RavensDave
New Member
Hi All,
This forum has consumed many hours of mine in the last couple of months or so and I didn't think I'd be making my first post quite so soon.
I'm from Maryland but live in Charlotte now. I started playing guitar in MD when I was about 13 years old. After messing around on my Mom's 1975 Epiphone FT-120 acoustic, I got a Fender MIM Strat. I took lessons for a few years and a couple of buddies and I used to jam. We played a couple of school talent shows and even got a gig playing our middle school dance (sounds lame but was the coolest thing in the world at the time!). I remember being in the guitar store in Annapolis and seeing nice PRS guitars hung high on the wall. This was pre-SE line, so they were just something cool to look at for me (and dream "one day"). The shop carried a good selection of them, if I remember correctly, and that was in 1996. I also remember reading Guitar World and seeing PRS ads with Santana in them.
As the years went on, my playing fizzled out. It wasn't that I didn't love guitar or music anymore, just that I was heading off to college and actually was surrounded by a fantastic group of friends, just none of them musicians. Plus, I was focused on partying and chasing women and eventually stopped bringing the guitar with me when I came back. A Sam Ash employee recently informed me that these two things actually align perfectly with playing rock and roll - who knew?
Today, I'm married with one kid and another on the way. I've always been very into modern rock music and a few weeks ago I was listening to a nice riff and couldn't help but rip my guitar out and try to figure it out. That on top of the fact that I've been trying to figure out a way to further incorporate music into my daughter's life. I don't want to force music or playing an instrument on my children, but music has been such a large part of my life that I feel I owe it to them to give them good exposure to it. So far, I think she takes after dad, though, and loves to sing, dance, and play with the music apps on the iPad.
Anyway, the bug is back and it was a hard bite! I really, really want a core PRS (looking at the Tremonti or Custom 24). However, the cost with little ones is a little harder to justify on a whim at the moment. Since most of the big box stores don't carry PRS around here anymore, I found a small dealer over the border named Woody's Music. I walked in just to hold a few PRS guitars as I thought they'd feel different than my Strat. Sure enough, they did. I tried a couple of SE Tremonti Customs, an S2 Singlecut, an S2 Custom 24, and a couple of others. They even had one 2013 Experience 408 Semi Hollow. Long story short, one of the SE Tremonti Customs was a 2013 and heavily marked down. I figured it was a great chance to get a solid guitar for the money and to try a Tremonti and a PRS before deciding to go Core down the road. The SE line felt way better than I thought it would and it didn't take long to sell me.
Here is one picture I took last night (the lighting was terrible - my apologies). I'll have to get some more today in natural light - this is definitely grey black (I even asked the salesman to take it outside in the sunlight to confirm). However, fluorescent light brings out some blue and even a shade of green as well.
One question though, my trem bar doesn't seem to fit. I think I was given the wrong one but wanted to verify with you guys before calling the store. This looks like it goes to one of the Floyd models to me. This one is, in fact, incorrect for my trem, right?
Thanks and stoked to be here! :rock:
Dave
This forum has consumed many hours of mine in the last couple of months or so and I didn't think I'd be making my first post quite so soon.
I'm from Maryland but live in Charlotte now. I started playing guitar in MD when I was about 13 years old. After messing around on my Mom's 1975 Epiphone FT-120 acoustic, I got a Fender MIM Strat. I took lessons for a few years and a couple of buddies and I used to jam. We played a couple of school talent shows and even got a gig playing our middle school dance (sounds lame but was the coolest thing in the world at the time!). I remember being in the guitar store in Annapolis and seeing nice PRS guitars hung high on the wall. This was pre-SE line, so they were just something cool to look at for me (and dream "one day"). The shop carried a good selection of them, if I remember correctly, and that was in 1996. I also remember reading Guitar World and seeing PRS ads with Santana in them.
As the years went on, my playing fizzled out. It wasn't that I didn't love guitar or music anymore, just that I was heading off to college and actually was surrounded by a fantastic group of friends, just none of them musicians. Plus, I was focused on partying and chasing women and eventually stopped bringing the guitar with me when I came back. A Sam Ash employee recently informed me that these two things actually align perfectly with playing rock and roll - who knew?
Today, I'm married with one kid and another on the way. I've always been very into modern rock music and a few weeks ago I was listening to a nice riff and couldn't help but rip my guitar out and try to figure it out. That on top of the fact that I've been trying to figure out a way to further incorporate music into my daughter's life. I don't want to force music or playing an instrument on my children, but music has been such a large part of my life that I feel I owe it to them to give them good exposure to it. So far, I think she takes after dad, though, and loves to sing, dance, and play with the music apps on the iPad.
Anyway, the bug is back and it was a hard bite! I really, really want a core PRS (looking at the Tremonti or Custom 24). However, the cost with little ones is a little harder to justify on a whim at the moment. Since most of the big box stores don't carry PRS around here anymore, I found a small dealer over the border named Woody's Music. I walked in just to hold a few PRS guitars as I thought they'd feel different than my Strat. Sure enough, they did. I tried a couple of SE Tremonti Customs, an S2 Singlecut, an S2 Custom 24, and a couple of others. They even had one 2013 Experience 408 Semi Hollow. Long story short, one of the SE Tremonti Customs was a 2013 and heavily marked down. I figured it was a great chance to get a solid guitar for the money and to try a Tremonti and a PRS before deciding to go Core down the road. The SE line felt way better than I thought it would and it didn't take long to sell me.
Here is one picture I took last night (the lighting was terrible - my apologies). I'll have to get some more today in natural light - this is definitely grey black (I even asked the salesman to take it outside in the sunlight to confirm). However, fluorescent light brings out some blue and even a shade of green as well.
One question though, my trem bar doesn't seem to fit. I think I was given the wrong one but wanted to verify with you guys before calling the store. This looks like it goes to one of the Floyd models to me. This one is, in fact, incorrect for my trem, right?
Thanks and stoked to be here! :rock:
Dave
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