[Elwenil]

I don't think I would be comfortable playing a 7 or 8 string. I have short fingers and where most people use their ring finger, I use my pinky. It has made my pinky stupid strong though and I can bend notes on even the heaviest strings with ease with it.

 

[Canadian country boy]

I'm the same, I don't have those long flailing fingers either. I have a hard time trying to play certain Queensryche, Dokken and RATT songs because my fingers can't fully stretch across the frets like theirs can. George Lynch can really spread his fingers. Gotta love the finger tip caloses also. Lol

 

[Canadian country boy]

I've never seen a guitar like this before.....

 

[KThaxton]

So I got the PRS bug again, plus I had an empty spot on my wall....plus, I really wanted a hardtail.

Another PRS, an SE 245. I really lucked out too, Sweetwater shows pictures of each guitar so you can pick the one you want. Late September, they were out of stock so I pre-ordered, was told they were expecting several by October 5th. Got a message on Oct 4th "now expected November 29th".

However, last week while my son and I were riding bikes in Moab, I get a call saying one came in and it's mine if I want it. "Dang" I'm thinking, I won't have the opportunity to choose from a group (the flame maple varies greatly from each guitar, some are frankly, uninspiring), and I'm too impatient to wait. The sales guy says, let me pull up the pictures "it's gorgeous!" he says. I think, yeah, right. He emails them to me....and he's right, it is exactly the grain pattern/type I was looking for.

Oddly, even though he told me only one came in, I looked on their site a couple days later and there were four more there.....and honestly two of them were some of the most uninspiring (I am refraining from saying lame) grain patterns I have ever seen on that model....the others were just ok. I really feel like I hit the jackpot with this one.

 

[Elwenil]

Looks great! I love the grain and completely understand the want (need?) to have nice, matching grain. I typed out a nice long post about what I liked about your PRS and then introducing my new Ghosthorse that I got in today, but my computer blue-screened and I lost all of it so I am going to keep it short and sweet for now and just post a few pics and will hopefully come back and discuss the details later. But yeah, really glad I got a Ghosthorse with decent grain as a ton of these have really mismatched grain or one nice side and the other side is really blurry and not well defined.

 

[KThaxton]

Nice! Explorers are awesome.

 

[Elwenil]

Tore the Ghosthorse down this morning and swapped in some red springs and a set of Beefy Slinkys, which is my usual loadout. I was hoping it would make me happier with the sound, but unfortunately it did not. Gibson, in my opinion, makes shitty pickups. They are described as "warm and fat", which to me translates to "sloppy". I just can't get happy with the sound of the crunch with these. My baba Explorer is the same and it's basically how I remember my first guitar, an Epiphone 435i, sounded. It's sloppy and just very unsatisfying when playing a fast run of crunch. It's all blurs together and no amount of effects or tuning seem to help. Open chords sound amazing, but the sloppy crunch kills it and basically, my EMGs (even the passive ones) kick the Burstbucker's ass in every way. So the Burstbuckers are coming out. Thinking about a set of Fishman Fluence Moderns this time. There is plenty of room in the pickup switch cavity for a battery and I can get the Fishman's in nickle to match the rest of the hardware. I am interested in the dual voicing they have and have liked their sound on other guitars I have played. So that is the plan, though it's on the back burner for now. Maybe next month or after the 1st.

 

[KThaxton]

That's a bummer about the pickups.

I added the US line lampshade knobs. While they would typically use clear/black ones on this color top, I thought the amber ones (just like I put on my other PRS) would be unique and tie in with the maple edge and the brass saddles. Not sure I'll stick with them or not.

Also, of course I had to install locking tuners....this guitar is now the easiest, by far, of all my guitars to change strings on.

e in

 

[Elwenil]

I need to stay off Reverb...

Picked up a demo of a Jackson Series X SLX Soloist with the spalted maple top from Musicians Friend/Guitar Center and just got it in today. I absolutely love the look of this guitar. The woodgrain bit is not normally my thing, but after having the transparent finishes with maple veneer on the B.C. Rich and the Ghosthorse, I am getting more accustomed to it. This one just caught my eye and I just felt like I needed it. Not that I needed another guitar, but oh well. It sounds good, plays really well, typical super thin Jackson neck, decent weight and the action is nice an low. I will probably tank that when I swap to my 11s and red springs, but I will eventually get it dialed in. Not super happy with the pickups, they are spec'd by Seymour Duncan, but are more of a Jazz pickup and don't have much aggression. Might end up swapping them out for something else, but not sure what. Feeling experimental, but I actually think I want to keep the look of the white pickups. WTF is happening to me? 😁

 

[Elwenil]

Also, this is a thing now too:

The Fishman Fluence Moderns are 100% worth the money and effort to install! So much versatility with these. The "edge" these things have, so driven sounding and just alive. They literally just cut through everything and scream so much better than my EMG actives. Still tinkering with them, they are setup with two volume knobs now, but I am swapping to try the volume/tone combo next. I have the push/pull pots setup to change the voicing of the pickups currently, no coil split. These have made my Ghosthorse my favorite guitar to play, though now I have to work the Soloist into the mix.

 

[KThaxton]

The Jackson is sweet. Congrats!

 

[Elwenil]

Thanks. As usual, I don't really like the pickups, lol. But, I kind of want to keep white pickups in it to match with the neck binding and the Jackson logo. Sort of looking at a Seymour Distortion Trembucker and maybe a Full Shred for the neck. I wanted to go to another set of the Fishman's, maybe a Devin Townsend set, but I can't get them in white. My pickiness about sound is conflicting with my guitar vanity.

In other news, I bought my first pedalboard. I picked this one up from Amazon:

Amazon.com: Guitar Pedalboard - Guitto Effects Pedal Board Aluminum Alloy Super Light with Carry Bag (GPB-03 Large) : Musical Instruments

Buy Guitar Pedalboard - Guitto Effects Pedal Board Aluminum Alloy Super Light with Carry Bag (GPB-03 Large): Pedal Boards & Cases - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

I like it. It doesn't have the most features, but I like that it doesn't use Velcro to attach everything. Since I use a Katana, I don't really need effects pedals, but I do have a GA FC and a GA FX EX for the Katana to control it's channels and effects, plus I added a Boss RC-10R loop pedal and a Roland RV-5 expression pedal to experiment with. The pedalboard comes with a decent case that will hold it with pedals attached, and having everything semi-permanently mounted makes it a lot easier to organize cables and straighten up my whole rig.

 

[KThaxton]

Funny you brought this up.....I have decided that later this year I will be buying a tube amp, currently eyeballing Blackstar. Partly because I just want that sound and....my current amp (Line 6 Spider 3) doesn't have an effects loop, has built in effects and otherwise isn't a very good "pedal" amp. I am wanting to start building a pedal board too. This will be a big help in the "buying gear keeps me motivated" department . I can just buy pedals instead of having to keep buying guitars!

Although it likely won't be until late this year...I have already started scoping out what pedals I want to get. That said.....I won't have as much gear money now.....we just bought a 4Runner TRD Pro!

 

[Elwenil]

I always freak out about pedals. They are expensive little things that I never know what it will sound like until after I buy one. Sure, some music stores will let you try them out, but unless they have my setup with the rest of my effects, you still don't know how it will all work together. That is what I loved about the Katana, most of the typical Boss effects pedals are in the amp. The looper and expression pedal had to be added, but those are pretty obvious what they do, so no fear of buying a $150 pedal that I hate the sound of.

 

[KThaxton]

Yeah, I get that.
Luckily I know I can make delay's, choruses, reverbs, compressors, EQ's etc work in pretty much any scenario. Distortions, Overdrives and to a lesser extent....boosts will be a gamble.

Interesting development.....DOD/Digitech has just been resurrected, they were purchased by Cor-Tek (the same company who makes PRS SE's), so this is good because the previous two owners were not musical instrument companies and they just let them kind of die. I've always taken interest in DOD/Digitech because they used to be made not far from where I grew up. I knew a couple people that worked there and went to the factory a few times.

 

[Elwenil]

Yeah, back when I had my B.C. Rich Virgin and Marshall 1/2 stack, I used a Digitech RP-1 for effects. It was a lot of fun to play with and just try different patches and sounds. When I got back into guitar after all my gear got stolen, I looked for Digitech stuff, but everything I read about it was bad and everyone said Boss was the king of effects pedals and stuff now. That led to me finding the Katana series and I love this amp more than I ever loved the Marshall. As much as they are a "status" thing, a 1/2 or full stack is really impractical for most home players. Of course if I ever ran across a decent deal on a Diezel Herbert, I'd be rearranging everything to include a 1/2 stack, lol.

 

[KThaxton]

I had a full stack in my room for a long, long time. Total overkill!

 

[Canadian country boy]

Lol, the biggest I had was a Fender twin reverb amp from the 60's. I wish that I never sold it.

 

[Elwenil]

I actually like those amps. I usually dislike everything Fender has done except the strat shape, but I do like the sound of those amps for some sounds. They do heavy pretty decent, but really shine with some nice, clear lead tones. Damn, I just said "tone" didn't I? Ack!

 

[Canadian country boy]

I agree, amps are just like anything else - preference for the sound you're trying to achieve. I grew up a Fender guy as my dad was heavily into Fender products. Of course, my dad started in music long before heavy metal was around. Fender products have clean sound and are great for blues and some rock but lack that bottom end with their amps and pickups. Although Fenders do sound great for some metal. It's the only brand that Dave Murray of Iron Maiden and Yngwie likes to play.