garrett
...
I've had my S2 Singlecut Standard for about seven months now. I've spent lots of quality time getting to know it and making adjustments. I think the honeymoon of discovery is over and I can now declare that it's a keeper. 
I swapped the pickups out for Suhr Thornbuckers, which are much more to my taste. Once I got the heights worked out, it was almost delivering like I hoped it could. I can't stand the S2 volume pots, so I put in a pair of USA PRS pots. I opted to keep the modern wiring and I retained the pre-installed treble bypass caps, and man that really did the trick. The cap preserves enough treble to provide the clarity I want when turning down the volume and the ease with which they turn is great if you work the volumes (if you don't, you're missing out).
Speaking of the volumes, I had always avoided guitars with two volume controls until last year. I feel like I've only recently learned how to truly use this setup and now I kinda don't want to use anything else. Add in the individual coil splits (something else I used to be averse to) and the two tone controls, and there's a plethora of tonal variation at my finger tips. I guess I'm preaching to the choir of you long-time Gibson or Singlecut players.
I play in a modern southern rock band that demands a wide variety of tones. We have an acoustic player and another electric player. It's always been a challenge to find the right fit in the mix. This guitar has been a revelation. I can cover everything with one guitar and it always fits in just right sonically. It's loud and in your face when needed and sweet and chimey when needed. In the course of two sets of original songs, I use every pickup combo except bridge split by itself. I don't touch the tones much, but I do like working the neck volume in the combined positions to change the balance.
Long story short, the S2 has proved its mettle and now competes with the best after a few mods. The S2 experience certainly isn't as luxe as it is with a core model, but since I'm thrilled with the performance and still under half the cost of a core Singlecut, I maintain that the S2 is the sweet spot of the line up.
I swapped the pickups out for Suhr Thornbuckers, which are much more to my taste. Once I got the heights worked out, it was almost delivering like I hoped it could. I can't stand the S2 volume pots, so I put in a pair of USA PRS pots. I opted to keep the modern wiring and I retained the pre-installed treble bypass caps, and man that really did the trick. The cap preserves enough treble to provide the clarity I want when turning down the volume and the ease with which they turn is great if you work the volumes (if you don't, you're missing out).
Speaking of the volumes, I had always avoided guitars with two volume controls until last year. I feel like I've only recently learned how to truly use this setup and now I kinda don't want to use anything else.
Add in the individual coil splits (something else I used to be averse to) and the two tone controls, and there's a plethora of tonal variation at my finger tips. I guess I'm preaching to the choir of you long-time Gibson or Singlecut players.I play in a modern southern rock band that demands a wide variety of tones. We have an acoustic player and another electric player. It's always been a challenge to find the right fit in the mix. This guitar has been a revelation. I can cover everything with one guitar and it always fits in just right sonically. It's loud and in your face when needed and sweet and chimey when needed. In the course of two sets of original songs, I use every pickup combo except bridge split by itself. I don't touch the tones much, but I do like working the neck volume in the combined positions to change the balance.
Long story short, the S2 has proved its mettle and now competes with the best after a few mods. The S2 experience certainly isn't as luxe as it is with a core model, but since I'm thrilled with the performance and still under half the cost of a core Singlecut, I maintain that the S2 is the sweet spot of the line up.
