[NGD] Paul’s Guitar just joined the herd

Oscar

New Member
Joined
Nov 26, 2021
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103
I’ve been on the hunt for a used or discounted Core Paul’s Guitar for some time now and finally found one. The guy who ordered it before me sent it back and left a few very minor cosmetic traces on the back of the instrument. I could buy it for the price of a used one, with full warranty etc. It arrived a few days ago and I’ve spent several hours each day playing it, enough time to share my first impressions.

PLdOnhS.jpeg


The guitar was made in 2023 and it’s facing stiff competition from a 2010 NF3, a 25thAnn C22, a DGT and a 594HB-II (all Core). The PG complements those very nicely. It has a unique voice that no other guitar has. Quality is off the scale. I didn’t need to adjust anything. The store had tuned it down to D to take some pressure off the neck during shipping and the guitar was pretty much in tune (in D) upon arrival. Tuning stability and intonation are perfect. The neck is a dream and has no binding, which I prefer. It’s just so comfortable to play. The PG pickups are said to sound somewhat like a beefy P90 and I can’t disagree with that, although the PG pickups are more powerful, transparent and bright than a P90. The true single coil sounds are nothing like the usual coil split or coil tap, which I never use on my other guitars. On the PG, the neck pickup single coil sounds is outstanding by any standard. What I particularly like is the lovely woody quality of the bass strings.

Two points of concern. First, both pickup mounting rings are equally tall which means that the neck pickup can’t be lowered as far as I’d like (unless it’s lower than the ring, which just looks wrong). Second, and more seriously, the steel wraparound tailpiece with the brass inserts lends a very, very, very noticeable metallic twang to the treble strings. This is quite noticeable unplugged and even more noticeable plugged in. The effect isn’t limited to just one string, it affects all three treble strings equally. There are pros and cons to this. Pro: when strumming tenderly, there are rich angelic, harp-like overtones to chords. The harmonic complexity of this PG is unlike any of my other guitars. Con: start doing Prince-style funk vamps at your peril… the top-end will eject your eyes 6 feet out of their pockets. Or make you infertile. Or both. This guitar can be seriously bright! The wraparound bridge is clearly the cause of this. Didn’t see that coming. By comparison, my 25thAnn C22 also has a wraparound bridge but isn’t nearly as metallic sounding nor as bright. I doubt that it’s a manufacturing error because it affects all plain strings equally and it’s so obvious that it couldn’t have slipped by QC. But I will contact PRS about it, to be continued.

Because of this, the guitar sounds very different through different amps. Through a bright, Fender-style amp and a totally clean sound it’s very bright. Too bright. Adding just a bit of hair from an overdrive tames the high end a bit and takes things into Robben Ford territory - that’s a great place to be with this PG. By contrast, plugging straight into a Jazz Chorus makes the neck humbucker sound absolutely incredible. And I don’t say that lightly. A Jazz Chorus is a very neutral amp and with a ‘gushing’ guitar like this PG, which is anything _but_ neutral, the result is magical.

The guitar is definitely a keeper. Despite the metallic, trebly tailpiece it’s still clear that this is a spectacular guitar.
 
How does it sound with the tone knob rolled back?
I always ride my controls anyway. For brisk, clean funk rhythm I need to roll back the tone to about 4. Bringing down the volume control as well gives me lots of nice options, such as both controls on 6, but there’s already a large volume drop with the single coils so it’s not easy to keep things balanced. I’d need to use a boost pedal to compensate the volume drop.

PS When pushing an overdriven amp the volume doesn’t drop as I roll the volume control back, it just cleans up. But I play jazz a lot, so I have a really clean tone, and then rolling back the volume really means less volume.

This guitar really reminds me of some vintage LP’s. Over the years I’ve had the chance to play several original 50s LP’s, some with P90s, some conversions, some with factory PAF’s. This PG has that same addictive woodiness, but with much more transparency and openness. Some of those vintage PAF’s could also be very very bright, BTW.

I might hunt down an older PRS wraparound bridge such as the one in my 25thAnn C22.
 
Beauty! I love the zebra pickups, and hope to one day find one of these that suits me!

It could be that the bridge is a bit loose on the pegs and therefore tilting forward. This can be adjusted by making the posts heights more different which flattens out the bridge.

If you are up for it, take off, or loosen the strings, and, very carefully, raise the bass side until you can't easily slide the bridge off the posts. and see if that helps the string twang.
 
This is quite noticeable unplugged and even more noticeable plugged in.
Great observation. There’s not enough awareness of this phenomenon. Pickups are essentially copycats designed to make copies of string movement. They then pass the copy over to the speaker cone to make a really loud copy of the copy.

The better the pickup, the more accurate the copy should be. Otherwise you’re talking about a bad pickup - muddy, lacking clarity etc.

Because of this, any effect inherent to the guitar that you hear acoustically becomes even more pronounced in an electric guitar, because you get a much louder copy. Good traits become musical and pleasing to the ear, and the converse is true.

For example that classic fat tone that people associate with Les Pauls and McCarty 594’s are really due to the way strings vibrate in those models.

Congrats on the beautiful new guitar!
 
I’ve been on the hunt for a used or discounted Core Paul’s Guitar for some time now and finally found one. The guy who ordered it before me sent it back and left a few very minor cosmetic traces on the back of the instrument. I could buy it for the price of a used one, with full warranty etc. It arrived a few days ago and I’ve spent several hours each day playing it, enough time to share my first impressions.

PLdOnhS.jpeg


The guitar was made in 2023 and it’s facing stiff competition from a 2010 NF3, a 25thAnn C22, a DGT and a 594HB-II (all Core). The PG complements those very nicely. It has a unique voice that no other guitar has. Quality is off the scale. I didn’t need to adjust anything. The store had tuned it down to D to take some pressure off the neck during shipping and the guitar was pretty much in tune (in D) upon arrival. Tuning stability and intonation are perfect. The neck is a dream and has no binding, which I prefer. It’s just so comfortable to play. The PG pickups are said to sound somewhat like a beefy P90 and I can’t disagree with that, although the PG pickups are more powerful, transparent and bright than a P90. The true single coil sounds are nothing like the usual coil split or coil tap, which I never use on my other guitars. On the PG, the neck pickup single coil sounds is outstanding by any standard. What I particularly like is the lovely woody quality of the bass strings.

Two points of concern. First, both pickup mounting rings are equally tall which means that the neck pickup can’t be lowered as far as I’d like (unless it’s lower than the ring, which just looks wrong). Second, and more seriously, the steel wraparound tailpiece with the brass inserts lends a very, very, very noticeable metallic twang to the treble strings. This is quite noticeable unplugged and even more noticeable plugged in. The effect isn’t limited to just one string, it affects all three treble strings equally. There are pros and cons to this. Pro: when strumming tenderly, there are rich angelic, harp-like overtones to chords. The harmonic complexity of this PG is unlike any of my other guitars. Con: start doing Prince-style funk vamps at your peril… the top-end will eject your eyes 6 feet out of their pockets. Or make you infertile. Or both. This guitar can be seriously bright! The wraparound bridge is clearly the cause of this. Didn’t see that coming. By comparison, my 25thAnn C22 also has a wraparound bridge but isn’t nearly as metallic sounding nor as bright. I doubt that it’s a manufacturing error because it affects all plain strings equally and it’s so obvious that it couldn’t have slipped by QC. But I will contact PRS about it, to be continued.

Because of this, the guitar sounds very different through different amps. Through a bright, Fender-style amp and a totally clean sound it’s very bright. Too bright. Adding just a bit of hair from an overdrive tames the high end a bit and takes things into Robben Ford territory - that’s a great place to be with this PG. By contrast, plugging straight into a Jazz Chorus makes the neck humbucker sound absolutely incredible. And I don’t say that lightly. A Jazz Chorus is a very neutral amp and with a ‘gushing’ guitar like this PG, which is anything _but_ neutral, the result is magical.

The guitar is definitely a keeper. Despite the metallic, trebly tailpiece it’s still clear that this is a spectacular guitar.

Purchase an adjustable wrap around bridge with brass saddles if there is one with brass. I just remember the last one I had looked
like brass. I think I have one on my SE Chris Robertson that Black Stone Cherry signed....

HEHCtzI.jpeg
 
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