a standard single coil.

so i'd bet a cold beer that the 5/13 single coil sounds use the full windings of each coil and not the coil tap. i doubt it's any more "true single coil" than any high-output humbucker split, or they'd be sacrificing the humbucker tone. the 'five single coils' PRS description sounds like marketing hype to me -- if it truly is that, the humbuckers won't sound exactly right.

of course, humbuckers and singles also have different magent types, in different locations within the pickup. it would be impossible to make a pickup that was both a perfect humbucker and a perfect single coil. the 5/13 looks like it gets closer to what the vintage crowd would want, low-ouput humbuckers but still high-output singles.

Edited April 1, 2005 by scott from _actual time_

[frank falbo]

PAF clones are 7.8-8.3kohms, so they'd split at around 4k, and that's not too far from a vintage single. I actually like splitting 8-12k humbuckers, but I like a vintage output guitar, too. I mean, I have some guitars with pickups wound up to 24k too, but I don't mind a low output guitar if the tone is right.

[Maiden69]

I did played one, but playing for me is not the same as for somebody else because I can't play to save my live, I strum it and did some power cords, that's about it, but the owner, a retired Navy officer did play some he showed the different type of sounds, it is very nice, but I think that you will get all the different tones advantage by using a tube amp, I somehow think that it won't be as good with multi effects like my GNX1. He showed me the control cavity and explained me the way it works, and it is not coil tapping, it is 5 single coils, an electronics board, the 2 switches and a LOT of wire. He said that the PRS tech told him that the way it worked instead of tapping into the coils to bring the output down or up, was that they used the wire to control the amount of output that the guitar will have, like half the wires will yield a heavier sound while using all the wires will yiels a lower output.

I think it is the same or kinda like the tone knob that they had, just controlling the resistance thru wires instead of the knob.