I've just acquired this... it used to belong to a good friend of mine who sadly passed away last year, and I've bought it from his family - partly because I always quite liked it, and partly to solve a pickup problem for one of his other guitars which I already had.
It's a 2004 PRS Swamp Ash Special - as you would expect an ash body, maple neck with separate board, two PRS McCarty pickups and a Duncan Vintage Rails, in see-through red. It's *very* red - like the brightest possible lipstick or nail varnish red
.
I had modified it previously to my friend's tastes - he always preferred more Fendery sounds really, and the coil-splitting options as stock are a bit limited - the pull switch on the tone control turns on the middle pickup and splits the neck pickup at the same time, so there are several combinations you can't get, including the "Strat neck pickup" and "bridge single coil + middle" sounds. So I changed it for him, and added an extra pull-switch - now, the tone control splits both pickups, and the volume control adds the middle pickup, so you can get all the combinations apart from the middle pickup alone... which is no real loss, since the Duncan Vintage Rails is a truly terrible-sounding pickup! But it works very well in order to suck out the mids from the humbuckers and produce more Stratty sounds.
Although I liked the guitar itself a lot, I never did like those McCarty pickups in it - they sound a bit muddy and lack the sparkle for Fender sounds, even split. So my plan was to swap them for the Duncan Jazz and Pearly Gates in my Hollowbody, which I always felt was a bit too 'rocky' sounding with them.
Hopefully this will make it my 'The One To Rule Them All' guitar - almost all the normal sounds you can get from a solidbody guitar, in one - there are a total of 12, if you haven't worked it out
. That doesn't necessarily mean I will sell all the others of course...
(And no, I don't know why PRS mount the middle pickup backwards...)
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Comments
Ian
Lowering my expectations has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
What’s interesting is that the best split sounds are actually the original ones - middle with split neck, and middle with full bridge - so PRS did get that right - but a couple of the others, especially the both outer single coils, are well worth having. Curiously the split bridge & middle doesn’t sound that great, and surprisingly less different from the full humbucker than I expected - I think that might be the downside of the DGT split. I’ve used the 2K2 resistor value, so perhaps it needs a lower one.
At least with the rear control cavity it’s easy to tinker with...
I think so - if there’s an afterlife, my friend is laughing to himself now . He always did like all the switching options and tricks either of us could think of, to make his guitars as ‘versatile’ as possible... even though of course he sounded exactly the same on all of them!
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
They seem pretty decent quality, although only time will tell for sure...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I'm pretty sure the biggest cause of failure is people not realising they *are* push-push and pulling up on the knob, in fact! Or trying to take the knob off with the switch down. You must only ever pull on it when it's already up...
Very nice - that's almost it's twin, if the red is see-through - mine's hard to photograph and see the wood grain, I took another one which looks like yours. Yours has the older 'wing' tuners too, which I actually prefer.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I've also wondered if I should get a hotter bridge pickup... that way the split sound might work better with the middle.
I've owned six PRSs now, and not one single bird! This is the first one with dots though. I do love the moons, I have to admit.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I took it to a jam at the practice room last night and had a go at full band volume - and the modded switching is staying. The bridge and neck single coils sounded amazing - really sparkly and jangly on the bridge, and clear and chimey on the neck.
I actually think this guitar might suit me more than anything I've used before - it's in that perfect middle ground of sounds I like somewhere between a Tele, Rickenbacker and Les Paul Deluxe, but with the trem and playability of a Strat and a PRS.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein