It’s got a carve that’s a little bit closer to the Core series, and new TCI “S” pickups that are true isolating humbuckers. It has a three-way switch and two mini toggles that completely isolate the coils from HB to single coil. This thing has EIGHT different tonal possibilities with the different combos between full humbucking and splitting them. And from what I’ve heard it’s the closest anyone has come to nail that single coil spank with a HB. Paul developed them during R&D for the John Mayer Silver Sky, which is essentially PRS’s take on a vintage Strat.
I was initially interested in getting one of the core McCarty 594s, but they run anywhere from $3K to $5k, and with a baby on the way that’s just not in the budget.
But these SE models have come a long way, and the fact that they’re only making 3500 of the anniversary editions tells me that there will be close attention to quality. I’m super stoked!
Do you have a guitar? I’d start out by learning how to hold it and how to hold a pick, how to pick a string and then learn some basic open chords to learn how to strum.
If you want to learn how to read music- well, I don’t really read music very well, but if I did I would want to start out with VERY basic melodies. I’m talking Mary Had a Little Fucking Lamb basic, just to get the gist of where notes appear on the staff. You’ll need to learn basic note symbols and notation, time signatures and what a whole, half, quarter, eight-note all look like, etc. Treble clef, bass clef, FACE, Every Good Boy Does Fuck, Good Boys Do Fuck Always, All Cows Eat Grass.
And then you have to learn the fret board on the guitar. EADGBE strings. Whole steps, half steps, and how notes correspond to their position on the staff.
If I were you, I’d pay for a few lessons with someone in person to get started. Once you get to a certain point you’ll be able to pick it up, but the basic fundamentals are much easier shown in person than explained.
@TheDoctaMario Yo what does your rig consist of? I haven’t played guitar in years because I’ve been focusing on learning the banjo. But I just got a new guitar- decided to go with the Paul’s SE instead of the one I posted above. It has similar specs, but a stop tail bridge, which I prefer over tremolo, and 22 frets instead of 24, which I also prefer because of the tone on the neck pup.
I’m playing it through a Fender Hot Rod DeVille, 4th series, and I’m trying to dial in my tone a little better. This fucking amp can get LOUD- 60 watts of tube power. It has a lot of clean headroom, but I’m trying to find that sweet, warm, edge-of-breakup tone and it’s tough with this one because I can’t drive the power tubes too hard before it blows the roof off. I have a Tube Screamer as a boost running into a Blues Driver for gain. Pedals sound great on the clean channel, but I’m thinking of messing around with the gain channel. Maybe with the gain set to low and then boosted with one of the pedals. I dunno. It’s fun to experiment though.
These days most of my playing happens in the studio so I’m usually plugging my homebrew Telecaster (oak body my dad made, 70’s Tele pickups, and a Duncan single coil in the middle) into my interface and using Amplitube for sounds. BUT! I played lead for a buddy at a club last week and I brough my '79 Guild X500 hollowbody to that, my pedalboard is a Boss tuner pedal > Route 66 Compressor/OD > Tubescreamer for lead boost > Boss DD6 Delay for solos and texture. I have a 212 Tweed Blues Deville but I wound up using this little 70W 1x10 Champion amp I had laying around that has amp modeling and onboard effects and it actually sounded pretty great! Pretty loud too!
So did you get a Les Paul or a PRS? I always wanted a PRS, and I really love the Bigsby vibrato bars but I’ve only ever owned one guitar that had a whammy bar on it and that was my first Peavey Predator lol!
As for trying to get that tone you’re looking for, I’d get a compressor if you dont’ already have one. You can dial it in and have finer control over tube breakup and if you’re into the gain staging thing, it can be a great way to do that. A lot of my rhythm tracks are just guitar into an amp with a compressor in the middle because there’s so much you can do EQ wise, gain wise, and tone with with one. It’s probably one of the most versatile effects ever if you know what you’re doing with it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about compressors lately, and in fact a buddy of mine is going to let me borrow his oldschool Ibanez CP9 to mess around with later today. What recommendations do you have were I to pick one up for myself? What’s up with that Route 66- it has overdrive and compression capabilities?
Did you ever play through your drive channel on the Blues DeVille, or did you use the TS9 for leads on the clean channel as a pedal platform?
And thanks for the response. This stuff is fun getting back into after playing bluegrass exclusively for the last 10 years, lol.
Edit: I got the PRS SE Paul’s Guitar. Here’s a video:
The only thing I can tell you is to maybe check and see if there are any reviews about them online. See what other students have to say. Might be worth checking out your local music shop and seeing if any business cards are out for teachers. Talk to the clerks and let them know what you’re looking for and they can probably point you in the right direction.
Coil tapping? Man, I’m jealous, that guitar looks like a workhorse!
Yeah the Route 66 is both an Overdrive and a Compressor. Depending on how you use it, having both can be kind of redundant, but I normally would play though the clean channel of my amp (the DeVilles are pretty dirty amps even on the clean channels) and use the compressor to drive it. It’s good for bluesy rock or country kinds of sounds, but then I’d kick on the OD if we were playing something that needed a bit more juice.
I have a banjo and pedal steel that I don’t play often enough, but they get some use every once in while. I actually used the banjo for this video game music project I did a few months ago that had an Asian vibe to it. I used the banjo to fake a shamisen sound because they’re actually very similar instruments.
Yeah dude, but it’s not just tapping the coils. Paul redesigned the technology to truly isolate the coils so there is not a significant amount of volume loss. It’s pretty rad!
My banjo is a Hatfield Buck Creek model. Made in Glascow Kentucky by the direct descendant of Anse Hatfield, lol. It’s got hillbilly in it’s bones! I play mostly Scruggs style- hard driving bluegrass. But I’m learning some Irish fiddle tunes stuff currently. Making it sound more like a 4 string tenor banjo.
The guitar costs $1k, which might seem a little steep for a guitar built in Indonesia. But the fit and finish on it are perfect. I watched this short documentary on the SE factory before I became interested in the PRS “budget” line of guitars, and it alleviated any concerns I had.
They have a lot of QC, and each guitar is set up and checked over in the core factory in Maryland before shipping to retailers. I’d love to own a PRS Core model (or, I should say ANOTHER Core model- I used to have a 1986 Custom 24, but I gave it to my brother), but I’m going to have to be spending that extra dough on diapers and doctor bills here in a few months.
As time goes on, guitars made in other countries come to be more accepted and sought after. Mexican Fenders are lot more expensive now, and I actually have an Indonesian made Samick that’s a really great guitar.
Yeah those are definitely some nice guitars! Schecter makes a really good guitar, but I haven’t seen them in quite awhile.
It’s funny to think about, but Fenders that were made in Japan used to be looked down on and they’re every bit as good as the American ones, so much so that they’re very sought after now because they’re made from a lot of the same materials but are 1/3 cheaper a lot of the time.
Yeah man, Japan makes quality stuff. It’s funny you mention that. I read an article recently that talked about how the general feeling was that Japan-made guitars were cheap and of poorer quality (and they were at the time). But factories became more advanced and the luthiers got better and better at their craft over time and now they make stuff that’s every bit as good as MIM.
I think that might be what happened with PRS too. They had their SE line being produced in Korea for the last 19 years and it wasn’t until very recently they moved to Indonesia to keep costs down. I think the Korean workers got so good at their craft it might have gotten to be too expensive to produce budget guitars and keep the cost down for the consumer.
But yeah, the whole made in Asia being inferior thing doesn’t hold a lot of weight anymore, at least not with instruments. I have a Gold Tone banjo that is Korean made, too. And it is an absolute steal for the price I paid for it compared to quality.
A Univox hi-flyer. Thing is a hunk a junk. Plywood body, weird jaguar bridge, cheap SUUUUPER HOT microphonic pick-ups. But, it’s perfect for fuzzed out weezer type stuff and some “pawn shop” charm. Thing feeds back like crazy and has a bunch of weird overtones. But it’s got tons of charm
