PRS Special 22. Who’s rocking’ one?

Love mine , it's the swiss army knife of tone
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I get those pickup conbinations but use two different guitars... :) An SAS (HSH) and a Studio (NF,NF,H). These are both pretty versatile guitars and similar to the Special 22.
 
It's an Artist so a satin finished flame maple neck , which was natural and I dyed the back of to match the top. Love those paisley cases!
YES it does Strat better than my custom shop Strat! Her name is lil Queenie , after the chuck berry song , and she came from Louisiana , and I'm Cajun so ... as Creedence said .. "Rollin with some Cajun Queen ." .

here's another clip with a mahogany/ ebony neck skip the first 7:45 good enough to share 16 yr old whiskey with ..

 
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I made the mistake of buying an Artist version with an ebony fretboard. It didn't have the warmth of tone I was looking for. I was my own fault. I knew I was taking a risk, since I don't love ebony fretboards on a solid or semi-hollow guitar. They're fine for me on a big hollowbody.

A Special with a rosewood fretboard is on my 2024 Get List.
 
Jimi D said:
I feel I’m blessed to have picked up a number of special PRS guitars over the years, and my 2018 Special Semi-Hollow with the 58/15MTs is absolutely one of them. Wonderful guitar; a treasure.
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Very nice. I absolutelylove those Single cut Hollowbodies. Is it a Single cut hollow body II with a maple back?
The Blue McCarty 594 Hollowbody II is a beauty. I still have not played one of those( I own a hollowbody Spruce and an Archtop II though).
I did play a private stock Mcarty 594 Hollowboy I (with a mahogany back), and it's one of the best guitars I have ever played. The JA-15 is up there too. I wonder how the 594 Hollowbody II stacks up agains those. Fantastic Special too! That' the Holy Trinity right there.
 
László said:
I made the mistake of buying an Artist version with an ebony fretboard. It didn't have the warmth of tone I was looking for. I was my own fault. I knew I was taking a risk, since I don't love ebony fretboards on a solid or semi-hollow guitar. They're fine for me on a big hollowbody.

A Special with a rosewood fretboard is on my 2024 Get List.
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Intersting point. My 1999 Archtop II has a Brazilian Rosewood board. I am pretty sure that guitar would work great with an ebony board.
My 2012 Collings Eastside has a light Rosewood board, the first one I played had an ebon board. A friend who used to work for Collings said he always proffered the Eastside with the ebony board. The early ones(including mine) are also X-Braced, and come with a single Dollar High wind humbucker. They since then switched to parallel bracing and a Humbucker Sized Lollar Charlie Christian Pickup.(My "15 Eastside Jazz has those specs.).The Collings CL which is the same size as the Eastside jazz, but with a carved spruce top and mahogany back, 25.5 scale and a Lollar floating mini humbucker (The new ones are parallel braced). It has a ebony board which fits.
Bottom line is there are so many variables when it comes o guitars, there could be other factors in the guitars that made it not as warm sounding as you hoped for. Another guitar with identical specs (iIncluding the ebony board) could end up super warm..
 
Jostein said:
Intersting point. My 1999 Archtop II has a Brazilian Rosewood board. I am pretty sure that guitar would work great with an ebony board.
My 2012 Collings Eastside has a light Rosewood board, the first one I played had an ebon board. A friend who used to work for Collings said he always proffered the Eastside with the ebony board. The early ones(including mine) are also X-Braced, and come with a single Dollar High wind humbucker. They since then switched to parallel bracing and a Humbucker Sized Lollar Charlie Christian Pickup.(My "15 Eastside Jazz has those specs.).The Collings CL which is the same size as the Eastside jazz, but with a carved spruce top and mahogany back, 25.5 scale and a Lollar floating mini humbucker (The new ones are parallel braced). It has a ebony board which fits.
Bottom line is there are so many variables when it comes o guitars, there could be other factors in the guitars that made it not as warm sounding as you hoped for. Another guitar with identical specs (iIncluding the ebony board) could end up super warm..
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I had a couple of Collings acoustics; they're super nice guitars! Mine were SJs.

We certainly agree that individual instruments are different, even if they're the same model - no two are identical. I spend my life in the studio, and get way, way too far into little tiny tone details, but that's a hazard of the trade.

I find that fretboard woods affect the ADSR envelope of a note (attack, decay, sustain and release), particularly the attack.

When people say ebony is bright and articulate, they're talking about the attack portion of the note. Ebony is a "fast" wood, like maple. A fast, articulate attack gives a note that apparent brightness. The note decays a little faster as well, though the sustain and release portion of the note will vary from guitar to guitar.

Apparently this has something to do with the velocity of sound as it travels through different woods - something that's quantifiable and measurable, per Craig Breedlove (thanks for the video, @Greywolf ).

In any case, ebony fretboards work fantastically well for lots of electric guitar players, and not as well for others. Thus, different guitars for different folks; we are all very different, we play different music, we have different ideas about how things ideally sound.

Rosewood is a slower wood; it takes longer for the sound to go through it, the attack is a little slower, the decay is a little longer (again, the sustain and release may or may not be longer or shorter, depending on the rest of the instrument). The result is what some might describe as a warmer, more searing tone.

Though Brazilian Rosewood does have a pretty snappy attack, it's still different from ebony and maple, and it decays more slowly.

For me, rosewood works especially well on solid body electrics. I love ebony on acoustics. Totally different types of guitar, of course!

I have Brazilian and Madagascar Rosewood on my current electrics (Private Stocks and WL). Whenever possible, I buy guitars with those fretboard woods, EXCEPT acoustic guitars, where I like ebony a lot.

But sometimes I forget my own experience, and want to try ebony one more time. I've owned too many guitars since 1967 when I learned to play, but each one taught me something, and I was able to figure out what works for me and what doesn't.

The only ebony fretboard solid body electric I owned that I could live with long term was PRS' Artist V. The rest didn't work for me. Which is OK, this learning about tone thing is a lifelong pursuit.

I figured the Special would be great with ebony due to the semi-hollow construction. I'd had a 2010 Custom 22 Semi-hollow that was kind of a limited run, and liked it a lot. Pretty much the same as the special without the middle pickup, and it had 57/08s instead of the 58/15s on the Special. It had a rosewood board, and I liked it. But I wanted to try ebony. Go figure. Wasn't crazy about the build with ebony, but I'll bet whoever bought it may have flipped for the tone!

It was a super nice guitar, just not my thing. I have been keeping my eye open for a different one with rosewood. I liked the sound of yours!

I've always said, there's no "best" anything. There's only what's best for the individual. In any case, your guitar is super nice, and is more like the tone I had in my head when I bought my Special. Beautiful instrument by the way!
 
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I have a Purple Iris with the LTs I got after a pretty long wait. It’s a super guitar. I find it just a relaxing experience to sit back and run through all the sound options.

I like the pattern neck. The pattern thin is not a neck that works for me. Everyone has different favorite necks.
 
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