NGD #1 PRS SE Custom Semi-Hollow

[RevDrucifer]

I was at GC last week and played this wonderful Taylor that I fell in love with. It was $1700 and I tend to scrutinize any purchase over $300, so I needed at least a week to think about it. I went in today to play it again to know for sure, but stopped by the electrics to see if there was anything cool. The only thing that stuck out to me were the PRS's. Played a Zach Meyers one, neck was way too big and didn't dig how it felt overall, played an SE 245 that I REALLY liked as well....like, a lot. Then I came to this-



Just from that top alone I had to play it! I played it unplugged for a minute and holy shit...it felt AMAZING. I checked the headstock twice to make sure it was an SE and not an actual Custom. Between the top, fretwork and overall feel, holy fucking shit! I plugged it into a Marshall Code CPOS amp and found some semi-usable tone in it and it's the first time in a long time an electric off the shelf has said "Buy me, right fucking now, motherfucker! BUY ME!" I put it back on the shelf and went to play the Taylor again. They have two of the same model, which is 224ce-K Deluxe Grand Auditorium Special Edition, beautiful koa top and one of the nicest acoustics I've ever played. They had two there and I knew the one I picked up today isn't the same as the one I played last week, which they had locked behind those locking hangers. This one didn't give me that "OMG!" feeling, didn't feel nearly as good as the one I played last week.

I went back outside to debate it for a minute as I just ordered another electric last week (it'll be here tomorrow...should be anyway....that'll get it's own post). I've wanted a hollowbody/semi-hollow to round out the collection, this was only $880 and while I've played a lot of great SE's, I haven't seen many tops like this! I said "Fuck it", walked back inside and a salesman looked up at me with that dreaded "It's 10 minutes til closing" look on his face and asked if he could help me. I heard the dude deal with a music store's worst nightmare 10 minutes prior to this (the guy who feels the need to tell you the history of his favorite guitar player, Santana in this case, and all his gear history) so I told him, "I'm going to make the end of your shift a little better, this will be the easiest sale you've had all day." I walked over to the wall, pulled it down and said "I'll take this, please!"




I'll snap some pics tomorrow when it's light outside. I really can't get over the top on this thing. Throwing new strings on it now, giving it a quick intonation and then I'll be spending the rest of my night pretending to be Tim Pierce!

I just can't get over how well this thing plays. I'm anxious to really hear how these pickups sound when I start dialing in some corksniffy tones!

[zepp]

Hell yeah man it’s PRS season

I had the same feeling about my SE Standard 24. Just holy shit is this for real under $1000?

[RevDrucifer]

Hell yeah man it’s PRS season

I had the same feeling about my SE Standard 24. Just holy shit is this for real under $1000?

There was an SE 245 there as well that played just as great as this one, but the semi-hollow thing sucked me right in.

I only have two gripes after putting 10's on it and setting it up; the tuners are a little too quick to turn, but I was going to change those out for locking tuners anyway. And I stripped the G-string saddle screw really easily while intonating it. I had an appropriate sized screwdriver but as I tried to tighten it, it ground up quite a bit. I'll have to get a replacement screw before I touch it any further and have to drill it out.

I didn't even realize until a few hours after I had it that it had coil tapping on it. The range of tones out of this thing is pretty stellar and I've only dicked around with presets that came in the AxeFX, since 98% of mine are metal oriented/dialed in for way different guitars and pickups. I already yanked a song out of it, so that's a good sign!

I never name my guitars, but a friend of mine who has really had my back the last couple of months, her maiden name is Wiles and I bought the guitar on Wiles Rd, so it'll be Wiles. She's got covid right now and needed a little positivity thrown her way, so it at least brightened her day up a little bit.

[Iron1]

[Budda]

Looks awesome

[Soopahmahn]

^ this guy. This guy knows what he's got in his gig bag.

Shame that the koa Taylor with mojo got away. I didn't know you could touch Taylor koa models for less than $5k.

[bigdave]

I love those semi-hollows and with that finish and top it just looks great. Their SE line in general are some of the best deals to be found, congrats!

[RevDrucifer]

^ this guy. This guy knows what he's got in his gig bag.

Shame that the koa Taylor with mojo got away. I didn't know you could touch Taylor koa models for less than $5k.

I think it’s an exclusive run for GC, but could be wrong. It hasn’t gotten away entirely yet, I just might go about purchasing it differently than buying it in one shot, like I split it between a couple paychecks or something instead of touching my bank account. I know if I played the one I played last week, I might have walked out with both the Taylor and the PRS.

[RevDrucifer]

I love those semi-hollows and with that finish and top it just looks great. Their SE line in general are some of the best deals to be found, congrats!

My *only* gripes are the tuners being a little too fast to, they seem like they’re 10:1 or something, but I’ll replace those with locking tuners regardless because I couldn’t find my peg winder yesterday and was bitching the whole time about turning the tuning machines.

Also, when adjusting the G-string intonation saddle it stripped out when I barely turned it, enough that if I touch it again, I’ll have to drill it out and I really don’t want to have to do that. Ordering some new screws to replace it and I just have to deal with the intonation issue in the meantime. Aside from those two issues, the thing is fucking FLAWLESS.

I didn’t even realize until 4 hours into it that it had a coil-split on a push/pull, the range of tones out of this thing is pretty fucking sick!

Sorry if that’s a repeat of anything I said already, shortly after making my last post in here I got an emergency at work and I haven’t left yet. I’m at like 31 hours with no sleep and things are starting to not make sense to me anymore.

[bigdave]

My *only* gripes are the tuners being a little too fast to, they seem like they’re 10:1 or something, but I’ll replace those with locking tuners regardless because I couldn’t find my peg winder yesterday and was bitching the whole time about turning the tuning machines.

Also, when adjusting the G-string intonation saddle it stripped out when I barely turned it, enough that if I touch it again, I’ll have to drill it out and I really don’t want to have to do that. Ordering some new screws to replace it and I just have to deal with the intonation issue in the meantime. Aside from those two issues, the thing is fucking FLAWLESS.

I didn’t even realize until 4 hours into it that it had a coil-split on a push/pull, the range of tones out of this thing is pretty fucking sick!

Sorry if that’s a repeat of anything I said already, shortly after making my last post in here I got an emergency at work and I haven’t left yet. I’m at like 31 hours with no sleep and things are starting to not make sense to me anymore.

Sheeet, part of the fun of a new guitar to me is the tweaking process, getting it right where I want. Oddly enough my 2 main guitars now both where perfect the day I got them. My Wolfgang had a tailpiece stud replaces because I stripped the allen adjustment tweaking it tuned to pitch like a fool, and the MM Super Warmoth of Shreddy Good Will was literally perfect out of the case, those yankees up there know how to set up a guitar.

[RevDrucifer]

Sheeet, part of the fun of a new guitar to me is the tweaking process, getting it right where I want. Oddly enough my 2 main guitars now both where perfect the day I got them. My Wolfgang had a tailpiece stud replaces because I stripped the allen adjustment tweaking it tuned to pitch like a fool, and the MM Super Warmoth of Shreddy Good Will was literally perfect out of the case, those yankees up there know how to set up a guitar.

Oh, I certainly love it and if I played 9's, this guitar would have been show ready. The intonation was dead on, the bridge was floating perfectly, action was dead on and the neck barely had any relief, which I love. I got it there with 10's, it's just a matter of getting that g-string intonated now.

My SZ was like that as well, my MIJ JEM wasn't though! That's really when I'm entirely sold and perfectly happy buying guitars in the $500-$1000 range, the SZ and the SE are prime examples of getting a beast of a guitar without blowing thousands.

[zepp]

Oh, I certainly love it and if I played 9's, this guitar would have been show ready. The intonation was dead on, the bridge was floating perfectly, action was dead on and the neck barely had any relief, which I love. I got it there with 10's, it's just a matter of getting that g-string intonated now.

My SZ was like that as well, my MIJ JEM wasn't though! That's really when I'm entirely sold and perfectly happy buying guitars in the $500-$1000 range, the SZ and the SE are prime examples of getting a beast of a guitar without blowing thousands.

I can’t get over how well the bridges float. When I was trying mine I said “oh wow” out loud I wish I had one of their techs living next door.

I’ll be switching mine over to 10s soon as well. I like the 9s, but they sound a little thin and I push them out of tune too easy.

[RevDrucifer]

I can’t get over how well the bridges float. When I was trying mine I said “oh wow” out loud I wish I had one of their techs living next door.

I’ll be switching mine over to 10s soon as well. I like the 9s, but they sound a little thin and I push them out of tune too easy.

Yep, I can’t play in tune for shit with 9’s and I’m even thinking of going up to 11’s because the way I’ve got it set up now with a little neck relief, it’s still REALLY easy to play, almost too easy. I’ve never had a non-locking trem/nut stay in tune that well without spending an hour or two setting up the bridge, like on a Strat, and it usually requires a bunch of graphite in the nut to aid it along. I forgot to put the graphite in but went nuts with the whammy bar last night (I can even get that thing to flutter!) and it was dead nuts in tune!

Starting to think about new pickups already, these aren’t bad, might be a little higher powered than I want, but I’ll need to spend a few more days in the studio dialing in some tones with it. I fell asleep on the couch with it last night, woke up at 4AM to go to bed and in my half-awake state, I just carried it into my bed with me instead of putting it in the studio.

[Soopahmahn]

Looks like you played a 224ce-K DLX, $1699 street. I love the inlays. Great looking guitar, interesting that one had mojo but you didn't like the other copy.

[RevDrucifer]

Looks like you played a 224ce-K DLX, $1699 street. I love the inlays. Great looking guitar, interesting that one had mojo but you didn't like the other copy.

That's it!

It seemed like the 2nd one I played had dead strings or something. I'll play it again shortly, I do want to get a really nice acoustic. I've always loved Taylors but Breedlove's high end acoustics are somethin' else.

[Chris]

That's it!

It seemed like the 2nd one I played had dead strings or something. I'll play it again shortly, I do want to get a really nice acoustic. I've always loved Taylors but Breedlove's high end acoustics are somethin' else.

I have a couple of Taylors and they're fantastic. I've also loved every Breedlove I've played too.

Having said that - I've absolutely played a few Alvarez's that right there with them, and these were like $500 acoustics. Not just one or two, but maybe like 6-8 of them that were "holy fuck this guitar is amazing" guitars that were 5-600 bucks.

[jacksonplayer]

Love that PRS. Very nice!

[RevDrucifer]

I have a couple of Taylors and they're fantastic. I've also loved every Breedlove I've played too.

Having said that - I've absolutely played a few Alvarez's that right there with them, and these were like $500 acoustics. Not just one or two, but maybe like 6-8 of them that were "holy fuck this guitar is amazing" guitars that were 5-600 bucks.

I’ve got a middle of the road, $700 Breedlove I dig, but this Taylor was something else. The E, A and D string particularly were just perfect.

[zepp]

I have a couple of Taylors and they're fantastic. I've also loved every Breedlove I've played too.

Having said that - I've absolutely played a few Alvarez's that right there with them, and these were like $500 acoustics. Not just one or two, but maybe like 6-8 of them that were "holy fuck this guitar is amazing" guitars that were 5-600 bucks.

I have an Alvarez that plays and sounds great. I think it cost around $600-$700 but this was years ago. I’m not any good at acoustic playing so it only gets played when it’s time for a Neil Young strum-a-thon

[RevDrucifer]

I have an Alvarez that plays and sounds great. I think it cost around $600-$700 but this was years ago. I’m not any good at acoustic playing so it only gets played when it’s time for a Neil Young strum-a-thon

My first acoustic was an Alvarez that my dad got as a factory 2nd, it was pretty killer. Unfortunately, I had no clue how to take care of a guitar back then and it mainly stayed in my basement in Maine, where it’d go from 60 degrees to 80 degrees in a couple hours and switch back and forth. It only took about 2 years before that bridge was ready to fly off.