John Beef
Opaque
I kinda stumbled onto this one, a 2009 Tremonti SE. I was browsing the used listing on Guitar Center's site looking at available PRSi as I do from time to time. It was available in Colorado and I happen to have a friend who plays guitar and works within walking distance of the store. He checked it out for me and gave it the green light, so I pulled the trigger because hey, it's a whole guitar for the price of a good set of pickups.
The guitar is in immaculate condition. I can't find a ding or scratch anywhere. No case or gig bag with it, which is a bit of a bummer, but c'est la vie. GC did a good job packing it and making sure it didn't get effed during shipping. I like the neck, it is a bit beefier than a normal wide fat which is right up my alley.
The strings were oooooollllllllllddddddddd, positively geriatric. I could strum them unplugged and across the living room my wife could hear how bad they sounded. Taking them off, the undersides had buildup I could feel. I mean, GC could have restrung it and gotten 50 or 100 bucks more for it. There was crust on the fretboard as well, which was kinda gross but cleaned up with an old toothbrush and some natural orange oil. Also I removed the neck pickup cover you see in the pic, it fit very badly. It wasn't waxed or soldered in place, so it just slid it off. The pickups are the original G&B PRS SE pickups.
So for now I strung it with 11s to evaluate it. I'm familiar with the pickups so it'll be a fair evaluation. The truss rod didn't need an adjustment but the nut's slots needed to be opened up a touch. I need to work a little more on the high E which sitars on the open string but not fretted, definitely a nut issue and definitely something I caused when I opened the slot. Just restringing it, setting up the action and starting work on the intonation, it sounds pretty good unplugged. By the time I got to that point last night it was after 10:00 with the kids in bed so I haven't plugged it in yet.
[FONT=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]Then plan is to have a low tuned guitar, tuned B to B like my baritone but with the scale length that's more comfortable to me. If it passes my evaluation at band practice this weekend, I'll go ahead with a pickup swap probably with some I have around, a bridge swap (purchase required first) for an adjustable tonepros, and maybe other stuff. I'd like to split the coils on the pickups so I need to decide how to go about doing that. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]Crappy cell phone pic is all I've got at the moment. Pictured with it's black brethren.
[/FONT]
The guitar is in immaculate condition. I can't find a ding or scratch anywhere. No case or gig bag with it, which is a bit of a bummer, but c'est la vie. GC did a good job packing it and making sure it didn't get effed during shipping. I like the neck, it is a bit beefier than a normal wide fat which is right up my alley.
The strings were oooooollllllllllddddddddd, positively geriatric. I could strum them unplugged and across the living room my wife could hear how bad they sounded. Taking them off, the undersides had buildup I could feel. I mean, GC could have restrung it and gotten 50 or 100 bucks more for it. There was crust on the fretboard as well, which was kinda gross but cleaned up with an old toothbrush and some natural orange oil. Also I removed the neck pickup cover you see in the pic, it fit very badly. It wasn't waxed or soldered in place, so it just slid it off. The pickups are the original G&B PRS SE pickups.
So for now I strung it with 11s to evaluate it. I'm familiar with the pickups so it'll be a fair evaluation. The truss rod didn't need an adjustment but the nut's slots needed to be opened up a touch. I need to work a little more on the high E which sitars on the open string but not fretted, definitely a nut issue and definitely something I caused when I opened the slot. Just restringing it, setting up the action and starting work on the intonation, it sounds pretty good unplugged. By the time I got to that point last night it was after 10:00 with the kids in bed so I haven't plugged it in yet.
[FONT=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]Then plan is to have a low tuned guitar, tuned B to B like my baritone but with the scale length that's more comfortable to me. If it passes my evaluation at band practice this weekend, I'll go ahead with a pickup swap probably with some I have around, a bridge swap (purchase required first) for an adjustable tonepros, and maybe other stuff. I'd like to split the coils on the pickups so I need to decide how to go about doing that. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]Crappy cell phone pic is all I've got at the moment. Pictured with it's black brethren.
[/FONT]
