Dipped In Glass
Written: Sep 03 '00 (Updated Sep 22 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Rich appearance, ergonomic design, refined tone
Cons: Few, except my own subjective attitudes about the tone of thick maple caps
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| dperry9's Full Review: Paul Reed Smith Custom 24 Guitar |
I bought a Paul Reed Smith Custom 24 back in '94, and at least one significant change has been made since then, but I believe it to be on the whole the same instrument they are producing now. Mine was made in the last year or so that PRS occupied their old factory, and some contend that standards were lowered as floor space (and volume) increased, but my feeling is that this company largely maintains an ethic that might be summed up as "mass producing one offs"; in other words, giving attention to wood selection, craftsmanship, and design aesthetics that echo the origins of these instruments only 15 or so years ago in the small shop of a master custom guitar builder, Paul Reed Smith.
The Custom series has a mahogany body and glued-in mahogany neck, a relatively thick maple cap with generous grain figuring, and a rosewood fretboard. The arguably cliched swooping "bird inlays" are available at considerable extra charge, as is a more perfectly figured maple "10" top.
Mine came with the fixed PRS "Stop Tailpiece" bridge instead of a tremolo upon my request. The pickups are humbucking, but they are wired into a unique rotary switch PRS borrowed from Bartolini which routes five pickup combinations with a simple turn, three of which employ combinations of single pickup coils that have been "split" from the humbuckers.
The body shape is one of my favorites in the industry. Fairly compact and very nicely contoured, it is less noticeable when held for playing than a Les Paul, and lighter. The neck is set in at an angle, achieving a nice wrap-around effect against the body. The neck, which on mine was the standard shape (wide-thin and wide fat are also offered at no extra charge), is somewhat narrow and is not thin from front to back, but actually feels to be on the shallow side because of its smallish mass. It fits nicely into the hand with a comfortable C shape. The fret work is perfect and the feel of the fretboard is smooth and easy.
This neck really does its job to a tee primarily by going unnoticed. It took me a while to figure this out, but I concluded that must have been the object of the design. It is a neck that never gets in the way: chords are easy to grab in any position, the frets are large and round and the radius has a perfect arc, as does the gentle back contour. Although it must be stressed that the standard neck is narrow, with a snug string spacing, I've found this to be more of a help than a hindrance as it imparts a compact, streamlined feel that is natural to the hand. The one difference that I know of between my guitar and the current model is that the neck-to-body heel is at least twice as long on newer models. Some complain that this is irksome.
The sound delivered by the in-house PRS pickups is smooth and refined, with a good balance of firm definition and bouncy responsiveness. My purely personal opinion is that the thick maple cap colors the sound too much, making it stiffer than I would like, but this is the same formula used on the Gibson Les Paul. My actual preference is for all-mahogany guitars (like my Carvin, which I will review soon), which I feel have a warmer sound, but it's hard to highlight any negatives on a guitar with the integrity of wood-selection and quality of pickups presented here.
The bridge position humbucker is an HFS Treble, which has an outstanding medium-high output voice that is full of midrange overtones and has a subdued high frequency response, together making it ideal for overdriven fluid "legatto" lead work. The neck pickup is a Vintage Bass, which is modeled on the classic Gibson humbucker but with less midrange. This pickup is warm and subtle, ideal for blues riffs and lead work. And the split-coil settings from the rotary switch offer tones tending toward clean, snappy, and somewhat hollow sounding, which work well for chords.
I should also say one or two things about the bridge. I prefer the more thorough mechanical coupling between strings and body achieved by a fixed, as opposed to tremolo, bridge, which I feel imparts greater woody warmth to the sound. PRS has two fixed bridges, one which is a single piece of chromed brass, with a staggered saddle design simply cut into the metal (in other words, non-adjustable, like an acoustic guitar), and the other with actual individually adjustable saddle pieces. The former can be moved forward and back on either end but I prefer the latter, which costs considerably more, because it allows for the kind of fine-tuning of string intonation that seems, more often than not, to be required for total accuracy of tuning.
One might also mention that PRS tuning machines are not the conventional type. Instead of simply being a post that the string end is fed through and wrapped around, the PRS post "grabs" the string in a little slot, then tightens. The result is that no more than half a turn is necessary to bring the string to pitch, and the string can be very quickly released. This is innovative, though some prefer the older style machines.
Lastly, one cannot do justice to this or any other PRS guitar without mentioning the impeccable staining and finish treatment they all receive. Mine was stained purple which could come across as a shade or two too dark, until it was placed under stage lights, where it sang with striking depth and intensity. The finish is perfectly applied and buffed to the point of seeming immaculate, which really brings forward the translucent stain and the deep figuring of the maple top. The finish and overall appearance of Paul Reed Smith guitars is in the uppermost category within the industry, and most definitely gives these instruments every right to be called (as the company does) "dipped in glass".
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
dperry9
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Reviews written: 49
Trusted by: 25 members
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