andy474x
Knows the Drill
No, no, not like that. Sorry to get your hopes up.
I took a Saturday shift this weekend, got out around noon and my wife wanted me to meet her in town to look at some furniture (blah), but first she was grabbing lunch with some girlfriends. So, out of boredom I thought I would see if the local shops had any interesting gear in. The local mom-n-pop had a couple cool things, including a SWEET Heritage 535, but out of my price range. Still had time to kill, so I went to that OTHER place - you know, the one in every American city that is often the only PRS dealer in town. Well, there hanging on the platinum wall was a used Mira X in black, just price dropped that day to less than an SE. Not bad!!! So I gave it a whirl... sounded decent plugged in, incredible acoustic resonance, ultra light, and the W/F neck and beefy frets were spot on. Plus the X's are 24.5 scale, which I love - this guitar is like the evil twin of my Akesson. Unfortunately, the previous owner had swapped out the stock pickups for a high-output Dimarzio set, but I figured hey, for this much I might as well go for it. At the very least it's a light axe with a comfy neck to noodle about on at home. So I forked over my card to the sales guy, who was actually quite helpful considering where he works, and the deal was done.
When I got it home and plugged into my rig, I was disappointed. The pickups were uninspiring - not surprising, as I don't often go for high output pickups. But I just happened to have a set of SE 245 pickups hanging around (very nice pickups but a set of 57/08's kicked them out of their previous home), so I popped them in and they were a huge step forward. The guitar was still really bright though, the downside of such a light axe. I got to thinking about the big stash of capacitors I have lurking in the parts drawer. Bridging the active lugs of the tone pot with a .001uf cap did the trick to bleed some treble off and BOOM, I have a snarling, midrangey SG killer! The combination of the medium output of the SE 245 pickups, and the tweak to the tone pot makes this guitar just purr with Angus and Derek goodness. This is a tone I've been wanting to add to my stable for a while, so it was a good find.
As much as I love the fine figure of PRS tonewoods, you can't go wrong with black!
With the 245's in. I'll probably get a set of covers and brush them, just love the look of the covered PRS pickups. Also a set of lampshade knobs would be a nice touch!
Frets are in fine shape, hardly any wear, looks like the last owner didn't put many hours on this one.
Definitely an interesting piece, the woods are not typical for PRS - obeche body, sipo neck, and pau ferro fretboard. The fretboard is awesome, looks like mahogany but feels like ebony, very tight-grained and smooth. The finish is very thin, it's even got a very slight "checking" effect like older nitro guitars have. It hasn't cracked or chipped anywhere, but you can see the variation in the surface due to the wood grain running underneath. I have a conspiracy theory that the "X" line was a toe in the water for the S2 concept, so this is a fun piece of history to have. Plus it was stupid cheap, so I don't have to baby it so much despite it having the great build quality of a Maryland guitar. Not bad for working on Saturday!
I took a Saturday shift this weekend, got out around noon and my wife wanted me to meet her in town to look at some furniture (blah), but first she was grabbing lunch with some girlfriends. So, out of boredom I thought I would see if the local shops had any interesting gear in. The local mom-n-pop had a couple cool things, including a SWEET Heritage 535, but out of my price range. Still had time to kill, so I went to that OTHER place - you know, the one in every American city that is often the only PRS dealer in town. Well, there hanging on the platinum wall was a used Mira X in black, just price dropped that day to less than an SE. Not bad!!! So I gave it a whirl... sounded decent plugged in, incredible acoustic resonance, ultra light, and the W/F neck and beefy frets were spot on. Plus the X's are 24.5 scale, which I love - this guitar is like the evil twin of my Akesson. Unfortunately, the previous owner had swapped out the stock pickups for a high-output Dimarzio set, but I figured hey, for this much I might as well go for it. At the very least it's a light axe with a comfy neck to noodle about on at home. So I forked over my card to the sales guy, who was actually quite helpful considering where he works, and the deal was done.
When I got it home and plugged into my rig, I was disappointed. The pickups were uninspiring - not surprising, as I don't often go for high output pickups. But I just happened to have a set of SE 245 pickups hanging around (very nice pickups but a set of 57/08's kicked them out of their previous home), so I popped them in and they were a huge step forward. The guitar was still really bright though, the downside of such a light axe. I got to thinking about the big stash of capacitors I have lurking in the parts drawer. Bridging the active lugs of the tone pot with a .001uf cap did the trick to bleed some treble off and BOOM, I have a snarling, midrangey SG killer! The combination of the medium output of the SE 245 pickups, and the tweak to the tone pot makes this guitar just purr with Angus and Derek goodness. This is a tone I've been wanting to add to my stable for a while, so it was a good find.
As much as I love the fine figure of PRS tonewoods, you can't go wrong with black!
With the 245's in. I'll probably get a set of covers and brush them, just love the look of the covered PRS pickups. Also a set of lampshade knobs would be a nice touch!
Frets are in fine shape, hardly any wear, looks like the last owner didn't put many hours on this one.
Definitely an interesting piece, the woods are not typical for PRS - obeche body, sipo neck, and pau ferro fretboard. The fretboard is awesome, looks like mahogany but feels like ebony, very tight-grained and smooth. The finish is very thin, it's even got a very slight "checking" effect like older nitro guitars have. It hasn't cracked or chipped anywhere, but you can see the variation in the surface due to the wood grain running underneath. I have a conspiracy theory that the "X" line was a toe in the water for the S2 concept, so this is a fun piece of history to have. Plus it was stupid cheap, so I don't have to baby it so much despite it having the great build quality of a Maryland guitar. Not bad for working on Saturday!
