Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Twinfan on September 25, 2010, 09:58:49 AM
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Is it me, or are these just Strats and LPs??? :?
They even call the LP the "Singlecut 58" for crying out loud :roll:
(http://guitarinternational.com/wpmu/files/2010/09/nPRSf31.jpg)(http://guitarinternational.com/wpmu/files/2010/09/PRSdc3.jpg)(http://guitarinternational.com/wpmu/files/2010/09/PRSsc581.jpg)
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I thought they'd discontinued the single cut in favour of the mcarty again? this was after discontinuing the mcarty in favour of the single cut.
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I've said before I don't like the look of the PRS tune-o-matic and stoptail - they seem to be different just for the sake of being different.
(Old style birds have returned, I see!)
As for the "Strats", I'd be happier to see reissues of the first or second series EG models. At least they looked like PRS guitars! These remind me of Ibanez Blazers:
(http://www.daftpaddy.com/ibanez/ibanez%20blazer.jpg)
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(Old style birds have returned, I see!)
yeah i noticed that too, but only on these and the CU24. i'm definitely an old birds kinda guy. I see they have a 22 fretter in the as well with the quattro after getting rid of the custom 22
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Hmmm, I like some parts of the LP but definitely not the strat. Good to see the old style birds return, much nicer. I agree with Philly - they should do something about tune-o-matic and stoptail.
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Ted Nugent? :wink:
(http://www.prsguitars.com/ja15/img/front.jpg)
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Oh crikey, I really like this! :o Best looking SE model ever?
(http://www.prsguitars.com/sesantana/img/front.jpg)(http://www.prsguitars.com/sesantana/img/main1.jpg)
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Yep, I'd agree with you there Phil!
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Do they WANT another law suit or something?
If this won't work, maybe they'll do a Rickenbacker copy.
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If the "Strats" remind me of anything, it's the abortive Gibson Hendrix "signature model", and the one with the mini-humbuckers seems to have cavities that would take a P-90 with minimal carving. I'm not totally sold here, but, like the Gibson, there might well be some potential for diamonds in the rough.
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yeah, I get the need to evolve, but PRS has gotten a bit crazy recently, there seems to be multiple cancellations and additions to the lineups every year, hard to keep up, and also if you're that way inclined hard to know if what you're buying will keep it's value.
There amps aren't getting shining reviews, not bad but not shining either. its almost like the lineup is too varied. i know fender have umpteen variations on a strat and gibson on a les paul, but they're little tweaks as opposed to radically different ideas. I also think PRS has its own part of the market, like gibson and fender, which, given the age of the company and their high end status is a reasonably unique thing. they seem to be trying to convince people that their "strat" and "paul" alikes are better than the companies that make them. now that may well be but guitarists are a fickle and stubborn bunch. I don't know i f i wanted to play a PRS that sounds like a strat. just doesn't seem.. right?
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PRS are a little hamstrung by their own history, though. They've always been that company that does somewhat classy, somewhat understated bits of timber-pr0n as guitars. They haven't the range of body styles and, laterally, musical genre bases that Gibson or Fender have. Any attempt they've made to broaden the range has seemed a little half-hearted and "me too", apart from maybe the Mira.
In my opinion, they need to come up with something other than the Santana/Doublecut/Singlecut shapes and work out the new ideas on that, rather than forcing things into lightly tweaked old shapes.
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I really think they should just stick to what they do best - the Mira is probably the only 'new' shape of theirs that I am interested in.
How long will it be until PRS come out with pointy guitar designs?
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Interesting, feeds right into something I was thinking about this morning... I was looking at guitars some of which were possibly capable of covering strat territory. On my way home I found myself wondering about the strat-a-like guitar by www.prguitars.co.uk (http://www.prguitars.co.uk), which I do find quite sexy, but I concluded the wondering with "why, Andrew??!"
Anyway, Philly's post of an Ibanez Blazer in response to these PRS things really helped me get straight what I'd been feeling subconsciously earlier.
Long-ish post alert - but we do end up at PRS!! (But I am pretty much saying what others are, slightly more succinctly :lol: eg. Ian's post while I was typing)
In the early 80s, I was getting going and getting my first electric guitars. My first serious one was a Westone Thunder IA. About a year or so into using that in a rock band, it was obvious what I really wanted was "the" strat sound. The Westone with coil taps got me close enough for me to understand that, but not close enough to satisfy it. But I couldn't afford a Fender. Westone brought out the Concorde - tried one, it was closer, but still not there (and my band thought it looked vile :lol:).
Then things started mixing up a bit, and the Blazer came out - I came very close to getting one, I saw several local bands playing them, and they do achieve the "early 80s strat sound" people were using in those days. It still isn't "the" strat sound I was after... Then one of the Japanese Squiers arrived in my backwoods and I got it, and that was it.
Now, I suspect that this "the" strat sound is something imaginary in my head. But it will be in a lot of other strat-players' heads as well. The folk that don't particularly value that sound don't really seem to get or buy into strats (not helped by the ubiquitous cheap copies that have been around for years). The folk that do like that sound, that lust after it like I do, those folks end up being strat-players...
Rightly or wrongly, my experience as one of these old-git strat-players tells me that NOTHING sounds like an actual strat... if I want a strat, I'm getting a strat or a well built copy. And I'm afraid that I snort amusing snorting sounds at folks that make things like the above PRS strat-a-like. They're never going to convince the folks like me to get one!! Hell, it is so easy nowadays to get a decent strat with Fender written on it, what sane person who wants a strat is going to get a more expensive guitar that is a bit like but actually isn't a strat?!! This PRS isn't even pretty, it's a copy whose design has been fiddled with by someone's niece or nephew (which is a big advantage that the PRguitars strat-a-like has over them - it cleverly tips its hat to its inspiration, and then produces a tribute that is at the same time a) pretty, b) innovative in a way Fender can't be with its own shape, and c) doesn't take the p1ss).
Crazy stuff from PRS!
I'm probably never going to get a PRS, so they don't actually need to pay any attention to me what so ever. But...
The only PRSs I've been tempted by are the original and beautiful "cross-between-a-strat-and-a-les-paul" things (don't know the model name) that they got famous with, and the Miras recently. Those offerings seem to have identities that say "PRS" to me. If I see a guitar that looks like them, I think "PRS copy". They've established a brand that I recognise and respect, even if I've decided not to partake.
These guitars in the op, however, make me go "er, strat?, nope, chuckle" and "er, les paul, nope, chuckle". If I was gonna buy a PRS, I want a PRS, not... whatever these things are :lol:
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The only PRSs I've been tempted by are the original and beautiful "cross-between-a-strat-and-a-les-paul" things (don't know the model name) that they got famous with, and the Miras recently. Those offerings seem to have identities that say "PRS" to me. If I see a guitar that looks like them, I think "PRS copy". They've established a brand that I recognise and respect, even if I've decided not to partake.
These guitars in the op, however, make me go "er, strat?, nope, chuckle" and "er, les paul, nope, chuckle". If I was gonna buy a PRS, I want a PRS, not... whatever these things are :lol:
Yeah exactly, what i was trying to say. PRS have their own identity, Like fender and gibson, so why try and break into parts of the market already taken care of by other companies. and as you say, if people want a "strat" they'll buy a strat, or a tokai or whatever.
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When it comes to the "why?", in a recent review in Guitarist for the new 305 and SAS models, someone at PRS had told them that the artist relations people had told them that they needed a more stratty guitar.
Again, with the 58 I've not been that big a PRS fan because I don't like wrapover bridges (they just feel wrong to me), so a TOM equipped singlecut makes sense to me, however as been pointed out, they seem to get this sort of thing just plain wrong visually. It's like anything they make for largely buisness reasons they just don't seem to get. PRS guitars seem to be the way they are because that's how they understand guitars to be.
Oh, and Ian, I would be ALL over a custom 24 with sharper horns, reduced heel, flatter radius and a string through TOM.
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i posted a few weeks about about other types of SSS guitars and Philly came back with a Hamer Mirage. I can imagine a PRS'd version of that very well. I'm not a PRS man at all, but set neck mahogany/korina guitar with SSS layout would be great.
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The only thing I'd be drooling over would be a 1987 reissue in Vintage Yellow. That would be embracing their heritage, and surely it'd sell???
In fact, I wouldn't just drool over one I'd actually buy one.
(http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt286/sgtsteiner/PRS%20Web%20Site/87_01.jpg)
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I'm not a PRS-player, but I understood they are tonewise somewhere between Fender and Gibson. I played a couple in musicstores but the 22-fret-models had all this fat neck I can't get use to. Stick to my strat and tele, however some of the PRS-models sounded good, but not all spectacular, at least to my taste.
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I love PRS guitars but I did breath a sigh of relief after seeing the DC3 after buying a 305 - looks cr@p and I love strat type guitars!
They have to keep reinventing the wheel to survive in these difficult times with little history compared to the other big two. Its difficult for them but I am not turned on by anything I've seen.
As an aside I played a PRS DGT based guitar designed by guitarist which had 59/09 pickups and a stunning top and colour in Guitarguitar bham the other day and it was quite possibly the best guitar I have ever played. PRS still has it - just not in these offerings. (The DGt was £4.5k so it should have been damn good)
Matt
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The only thing I'd be drooling over would be a 1987 reissue in Vintage Yellow. That would be embracing their heritage, and surely it'd sell???
In fact, I wouldn't just drool over one I'd actually buy one.
(http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt286/sgtsteiner/PRS%20Web%20Site/87_01.jpg)
yep, this is the first kind of PRS i remember seeing. My guitar teacher had one. One of his students had been an endorser and i think it was a present. i fell in love then and there. took me another 12 years to get one.
(http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/tekbow/DSCN0240.jpg)
I don't know where i'd put PRS sonically, i don't think i'd say between fender and gibson. they have their own thing going on. is easiest to say they sound like a thin mahogany bodied maple topped guitar. played so many in the intervening years between seeing one and owning in and i have to say, very few of them pushed my buttons
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I still cant believe they discontinued the custom 22 thats like fender saying there going to stop making strats or something.
Like Tekbow I fell in love with the custom 22 a long time ago and it took me a good few years to save up for one.
I love my tremonti's and custom 22 but I think PRS have become too concerned with change and losing sight of what got them to were they are (the custom22/24 and mccarty's). Going after the more 'traditional' guitar players which would probably never buy they're product as they would go for the fender and gibsons seems to be crazy in my eyes. Its rather annoying as they've discontinued every model (bar the tremonti) that I would consider buying.
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Rightly or wrongly, my experience as one of these old-git strat-players tells me that NOTHING sounds like an actual strat... if I want a strat, I'm getting a strat or a well built copy. And I'm afraid that I snort amusing snorting sounds at folks that make things like the above PRS strat-a-like. They're never going to convince the folks like me to get one!! Hell, it is so easy nowadays to get a decent strat with Fender written on it, what sane person who wants a strat is going to get a more expensive guitar that is a bit like but actually isn't a strat?!!
Well, there are people who buy Suhr, Tom Anderson, Tyler, Grosh and things like that.
I'm prepared to believe those guitars are at least on a par with Fender Custom Shop and a lot better than production Fenders.
But - and here's where I'm going to agree with you! :lol: - none of those guitars are as cool as Fender. And the people who play them tend to far-above-us mere-mortals types like Scott Henderson, Michael Landau.... great players, but they're like surgeons who need guitars which are precision tools. The cool rock'n'roll guys just play Fenders. And it has to be said that's what most people are always going to aspire to.
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Back on PRS, I agree with many of the comments above.
I believe the reason PRS have managed to actually compete with the big two - where many others failed - is that they have/had a design philosophy and actually stuck to it, basing everything round a couple of body shapes, limited options and proprietary pickups and hardware. When they depart from that philosophy something always smells funny.
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yeah, i mean there's better made guitars etc, but there's just something about the name fender on the headstock isn't there.. just a mojo that nothing else replaces
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I really like the look of the SE Torero. I think for a metal guitar it looks a lot nicer than the say the ESP's and Schecter guitars. I play Les pauls and own 2 Fenders, one American and the other is a MIM Hss with a Floyd rose and a Charvel custom shop mahogany but, I really dig the PRS guitars. I will never pay 3,000 + for another guitar so if I decided to get a PRS it will be an SE model and just replace the pups.
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All these years and PRS is still making full circle. :( They should stick to their guns, or do something new :\
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All these years and PRS is still making full circle. :( They should stick to their guns, or do something new :\
I think that might be what I'm trying to say right there. If they're for doing something new/different, then by all means do something new, not this half-assed crowbarring of other ideas over the top of their original shapes.
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All these years and PRS is still making full circle. :( They should stick to their guns, or do something new :\
I agree. Also the Mira is just a subtle change to the PRS-theme. They should come up with some new designs for a good price (not over 1200 euro) and not just all kind of private stock and ultraquilted models most players can't afford or don't dare to bring on stage. I would not bring a private stock to a beerflooded gig!
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I actually like the Mirs, i think there's a pace for it in the lineup, although i basically agree. And also about the private stock stuff, beautiful yes, would i buy? no. those are guitars to put on a wall and be looked at, not be played.. and i don't think a guitar should ever be made as a piece of art instea of something to play..