shinksma
What? I get a title?
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2014
- Messages
- 5,310
No, it does not mean that. Sorry, you can't have your guitar back!
OK, so I have done a lot of back and forth between the Silver Sky, DC3, 305, and Fender-Squier mexi-strat (first year production, I believe) last night and today. That was concluded in the first half of my lunch break today - typing this up was the second half. All have maple fretboards.
Maybe I've just been playing too many different guitars recently, but although I could feel differences, I didn't say "hey, this is soooo much better" for any particular model.
The Silver Sky does feel a bit different in the fretting hand compared to the 305 and DC3 (latter two Pattern Regular profiles), maybe ever so slightly more baseball-bat-ish, but not miles difference. Frankly, if I couldn't sense the rest of the guitar, I would probably not be able to tell which was which between them all just based on neck profile. The strat neck feels a bit different - it is a touch narrower, a bit less meaty.
I just measured the neck width at the nut of them all, to confirm. Silver Sky 1.659", 305 1.668", DC3 1.665", Strat 1.645". 1 21/32" = 1.656". So 305 and DC3 are a bit bigger than spec. Not sure if the Strat is trying to be a 1 5/8" neck (a bit bigger than spec) or 1 11/16" (a bit smaller than spec).
The frets are very similar to those on my Fender-Squier Strat. The Fender has that glossy neck finish, which is "stickier" than the satin finish on the Silver Sky, DC3, and 305. (The Silver Sky does feel a slight bit more silkier than those other two, but that might be "newness".) The Fender feels a bit like the neck finish on my 1990 CE.
Access to the upper frets is a bit different, feel wise, from the 305, for example, due to the bolt-on vs set neck, but did not seem particularly awkward. And access to the 22nd fret is infinitely better than my strat.
The nut is very similar in shape to the one on my strat - lower profile and skinnier than a typical PRS nut. I don't know if I notice while playing 99% of the time - if I play an E (Major) chord in first position using middle, ring and pinky (typical if transitioning from a fully barred chord a bit further up the neck), my index finger can feel the traditional PRS nut more obviously than the Silver Sky or strat nut - it doesn't bother me, but I can feel it.
Tone-wise, the Silver Sky is indeed less "bright" than my Strat, especially on the bridge pup. I'm not sure if it is "too tame" - sometimes you need that tone that some folks call ice-picks. Overall volume was about the same, except the strat on bridge pup settings seemed louder (those brighter tones cutting through, I suspect).
The Silver Sky seems to sustain better than the strat, on par with the 305 and DC3. But the strat has 9s on it (everything else is 10s), and the strings on the strat are probably a million years old, give or take.
I probably need to crank up the amp(s), and play some Floyd covers and some of our originals that I might have played on the 305 to really figure out what the Silver Sky can do and how it "feels". I was playing the 305 last week at band practice, and it gave really good strat sounds, so I need to replicate that "schwa".
Oh, and the plug, while better than a strat for access, is still not as good as the traditional PRS position, IMHO.
Overall, it seems to be exactly what Mr Mayer wanted: a very refined Strat of a particular vintage / era, with pickups tweaked to his preferences.
