Love Wasn't In My Special Plan.

This is super frustrating for me. I listened to both videos you posted and both of those guitar/amp combinations sound fantastic.

I had a HXDA and didn't bond with it. You urged me to keep it and work with it a bit longer but it just didn't click with me at the time. Same with the custom 50.

I'm beginning to think I have conditioned myself to only like or seek out a specific tone which seems to hinder tone exploration.

Is that a "thing"????

Loved the HXDA video but I did not get that from mine.
I had to fight my nature for quite a while before my brain accepted that amps are supposed to sound different.
 
This is super frustrating for me. I listened to both videos you posted and both of those guitar/amp combinations sound fantastic.

I had a HXDA and didn't bond with it. You urged me to keep it and work with it a bit longer but it just didn't click with me at the time. Same with the custom 50.

I'm beginning to think I have conditioned myself to only like or seek out a specific tone which seems to hinder tone exploration.

Is that a "thing"????

Loved the HXDA video but I did not get that from mine.



One can speculate on why you didn't get the tones in that video from your amp, but why bother? We're all unique players, and we all sound different. We should sound different!

This is not a bad thing!!

If you're happy with one tone that's magic for you, rejoice! You'll save a fortune!

Please understand, I don't post about my gear to encourage other people to buy it. I post about it simply because it's fun to talk about gear.

I'm not in the business of selling or recommending gear. I'm in the business of creating music. I come here just for fun.

I had to fight my nature for quite a while before my brain accepted that amps are supposed to sound different.

I'd say the same about myself. But also there are plenty of amps I love, and plenty I don't care for. Probably the way it should be, given that everyone's unique.
 
Last edited:
Les, you hit the nail on the head. I compare the Special’s tones to the sweetest strat, tele, and p90 tones. Oh.. and by the way, you can cover LP, SG and 335 tones as an extra added bonus. In the studio, it takes very little eq-ing to get a truckload of great tones from the Special. On stage, I use a source audio programmable eq, to toggle between different guitar tones, and it works like magic.
If I had only one guitar to record and gig with, the Special would be more than adequate..fortunately, that’s not the case! Next guitar up for me is a ME-V, just,cuz…
 
Les, you hit the nail on the head. I compare the Special’s tones to the sweetest strat, tele, and p90 tones. Oh.. and by the way, you can cover LP, SG and 335 tones as an extra added bonus. In the studio, it takes very little eq-ing to get a truckload of great tones from the Special. On stage, I use a source audio programmable eq, to toggle between different guitar tones, and it works like magic.
If I had only one guitar to record and gig with, the Special would be more than adequate..fortunately, that’s not the case! Next guitar up for me is a ME-V, just,cuz…
Geo, I completely agree - I could do a session with the Special and use it for all the parts I would need.

IMHO, that 'position 2' on the pickup selector switch out-Strats a Strat. Just a beautiful, round, 'cluck'!
 
Blue Moon in the flesh…er…wood:

IaTodNX.jpg


I'm over being freaked out about the purple burst. I've come to like it.

I don't quite get why they did it, but I like it anyway. Maybe it needs ebony tuner buttons?

Or not.
What a gorgeous guitar Les, put ebony buttons, you won't regret it.
 
Interesting questions!

I just strummed my Special and the PS 30th CU24 back-to-back. I should mention that I lucked out with my CU24 - it sounds beautiful, and has a nice resonance.

The Special seems louder, especially in the midrange and treble when it's strummed acoustically. But not all that much louder, only a little bit louder! And the perceived loudness might simply be the result of a different tonal balance and the resonant peak I'll get into in a moment.

My thinking is that a true acoustic guitar is so fundamentally different from the Special that (for me) substituting it for an acoustic would be out of the question. And it's certainly not loud enough to substitute for an acoustic unless you basically don't care what a real acoustic sounds like.

The semi-hollow construction creates a resonant peak in the frequency response.

A resonant peak occurs just at the break point where the high frequencies start to roll off. It's typical of any instrument with body cavities, and you mostly perceive it in the upper mids, giving the instrument a slightly more vowel-like sound on certain settings when it's amplified. It's there but more subtle on the bridge pickup alone, but it becomes much more noticeable as you switch to the 2,3 and 4 positions, and there's noticeably more resonance and roundness in the neck pickup as well.

However, the Special's resonant peak is less pronounced than the resonant peak on a true hollow body guitar, or even a dual-chamber semi-hollow like a 335.

Hopefully this helps a little. But a recording is worth a zillion words, and this one from PRS does a very good job of showing what the guitar does:

Dang, this guitar sounds soooo good.

Prs does a really good job making me want guitars I don't want!
 
Back
Top