dmatthews
Dave's not here
Welcome! Self taught here too.Hi. I spent nearly 5 hours in Andertons yesterday (with a few very helpful and patient members of their staff), and came away with a Core Custom 24, Pattern Thin neck, in cherry-charcoal.
My story is going to be nowhere near as illustrious as most on here - I taught myself guitar age 15/16, and carried on into university. Aged around 20, I got into sport pretty seriously so music took a total backseat. The sort of back seat that isn't even in the same vehicle as the driver any more but got left at the roadside because the other occupants want to stretch their legs out a bit more.
Now I'm nearly 35 and physically less well equipped for the sports I love, I decided to have a go at getting back into it.
So I picked my Epiphone LP standard out of its box, and played for a couple of months to check I still like playing full-stop. As I suspected, that never went away. So now I wanted something that's a real pleasure to pick up and play. I don't want to become a collector, or somebody who has a different guitar for different occasions - just one nice guitar for me.
I went into the music shop on a day when I had nothing else planned, tried some Fender Ultras, some high-end Gibsons, and some PRS from the core, S2 and SE ranges. The first PRS I came to was a Pattern Standard neck - that just didn't inspire me at all. I was quite disappointed - I think I'd gone into it maybe a little biased by looks. I love the look of PRS guitars and really wanted to like it. I swapped it out for a Pattern Thin neck, and that made such a difference to me. Love it. I'm not a great player at all (as above - 2 months in after a 15 year hiatus) but it sounds great and plays easily.
Finally I wanted to convince myself that I was correct to spend that much cash so I compared against equivalent S2 and SE. The lack of split-coil settings was the main detractor from the cheaper models here I think, but the Core just has a general loveliness about it.
I'll be playing through the Boss GT-1000 I bought last month, on to either headphones (most of my practice time comes after my son is in bed) or a Headrush 108.
No immediate plans to play in public, this is all for me and my personal enjoyment.
Congrats, and enjoy!