Left is my Custom 24 SE, right is my 513. The 513 is far and away my favorite, and one of the most comfortable, versatile guitars I’ve ever played.
Nice guitars. I just bought a used Custom 22 SE this week. It’s such a comfortable instrument to play, and beautiful too. Though I am going to be replacing those 85/15 pickups with some Seymour Duncans as the tone was a bit disappointing.
That pattern on the left is stunning. Also love that deep red on the right. Someday I’ll probably get a PRS, they’re just too pretty and I always hear they play great!
I been playing for ~16 years. I have one nice guitar and one beater. The nice one is a SE. I can’t imagine needing another…maybe a single coil at some point.
They are really nice guitars.
I’ve had the 513 for a couple years. Saw the SE on Sweetwater and just had to have it. The neck is WAY different between the two. The 513 has a “pattern vintage” neck of solid rosewood and the feel in the hand is so incredible.
To me, it’s best described as the well worn feeling of a stair hand rail that’s about 40 years old and worn smooth/oiled by countless hands.
The neck on the SE is the new “pattern thin” and it feels more like my old Ibanez RG. Very flat and fast. The scale length is different, and the extra two frets on the 24 make more of a difference than I’d have thought.
That old railing description sounds amazing lol.
You mention the se feels like an Ibanez, and I totally agree. I think they are classified as Ibanez style aren’t they? The neck reminds my of my beat up mij Jackson dinky. Super comfy. My only knock is that it’s really hard to fret chords up past 12, which is fine cause I rarely do anyway. Overall I love it. Super easy to play, versatile, I might even do some pup upgrades eventually.
Oh I totally agree with chords past 12! I’ve got sausage fingers anyway, and getting even basic triads is a chore. Up that high is single notes and double stop territory. Anything more it’s gonna be a squish.
The wood grain on the left guitar is gorgeous!
It’s crazy how good it is. It’s an SE, so the top is just a laminate, but it’s REALLY nice. Funny enough, the 513 is a 10-top, but I get more comments on the SE than the “actual” 10-top.
Yeah I was going to ask if the SE was a 10-top before I saw SE on the headstock. Gorgeous. How would compare the pickups on the two?
The 513 has no equal, IMO. Just the absolute versatility of being able to use one or more of the pickups from all positions independently gives it so many options.
That being said, the SE is super capable. The stock pickups in the SE are a little hot and can give a really nice crunch when overdriven. I keep the SE tuned to D standard (sometimes D drop C) so I play mostly chunky stuff on it and it’s wonderful for it.
The pots are a little lacking on the SE. Specifically the tone pot really only makes a difference between about 0-40%. After that, it loses nuance.
I love the SE line of guitars. I have a zebrawood custom 24 that i swapped the pickups for a DiMarzio set, and it’s absolutely killer.
