- Joined
- Jan 17, 2018
- Messages
- 58
My first PRS guitar arrived today! How does it smell so good? Is it the case? It's the most comforting thing!
I'll show first, then tell.
Here's the story: While I was visiting family for the holidays, my brother-in-law and I were headed to Guitar Center to window shop but then he suggested looking up if there were any vintage guitar shops around. According to Google, there was one around the corner from the stoplight we were at called Wild West Guitars. The stoplight wasn't working, though. Weird. We find the store and park and when we walk in, the power's out there, too. They don't mind letting us browse if we don't mind doing it in the dark.
I see a PRS in the corner and strum it and it sounds great! Not like the one I tried at Guitar Center months before. It's a McCarty 594. I play it for a bit and I love it but the color isn't for me. In general, that's not a deal-breaker because the sound and feel come first, but I was NOT feeling the tobacco burst. I make my way to the back of the store and wow! All the guitars in this section were so pretty: tree of life inlays, a Telecaster that looked like my teen dreams of stars and sparkles, and OMG, this bad boy that made me wish I could play Jeff Beck's version of Rollin' and Tumblin' on it. Even though I was navigating by cell phone light, I was pretty jazzed about this impulse shopping trip.
Wang propped open a door to let more light in and then I saw it. It looked like ripples in water. It's hard to capture in photos, but in person, the finish looks more blue than purple and reminded me of the color of a betta fish I once had. It sounded amazing. It was lighter than any of the guitars I have at home. It felt even better than the McCarty 594 I had just played a few minutes before even though it was the same model. I found out later that this one I was drawn to had a pattern regular neck. The lights came back on. I realized I was in a room with all custom-built guitars. I had inadvertently let myself get caught up in this magic room that I probably would've steered clear of had I known it contained the upper echelon of guitars. I wept (internally). It was the first time I had been in a guitar store where I wasn't ignored, an expensive guitar wasn't taken out of my hands while I was playing it and told not to touch it (this actually happened once at a store I had spent big at for years), and everyone was super chill. We left (grudgingly) and went to Guitar Center. It was awful. I was about to sit down with a guitar and some creepy customer from across the room smiles and crooks his finger at me in a "come here" motion. F that. The vibe here was a complete 180 from the oasis we had just left.
I became obsessed. I thought maybe I'd look at other guitars when I came back home and could find something locally. I spent hours online researching and hours at my local guitar store and if I found a guitar that felt good, it didn't have the sound I wanted and if I found one that sounded great, it didn't feel right when I played it. I was really stressed that I had left the one guitar that ever resonated with me in another state. I made pro and con lists, I talked to anyone who wasn't already sick of hearing about it, and I found this forum and saw others having the same struggle. But I have to credit LSchefman for dropping some life truths in this post that made me stop making excuses and go and get my guitar. ^_^
It sounds SO GOOD. When I figure out how to describe qualities of I'll edit this, but holy hell, is it incredible.
I'll show first, then tell.
Here's the story: While I was visiting family for the holidays, my brother-in-law and I were headed to Guitar Center to window shop but then he suggested looking up if there were any vintage guitar shops around. According to Google, there was one around the corner from the stoplight we were at called Wild West Guitars. The stoplight wasn't working, though. Weird. We find the store and park and when we walk in, the power's out there, too. They don't mind letting us browse if we don't mind doing it in the dark.
I see a PRS in the corner and strum it and it sounds great! Not like the one I tried at Guitar Center months before. It's a McCarty 594. I play it for a bit and I love it but the color isn't for me. In general, that's not a deal-breaker because the sound and feel come first, but I was NOT feeling the tobacco burst. I make my way to the back of the store and wow! All the guitars in this section were so pretty: tree of life inlays, a Telecaster that looked like my teen dreams of stars and sparkles, and OMG, this bad boy that made me wish I could play Jeff Beck's version of Rollin' and Tumblin' on it. Even though I was navigating by cell phone light, I was pretty jazzed about this impulse shopping trip.
Wang propped open a door to let more light in and then I saw it. It looked like ripples in water. It's hard to capture in photos, but in person, the finish looks more blue than purple and reminded me of the color of a betta fish I once had. It sounded amazing. It was lighter than any of the guitars I have at home. It felt even better than the McCarty 594 I had just played a few minutes before even though it was the same model. I found out later that this one I was drawn to had a pattern regular neck. The lights came back on. I realized I was in a room with all custom-built guitars. I had inadvertently let myself get caught up in this magic room that I probably would've steered clear of had I known it contained the upper echelon of guitars. I wept (internally). It was the first time I had been in a guitar store where I wasn't ignored, an expensive guitar wasn't taken out of my hands while I was playing it and told not to touch it (this actually happened once at a store I had spent big at for years), and everyone was super chill. We left (grudgingly) and went to Guitar Center. It was awful. I was about to sit down with a guitar and some creepy customer from across the room smiles and crooks his finger at me in a "come here" motion. F that. The vibe here was a complete 180 from the oasis we had just left.
I became obsessed. I thought maybe I'd look at other guitars when I came back home and could find something locally. I spent hours online researching and hours at my local guitar store and if I found a guitar that felt good, it didn't have the sound I wanted and if I found one that sounded great, it didn't feel right when I played it. I was really stressed that I had left the one guitar that ever resonated with me in another state. I made pro and con lists, I talked to anyone who wasn't already sick of hearing about it, and I found this forum and saw others having the same struggle. But I have to credit LSchefman for dropping some life truths in this post that made me stop making excuses and go and get my guitar. ^_^
It sounds SO GOOD. When I figure out how to describe qualities of I'll edit this, but holy hell, is it incredible.
