PRS Electric Guitars

(Originally written by vencell/translated from Audiofanzine FR) - Where was it made? In the USA, of course. - How many frets, what kind of pickups and what is the pickup configuration? Original PRS pickups with 5 combinations for a rather incredible sound range. - What kind of bridge (Floyd Rose, Wilkinson....)? A tremolo that stays in tune. - What about controls (volume, tone, pickup selector...)? One volume knob, one tone knob and one 5-way toggle switch. - What kind of neck? The neck is perfect, neither too thick nor too slim, it slides wonderfully, thank you PRS! UTILIZATION - Is the neck comfortable? As I already mentioned, the neck slides wonderfully. - Is the access to the upper frets easy? It's not a problem although it's true that it's even better with a Flying V. - Is the instrument ergonomic (body shape, weight...)? What can I say... Have you seen PRS guitars? - Is it easy to get the right sound?... The 5 pickups combinations produce a wide sound range: jazz, blues, funk, rock, heavy metal... SOUNDS - Do they fit your music style? I play power rock and post rock (At the drive in, Mars volta, Mogwai...) and I had never played such a good guitar as this one. But it's all a matter of taste... - Which amp(s) or effect(s) do you use it with? I play it with an ENGL Screamer amp head. - What kind of sounds do you get and which settings do you use ("crystal-clear", "fat", ...)? The sound possibilities are very different, you can get a Fender-like crystal-clear sound without an unpleasant twang, but there's definitely something for every taste. - Which sounds do you prefer / hate? I personally love crystal-clear sounds but also fat (Marshall) sounds and the PRS gives me a very sophisticated sound with my amp head. It's a delight!!! OVERALL OPINION - How long have you been using it? I've owned it for over 5 years and wow!! - Which feature do you like the most / the least? This guitar combines manufacturing quality (lutherie, hardware, components...) with great looks: PRS guitars are the hottest guitars on the market (as far as I'm concerned). - Did you try any other models before buying it? I tested a CE22, a Mc Carty and a Tremonty and I found the CE24 way more versatile than the others. - How would you rate its value for money? It's true that these guitars are very expensive but you must see it as an investment. The price is high but I don't regret my purchase. - Based on your experience, would you buy this product again? Without hesitation!!!

Ok now we've read all the other reviews. No one mentioned the great playing rosewood fretboards or flawless jumbo frets. Plus being an absolutely beautiful Tobacco Sunburst finish on a one piece mohagany body as well as the same for the set neck. Makes this the perfect platform for a very fine touring and recording guitar. With that and it's great low price, I bought one and with only a few mods it's the go to guitar. First off I replaced the non-locking tuners with Grover Rotomatics. The saddle issues mentioned with a set of Graph-Tech PRS Santana SE saddles and their Tusk self lubricating nut (can be bought as a set for this model. I had it set up by a pro and wow! It stays in tune for weeks even when I use the tremolo, and it's now a resonating, sustaining dream. I also changed the bridge pickup to a Seymore Duncan JB4, the pots for CTS ones with orange drop caps, and a set of D'Adarrio XL 10's and now it is a gigging and recording tone monster! It truly is a players guitar and will now easily keep up with and surpass many U.S. humbuckered Strats, Teles or Sg's and a few cheaper Pauls and definately anything offshore. All of these mods cost less than $400 installed, and lots less if you can do the work yourself. I own in total 13 guitar and 8 basses all of which are U.S. and/or It originally sold for the regular dealer price (don't remember) at the local PRS dealer here in southern Ontario, Canada. Where it was bought and modded by me. With these modifications I love everthing about it, even the stock neck pickup shines for cleans and overdriven/bluesy tones with the new pots and Graph-Tech parts etc.. The big neck heel...but it's really not a big deal. see above It may seem like a lot of money for a guitar that costs not too much more than the mods but for under a $1000 you get a guitar that tone wise will keep up to the best of them, and with great playablity that together can't be rivaled at this price point buy anyone. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I,ve been making noise for over 20 yrs.I love it but I'm not so sure that my neighbors feel the same.Hey,if the only reason I played was to impress people I would have quit a long time ago.It's all about having fun!Bands?been there done that.Seems like there's always someone that takes things to serious(the Legend in thier own mind)and someone else that doesn't take it serious enough(the Flake)never fails,and just takes away all the fun.It's more fun to get a few people together and let the noise flow in whatever direction it may,Its all good. When I was younger I liked Heavy Metal and Hard Rock.Mellow was for sissies.Well now I'm turning into a sissie.I Love Stevie Ray Vaughn,Eric Clapton and even B.B.King and even worse I actually own a James Taylor CD,and I like it! I bought this Guitar at Guitar Center.It was the last of the last(someone put it on layaway then flaked)I think it was around $500 maybe a dollar or so less. The #1 thing about this guitar is(drum roll please)The Weight!!As far as I'm concerned All solid body electric guitars should be this light.Amazingly it still has great musical tone.I am impressed with the pickups.At first I thought they were a bit on the hot side,but after rolling the volume control back a tad and adjusting the tone control I'm able to get alot of different sounds.Almost reminds me of Bill Lawrance pickups.(If you haven't tryed them you should at least check them out).For a inexpensive guitar this has a nice fit and finish,better than most. The neck is thicker and wider than I like.But I must admit this guitar still plays good.I've played it from night til dawn before and my hands were not sore like some guitars I've played(Epiphone L.P.comes to mind) Very good for the price.It's made in Korea after all.NOT in USA(Memphis) or shipped from Mexico and asembled in USA(Corona)if you know what I mean,Vern? Great Guitar for the money!If you like thick wide necks(cool it down girl's,not funny)It looks cool,plays well and sounds great.This is a guitar worth having! P.S.I own 4 Gibsons & an American Strat(I sold my first born) in comparison I can't justify a five star rating. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I found this guitar on E-bay, at the store: Musicland. I paid $230. I liked the specs. The pickups are loud and aggressive. The green flame finish is top notch. The action is perfect. - Excellent overall construction. If you didn't know you were playing a copy, you'd swear that this was a genuine Paul. I rate this as one of my best guitar purchases. Before you put a mortgage on the house to buy a Gibson, pick up one of these! This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I had this guitar special ordered new by Guitarville in Seattle for $1,575. I'd seen new and used CE 22s and they were all beautiful. But I didn't come across a solid black one like I'd hoped. So I ordered one. 3 months later, it was in my hot little hands. The first thing I noticed about the CE 22 was how wonderful it felt to play. Moving across the fretboard, bending strings, and playing bar chords all felt smooth and effortless. More than any electric I'd played. The wide-fat neck gives my frethand a sturdy grip and allows for quick movement. The Dragon II pickups are nothing short of stunning. Such full sound and versatility. The 5 way rotary pickup selector takes a little getting used to, but once familiar with it, switching tones is easy. I've been a strat man my whole life and am not really into the heaviness Gibsons. So it was nice to discover PRS's warm midrange sound that is a nice contrast to my strat's sharper sound. And my PRS is GORGEOUS!!! Black is Beautiful! The only thing that threw me off a little about this guitar was the locking tuners on the headstock. Changing the strings for the first time was kind of a pain and I'm still not used to it. But I suppose a little more experience is all I need. Solidly built! Before buying I was able to view the Paul Reed Smith DVD that gives you the factory tour. Nearly every step in constructing their guitars is done by hand. And they give the impression that their quality control standards are incredibly strict. I enjoyed viewing the step by step process of how my guitar was built. And now that I've been playing it, I'm very impressed with how sturdy it is and how terrific it sounds. Even after lots of string bending and whammy bar torquing, the thing stays in tune. Wow. I'm very pleased with my gorgeous black beauty! At first the price tag seemed a little steep, but the more I play the more I feel my money was very well spent. I guess I would recommend looking for a used one if you wanted to spend a little less money. But if you've got your heart set on a specific color, good luck finding it used. Because everytime I saw a good deal on a used CE 22, it sold pretty quickly. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Bought on Ebay for $3900.00, 2002 Santana yellow. I bought this after buying a Santana III and finding out this series of guitars are the "Holy Grail". The guitar plays equally well as my Santana III. (The best playing guitar I or any of my friends have ever held in our hands) I like the artist grade top better than the 10 top on the III. The rippled abalone inlays are beautiful and the body is a bit lighter than the III so it is better balanced. The wide fat neck feels like my 57 LP Goldtop. The Brazilian rosewood headstock veneer and OM symbol on the Brazilian rosewood truss rod cover is very cool. The Brazilian rosewood fretboard plus the super solid set neck and bridge/tremolo hardware give this the longest sustain I have ever heard. I'm scared to dent, ding or scratch it! The stock Santana II pickups are a bit edgy for me. They are harsh sounding when compared to the my Santana III so I swapped them for new Santana III pickups direct from PRS. It was the right choice! I received it "dead mint". There isn't a single scratch, dent or mark on the entire guitar. It came absolutely flawless as inspected with a lighted magnifying loop. The setup was perfect. The fretwork is the best I've ever seen. The wood used is beyond beautiful. The edge of the guitar has the natural wood binding where the flame maple top was not dyed on the edge that meets the mahogony body back. Very nice and classy. I absolutely love my Santana III, especially the pickups. The II with the III version pickups is the best combination there is yet. My Santana III is now lent to a friend and he is in love with it. The number of different sounds that are available with this guitar/pickup combination is excellent for rock, blues, jazz. Add a metal zone and you can be a shredmaster-metalhead. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Guitar Center, East Brunswick, New Jersey. Paid $2600. I bought this guitar because I was looking for a guitar that was versatile enough to play an entire show without changing instruments (barring a string break). This guitar is VERY versatile and sounds unbelievable. The humbucker sounds are tremendous, and the single coil sounds are very good. I bought one with an East Indian Rosewood Neck. If you decide on a McCarty, I HIGHLY recommend you look into one with this neck. The playability of all PRS's is great, but with this neck, it's unspeakable! Finally, the tone is outstanding. Dark, rich, and complex. However, this guitar, though awesome, is not for everyone. See below. I have one very minor complaint: no locking tuners. Not that we buy guitars for their tuners, but they would have been nice. Now, though I only have one complaint, I do have two major caveats. Make sure you understand the following before you buy this awesome (and very expensive) guitar. First, if you want a Les Paul or a Strat, get one. The humbucker sound on a McCarty is fatter than other double cutaway guitars, but it doesn't even approach the fatness of a Les Paul. The single coil sounds are very nice, but not "twangy" like a strat. Nothing does a Les Paul and Strat sounds better than Les Pauls and Strats. With that said, when you want to get "similar" sounds out of one guitar, this one can do it. Second, this guitar is very strong in the mids. Yes, the highs are sweet and the lows are smooth, but when your playing chords, its big on the mids. So if you're the type that likes playing with a scooped-mid sound, this guitar is not for you. Try a Custom 22 or 24 (with and without the trem system) instead. The McCarty is a great rock guitar, and it can do some of the heavier stuff if you ask it to. But if the heavy stuff is your thing, move on. It's a PRS... construction and quality are nothing short of perfect. The set-up performed at the factory is better than any tech I know could ever do. The McCarty is very versatile. It can come close to Les Paul and Strat sounds. But what makes this guitar worth the money is what you don't hear about enough-- the PRS sound. It's got its own sonic character that is dark, rich, and complex. If you don't like the mids, try a Custom 22 with a tail stop. To overly generalize, the McCarty is more vinatage sounding and the Custom 22 is more modern sounding. Good Luck! This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This guitar was purchased in Leesburg Virginia at Melodee Music. I paid about 2300.00 for this beauty. It was worth the wait! Fantastic ACTION! Beautiful artist package with black leather case. Birds add that PRS touch. The pickups are great, from the clean sounds to raw, it performs. A little pricy, but well worth it. I look at it as an investment. Artist maple top, better that AAA or Quilt.Rosewood frets with famous birds. Quality is perfect in every way. I own or have owned a lot of guitars in my time. This guitar was worth the 3 month wait. Strait out of the case, it played effortlessly. PRS really does take the time to set them up, and test them. The only guitar I have not had to set up before I played it. Pickups are superior to any guitar I own. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this at a Guitar Center blowout sale for only $1700! The list price is $3700, but they usually sell for around $2700. I was there to buy a Les Paul, but I tried this one out, fell in love with it, and bought it for the price of a Les Paul. This guitar plays wonderfully. The action's great, the pickups are very high quality, and it looks amazing. My guitar is in the Santana Orange finish. This finish looks much better in real life than in pictures. The only thing I dont like about it is the long neck heel, but PRS probably designed it this way for strength. Everything else about this guitar is absolutley perfect! The construction of the guitar is flawless. No blemishes, everythings sanded, and all the parts and hardware are very high quality. This is an amazing and very nice looking guitar, and if you have the money, you should ddefintley try it out. Even though I got it for only $1700, It's defintley worth $2700 This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Its a long story... I responded to an ad in the St Albans chronicle, a regional north london newspaper regarding a Gibson les paul firebrand! Not knowing what this strange animal was, I called the ad and got the address. The juvenile voice on the line had me suspicious, but my hunger for the elusive guitar deal of a life time made me overlook this disturbing detail. Arriving after speeding all the 12 miles through Watford to St Albans in a 69 Triumph spitfire I could hardly contain my excitement, but as with all deals I had to gain composure and pretend not to be excited. Perhaps this guy was a syd barrett that lived in his bedroom for 20 years? After knocking, a neanderthal looking mono sylabbic speaking youth with the greasiest hair i'd ever seen ushered me up to his bedroom. The thought of some scene from deliverence crossed my mind, but the smell of a guitar find powered me onward. He opened a wardrobe, removed what seemed to be dozens of pairs of shoes to reveal the unmistakeble shape of a fitted gibson case. Like a coffin being exhumed from a grave he wiped off the dust and laid the precious sarcophigus on the bed. OPening the case there was what appeared to be a les paul that had been scratched to death by the buried alive victim you see in movies. It was a les paul no doubt. I asked the cro magnon about its history and the like, but alas details were sketchy. He said he had to sell. I asked the all important question, how much? Expecting a four digit reply, he simply grunted make me an offer. This is the moment whan all the cool in the world is needed, and all the yoga in the world wouldnt have brought my heart rate down. I took a gamble, based on my suspected IQ assessment, and offered him 250 quid. He immediately said yes, and I began counting out the faces of queen elizabeth into his sweaty palm, trying not to appear excited, half expecting him to turn into the punk pithicus he looked like. I finished dealing out the wad, and closed the case, thanking him, got down the stairs and out the door. I was in the spitfire and down the road, glancing at the black gibson case wondering if the thing was for real or a fake or what!. Once home we , my brother and I thoroughly researched the strange gibson and found it be official. The bridge pickup was working intermittently so I took it to a guitar shop in St Albans for repair. Whilst there the owner asked me to try this new vox 24 fret guitar he had just received. Remember this was 1983 and Carlos Santana was using the Yamaha sg2000. I guess this vox was a challenger to this genre of axe...... he traded the gibson even up for the vox which was 699 pounds in the store with a hardshell case The 24 frets was special, it was weird to be able to solo in B above the 12 fret easily. The action was incredible and the screaming response from the semour duncan double humbuckers was twice the output compared to my 74 strat. It has single coil switching and out of phase switching too, which gives versatility to the sounds available. The guitar is heavy! Its made from a number of gorgeous looking dark woods laminated, but I was suffering from "les paul neck" by the end of the first jam with the boys. Construction is excellent and the finish superb Ive had this guitar 20 years now and the only change I made was to replace the neck double humbucker pickup with a fender lace sensor double pickup, the blue/ gold combo. This now allows me to have amazing fenderesque tones and the screaming seamour at the flick of a switch. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this on a Ebay auction for $2250. When I tell you this thing sounds INCREDIBLE, believe me. It does everything wonderfully. I have 21 guitars and nothing comes close this, not my Gibson, Fender or any of the others. The only thing that I don't like about it is, that it is so beautiful and immaculate that I am scared to death of putting a scratch on it. So it spends 98% of its life in its fantastic leather hardshell case. You should know what these guitars are but for those of you how do not, here goes. It is a hollowbody made of flamed maple on the top and back. Mahogany side rim and set neck. Rosewood fretboard with abalone bird inlays and McCarty archtop electronics. I know that a large part of thier production is done on computer controlled CNC machines for high tolerances but they are assembled by hand and the work is impeccable. The PRS line of guitars are the most sought after now because of thier beauty and craftmanship. I liked this so much I bought a PRS custom 22 that I would feel more comfortable playing on a regular basis. Go and at least try one out if you can. They stopped making the Hollowbody I and I hope they stop making these so mine will only increase in value(awfully selfish). This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Paul reed Smith guitars are very well know for their expensive but gorgeous looking guitars. they have guitars for every guitar player out there and most of their guitars features the exact same wood combinations. They usually have a mahogany with a rosewood fretboard and then a couple humbuckers installed into the instrument. They have had a variety of pickups that seem to be exclusive to their own company and brand. UTILIZATION Top Wood: Maple Top and Flame Maple Veneer (no veneer on opaque finishes) Back Wood: Thick Mahogany Number of Frets: 22 Scale Length: 24 1/2" Neck Wood: Mahogany Fretboard Wood: Rosewood Neck Shape: Wide Fat Fretboard Inlays: Birds Bridge: PRS Designed Stoptail Tuners: PRS Designed Tuners Truss Rod Cover: "PRS" Hardware Type: Nickel Treble Pickup: PRS Designed SE 245 Treble Humbucker Bass Pickup: PRS Designed SE 245 Bass Humbucker Pickup Switching: Volume and Tone control for each pickup and 3-way toggle pickup selector on upper bout SOUNDS If you have ever had any experience with a mahogany based guitar then you will be in good company with this guitar. This guitar will give you a nice deep rich tone that will fill the room quite nicely. It is a tone that has a full body and a wide range of frequencies. If you like clean tones than this guitar can do it, and if you like high gain tones than this guitar can do that as well. Overall, this is a very cool guitar that has a wealth of tone and feel. OVERALL OPINION I would recommend this guitar to anyone who is not on budget and wants someone of the best tone you can get out of a guitar. This guitar will give you that is spades. They come in new for right at around $700, which is actually a good price for a PRS guitar. So this is the budget friendly for PRS standards, but not budget for mine.