One in, one out... (NPRSGD from a week or so ago)

[Twinfan]

Yep, I've given in to this "no new guitars malarkey"  :lol:  I clearly can't stick to it, and why should I?  GAS is a healthy disease!

I made a fatal error a week last Saturday and took a trip to Mark at Guitars4You in Ashbourne.  I took my Fano JM6 along with me to possibly trade against any decent used electro-acoustics he had in, and ended up part-ex'ing it against a brand new PRS instead   :?

He had no acoustics in, so I tried out a whole pile of stuff while I was chatting to Mark and was totally uninspired - nothing sounded any better than the guitars I already have.  Then I spotted the guitar below in the corner of the room, and having liked the sound of it in the Davy Knowles demo on YouTube I thought I'd give it a go.  From the first few notes I had to have it!  It's something a bit different for me as it has a trem and three pickups!  It's a PRS 25th Anniversay Swamp Ash Special Narrowfield in Charcoal Smokeburst (to give it its full title).  Mine has a two piece centre joined swamp ash body and a lovely translucent top colour that *just* lets you see the grain.  Classy.

As a confirmed non-vibrato fan, I really like the PRS trem!  It's not as affected by string bending as I thought it might be, and it stays in tune really well with my fairly mild wobblings and dives. These new Narrowfield pickups are excellent, really special.  You can gain them up for rock stuff, or back them off for some chimey arpeggios and the whole guitar is like a Strat on steroids - SRV meets EVH kinda vibe.

I'm now selling stuff like mad to work out some way of finding the £1000 I had aside for the Slash amp due next month that I've now spent...  :roll:

[bucketshred]

Wow! The wood on that neck is gorgeous!

It's not my sort of thing overall but it seems very well put together and from your description it seems to have a very interesting sound, I hope you have lots of fun with it!

Paddy

[ToneMonkey]

Saw the title of this thread and knew who'd it be  :D

Nice axe, I was reading an old mag with this in the other day.

Are guitars4you in Ashbourne in Derbyshire?  I drive through it all the time on the way to the inlaws and the wife keeps trying to convince me to move there..... might start to consider it now, that'll teach her.

[Twinfan]

Yep, that's where it is Mr Monkey.  It's the only reason I go there though!  :lol:

Cheers Paddy - it's a great sounding guitar.  Definitely a bit different and 'clever'...

[Ted 'N' Leo]

Looks great TF! Interested to hear about these Narrowfield pickups.

[Roobubba]

That does look mighty nice!

[Philly Q]

A little bird (shadow bird?) may have told me about this one....  

Even though I'm not usually a fan of fancy woods, that flame maple neck really is something else.  :)

[JDC]

Dave buys a PRS... the world is normal again!!!

[Twinfan]

Dave buys a PRS... the world is normal again!!!

Well I've owned 6 in total, and currently have 2.  I'm not a fan of a LOT of their recent work, but this is something genuinely interesting to me.  I'm waiting for a regular priced 1985 resissue in Vintage Yellow to come out which would also get my attention...

Looks great TF! Interested to hear about these Narrowfield pickups.

Narrowfields are humbuckers, based on the latest PRS PAF-style 57/08s (think AIV SMs).  They're been quite clever though and have fitted alnico magnets into the coils instead of having the magnet underneath a regular humbucker with screws or slugs.  So they're basically two single coils in the truest sense married together into a humbucker.  They're quite slilm, hence the Narrow(magnetic)field name, but quite tall.  The closest other pickup to them would be a Firebird mini-bucker, but they have a bar magnet in each coil not poles.  The output is around 8.5k and they sound PAF-ish, but with a little more single coil character.

So they're genuinely something different, and the wiring has a very effective treble bleed cap on the volume so you retain sparkle as you back it off.  Single coil-ish tones fattening to airy humbuckers via the volume knob.  Very, very cunning.

I'm dead impressed.  It's super versatile, rings like a bell and I think looks pretty darn cool - like a good tux.  I have it on a white leather strap, which is a bit "Robert Palmer - Addicted To Love" but works really well.

If you get chance, check one out.  Especially if you like Strats or Superstrats...

[Sifu Ben]

Nice, a friend of mine recently bought one, and like you he said it really stood out from all the others he tried.

[Sifu Ben]

Oh, and Ashbourne's a great little town, never knew the shop was there though.

[Twinfan]

It looks like this model is being replaced next year with the NF3 (flat body, korina, scratchplate) so I'm glad I got one when I did!

Right, I'm off home to plug it into the Bogner!

[Stevepage]

Good choice! that neck looks amazing too.

I quite like the PRS trem myself. Very sturdy when set up right, makes me want to fit one on my Strat.

[Telerocker]

Very cool guitar! The neck is a plain beauty. Must be versatile with all these pickups.

[38thBeatle]

Congratulations Dave. That neck does look great.