The "Official Silver Sky" Thread

Guys, I'm too busy enjoying this thing to take super detailed pictures tonight. I do have some that I took when I opened the case for the first time at the guitar shop. They are below.

Short/quick review: It's freaking great and totally worth the 5 month wait that I "endured."

Long review/detail: This does not "feel" like a PRS guitar in the sense that the neck profile/frets/radius are all totally different than what you experience when you play a Custom 24 or any "normal" PRS guitar. The frets are "smaller" than the standard PRS frets, but they are not what I would call "vintage" like on a AVRI or something of that nature. They're thin side to side like those, but taller. The neck profile, to my hands, feels like a 57 reissue strat, but with less depth front to back. I guess that I'm saying is that I noticed more "shoulder" on the sides of the neck than what I'm used to from a PRS carve. It took a few minutes, but I quickly adjusted. It comes strung with 10s. I play 9s on 25.5" scale instruments, so that was my first move after the initial jam session. I'm playing the guitar through my Carr Mercury V amplifier. With the volume control on the guitar on 10, it sounded "ok." It wasn't quite as "snappy" and "quacky" as I like my strat-style guitars, because I tend to favor maple fretboard/50s era pickups. I was concerned. We all know it was modeled after a 60s strat, which are "known" for being more bassy/less quacky/trebly, perhaps. The problem got "worse" (for my taste) when I rolled the volume knob down. I immediately noticed that this guitar does *not* have a treble bleed circuit installed. I love the clarity and chime of single coils and I use "old school" channel switching by rolling the volume knob down for rhythm and up for overdrive/solos. This was a second concerning factor (for me and my taste and playing style).

I put the guitar on my bench and took the 10s off. The neck was darn-near straight, which is just the way I like it. Barely any relief at all. Usually I have to adjust the rod on my PRS guitars out of the box. This one I didn't need to touch. It was perfect. That was a positive. I had decided that I was going to use alligator clips to non-invasively install a treble bleed capacitor (180uF, which is what PRS uses on ALL guitars EXCEPT the 594 variants and the Silver Sky). I started to take the screws out of the pickguard and *DANG*. Those suckers are TIGHT. That's one thing that I have to comment on. The tolerances on this guitar are tighter than any other strat-style guitar I've owned, and that includes Suhrs and Custom Shop F guitars. I got the pickguard off and noticed that the volume pot has a resistor on the left-most lug (L1). My *guess* is that this modifies the taper of the potentiometer in some way. I clipped in the treble bleed and reinstalled the guard. Again, putting the screws back in was tough. Everything on the guitar is *so* tightly put together. Obviously, this is a good thing! I put the 9s on the guitar and lowered the action to just a hair under 4/64" on the bass side and right on 3/64" on the treble side. Of course, I wanted to try out those dreaded "above the 12th fret bends" on that "crappy" and "unplayable" 7.25" radius. No fret out *at all*, even on 2 step bends with the action as I said above and a straight neck. I set the intonation for the new string gauges. DANG! Those screws are just as tight as the pickguard screws! Again, this is good! I then dropped the pickups a whole turn on each side of each pickup to compensate for the slightly lower action than factory spec.

I plugged back into the Mercury V. Much better, but still not what I was hoping for. I love that Sultans of Swing tone, which was a 1961 Strat. How can this guitar be *that much* different? It was modeled after a 1963/4. This is much more bassy and darker, with less quack. I was disappointed. For the record, the bass/middle/treble on the amp were all set straight up and down. I decided to switch the character voicing on the amp from a 60s-style Marshall to a 70s/80s style Marshall, which is a feature of the Mercury V. BOOM! The guitar comes alive! There's the chime! There's the quack! Roll off the volume knob and it cleans up nicely and maintains the chime perfectly! The neck pickup is Jimi, the middle SRV, and Knopfler quack is there, the bridge pickup sounds great! Blackmore in spades!

Moral of the story? If you want the quack/chime, make sure and tweak your amp! One simple toggle switch on the amp took me from relative disappointment to being totally in love. This things sustains and rings so very well. Obviously I'm *now* in the honeymoon phase, but I sure wasn't when I started. I'd be willing to bet I could have left the 10s on there and been perfectly happy if I'd have just flipped that switch at the start!

Also, I installed the same treble bleed circuit on both of my 594s a month or so ago, one with humbuckers and one with the soapbar P90s. It's just my style, it's not a knock on the guitar. I like that sound. That's a "me" thing. I love the thing now. Very satisfied customer.

Vh7YZlX.jpg

ElCm2sA.jpg
nQBJjO9.jpg
IaQIWhc.jpg
 
rmg471 said:
Guys, I'm too busy enjoying this thing to take super detailed pictures tonight. I do have some that I took when I opened the case for the first time at the guitar shop. They are below.

Short/quick review: It's freaking great and totally worth the 5 month wait that I "endured."

Long review/detail: This does not "feel" like a PRS guitar in the sense that the neck profile/frets/radius are all totally different than what you experience when you play a Custom 24 or any "normal" PRS guitar. The frets are "smaller" than the standard PRS frets, but they are not what I would call "vintage" like on a AVRI or something of that nature. They're thin side to side like those, but taller. The neck profile, to my hands, feels like a 57 reissue strat, but with less depth front to back. I guess that I'm saying is that I noticed more "shoulder" on the sides of the neck than what I'm used to from a PRS carve. It took a few minutes, but I quickly adjusted. It comes strung with 10s. I play 9s on 25.5" scale instruments, so that was my first move after the initial jam session. I'm playing the guitar through my Carr Mercury V amplifier. With the volume control on the guitar on 10, it sounded "ok." It wasn't quite as "snappy" and "quacky" as I like my strat-style guitars, because I tend to favor maple fretboard/50s era pickups. I was concerned. We all know it was modeled after a 60s strat, which are "known" for being more bassy/less quacky/trebly, perhaps. The problem got "worse" (for my taste) when I rolled the volume knob down. I immediately noticed that this guitar does *not* have a treble bleed circuit installed. I love the clarity and chime of single coils and I use "old school" channel switching by rolling the volume knob down for rhythm and up for overdrive/solos. This was a second concerning factor (for me and my taste and playing style).

I put the guitar on my bench and took the 10s off. The neck was darn-near straight, which is just the way I like it. Barely any relief at all. Usually I have to adjust the rod on my PRS guitars out of the box. This one I didn't need to touch. It was perfect. That was a positive. I had decided that I was going to use alligator clips to non-invasively install a treble bleed capacitor (180uF, which is what PRS uses on ALL guitars EXCEPT the 594 variants and the Silver Sky). I started to take the screws out of the pickguard and *DANG*. Those suckers are TIGHT. That's one thing that I have to comment on. The tolerances on this guitar are tighter than any other strat-style guitar I've owned, and that includes Suhrs and Custom Shop F guitars. I got the pickguard off and noticed that the volume pot has a resistor on the left-most lug (L1). My *guess* is that this modifies the taper of the potentiometer in some way. I clipped in the treble bleed and reinstalled the guard. Again, putting the screws back in was tough. Everything on the guitar is *so* tightly put together. Obviously, this is a good thing! I put the 9s on the guitar and lowered the action to just a hair under 4/64" on the bass side and right on 3/64" on the treble side. Of course, I wanted to try out those dreaded "above the 12th fret bends" on that "crappy" and "unplayable" 7.25" radius. No fret out *at all*, even on 2 step bends with the action as I said above and a straight neck. I set the intonation for the new string gauges. DANG! Those screws are just as tight as the pickguard screws! Again, this is good! I then dropped the pickups a whole turn on each side of each pickup to compensate for the slightly lower action than factory spec.

I plugged back into the Mercury V. Much better, but still not what I was hoping for. I love that Sultans of Swing tone, which was a 1961 Strat. How can this guitar be *that much* different? It was modeled after a 1963/4. This is much more bassy and darker, with less quack. I was disappointed. For the record, the bass/middle/treble on the amp were all set straight up and down. I decided to switch the character voicing on the amp from a 60s-style Marshall to a 70s/80s style Marshall, which is a feature of the Mercury V. BOOM! The guitar comes alive! There's the chime! There's the quack! Roll off the volume knob and it cleans up nicely and maintains the chime perfectly! The neck pickup is Jimi, the middle SRV, and Knopfler quack is there, the bridge pickup sounds great! Blackmore in spades!

Moral of the story? If you want the quack/chime, make sure and tweak your amp! One simple toggle switch on the amp took me from relative disappointment to being totally in love. This things sustains and rings so very well. Obviously I'm *now* in the honeymoon phase, but I sure wasn't when I started. I'd be willing to bet I could have left the 10s on there and been perfectly happy if I'd have just flipped that switch at the start!

Also, I installed the same treble bleed circuit on both of my 594s a month or so ago, one with humbuckers and one with the soapbar P90s. It's just my style, it's not a knock on the guitar. I like that sound. That's a "me" thing. I love the thing now. Very satisfied customer.

Vh7YZlX.jpg

ElCm2sA.jpg
nQBJjO9.jpg
IaQIWhc.jpg
Click to expand...


Great!!! thanks for this. love the story. Glad you're enjoying yours.
 
rmg471 said:
Guys, I'm too busy enjoying this thing to take super detailed pictures tonight. I do have some that I took when I opened the case for the first time at the guitar shop. They are below.

Short/quick review: It's freaking great and totally worth the 5 month wait that I "endured."

Long review/detail: This does not "feel" like a PRS guitar in the sense that the neck profile/frets/radius are all totally different than what you experience when you play a Custom 24 or any "normal" PRS guitar. The frets are "smaller" than the standard PRS frets, but they are not what I would call "vintage" like on a AVRI or something of that nature. They're thin side to side like those, but taller. The neck profile, to my hands, feels like a 57 reissue strat, but with less depth front to back. I guess that I'm saying is that I noticed more "shoulder" on the sides of the neck than what I'm used to from a PRS carve. It took a few minutes, but I quickly adjusted. It comes strung with 10s. I play 9s on 25.5" scale instruments, so that was my first move after the initial jam session. I'm playing the guitar through my Carr Mercury V amplifier. With the volume control on the guitar on 10, it sounded "ok." It wasn't quite as "snappy" and "quacky" as I like my strat-style guitars, because I tend to favor maple fretboard/50s era pickups. I was concerned. We all know it was modeled after a 60s strat, which are "known" for being more bassy/less quacky/trebly, perhaps. The problem got "worse" (for my taste) when I rolled the volume knob down. I immediately noticed that this guitar does *not* have a treble bleed circuit installed. I love the clarity and chime of single coils and I use "old school" channel switching by rolling the volume knob down for rhythm and up for overdrive/solos. This was a second concerning factor (for me and my taste and playing style).

I put the guitar on my bench and took the 10s off. The neck was darn-near straight, which is just the way I like it. Barely any relief at all. Usually I have to adjust the rod on my PRS guitars out of the box. This one I didn't need to touch. It was perfect. That was a positive. I had decided that I was going to use alligator clips to non-invasively install a treble bleed capacitor (180uF, which is what PRS uses on ALL guitars EXCEPT the 594 variants and the Silver Sky). I started to take the screws out of the pickguard and *DANG*. Those suckers are TIGHT. That's one thing that I have to comment on. The tolerances on this guitar are tighter than any other strat-style guitar I've owned, and that includes Suhrs and Custom Shop F guitars. I got the pickguard off and noticed that the volume pot has a resistor on the left-most lug (L1). My *guess* is that this modifies the taper of the potentiometer in some way. I clipped in the treble bleed and reinstalled the guard. Again, putting the screws back in was tough. Everything on the guitar is *so* tightly put together. Obviously, this is a good thing! I put the 9s on the guitar and lowered the action to just a hair under 4/64" on the bass side and right on 3/64" on the treble side. Of course, I wanted to try out those dreaded "above the 12th fret bends" on that "crappy" and "unplayable" 7.25" radius. No fret out *at all*, even on 2 step bends with the action as I said above and a straight neck. I set the intonation for the new string gauges. DANG! Those screws are just as tight as the pickguard screws! Again, this is good! I then dropped the pickups a whole turn on each side of each pickup to compensate for the slightly lower action than factory spec.

I plugged back into the Mercury V. Much better, but still not what I was hoping for. I love that Sultans of Swing tone, which was a 1961 Strat. How can this guitar be *that much* different? It was modeled after a 1963/4. This is much more bassy and darker, with less quack. I was disappointed. For the record, the bass/middle/treble on the amp were all set straight up and down. I decided to switch the character voicing on the amp from a 60s-style Marshall to a 70s/80s style Marshall, which is a feature of the Mercury V. BOOM! The guitar comes alive! There's the chime! There's the quack! Roll off the volume knob and it cleans up nicely and maintains the chime perfectly! The neck pickup is Jimi, the middle SRV, and Knopfler quack is there, the bridge pickup sounds great! Blackmore in spades!

Moral of the story? If you want the quack/chime, make sure and tweak your amp! One simple toggle switch on the amp took me from relative disappointment to being totally in love. This things sustains and rings so very well. Obviously I'm *now* in the honeymoon phase, but I sure wasn't when I started. I'd be willing to bet I could have left the 10s on there and been perfectly happy if I'd have just flipped that switch at the start!

Also, I installed the same treble bleed circuit on both of my 594s a month or so ago, one with humbuckers and one with the soapbar P90s. It's just my style, it's not a knock on the guitar. I like that sound. That's a "me" thing. I love the thing now. Very satisfied customer.

Vh7YZlX.jpg

ElCm2sA.jpg
nQBJjO9.jpg
IaQIWhc.jpg
Click to expand...

What a treat!
Ya done good. Posts like this are not good for my wallet!
 
ex2music said:
The radius did not bother me that much (surprisingly) but the tiny frets did. I do like large frets and can do medium/jumbo. I just couldn't dig into the neck and bend and just play the guitar hard. I'm sure some players who are slicker and play more chordal stuff and delicate runs would like it. I do not want to knock the guitar, it's awesome for the money. Just not for me. I wouldn't play a Santana or a 594 either. Just not guitars with features that I dig.

And yes, the dealer sold the guitar before I could even get back there to return it. Someone else is happy!
Click to expand...

Well, that probably seals it for me. I'm a very physical player, like SRV/KWS. I also play 10-52s, and have actually considered going up to 11s lately.... I sometimes hit really hard, and it sounds like these "tiny" frets are a deal breaker for me, unfortunately. Altho, it just saved me over $1000 (over what my new customized strat cost me)!
 
I saw this post from another forum:
"I ordered one already and at least from the store I bought it from, the gig bag version is $1999. To me the extra $300 for a hardshell case is ridiculous. I use a nice mono gig bag and all the hardshell cases just end up in storage."

Looks like there are price disparities depending on dealers...not uncommon.
But for $300, I definitely rather go for the gigbag version since I too use a mono gigbag.
 
I can’t wait to get home today to put this thing through some more tunes. I was nailing the sultans of swing tone last night. I think I didn’t consider the amp may have been the issue right off the bat because my Custom 24, which is a maple neck and fretboard, is bright and chimey with the same amp settings. The 85/15s are known for their top end clarity. Obviously that pickup and a vintage inspired single coil are two totally different beasts, which would cause the amp to react in two totally different ways.

Guys, the guitar sounds great. I just wanted to share the experience I had in detail, because I always enjoy those posts. String gauge and treble bleed are just personal preference. Many, many people would be happy with it right out of the box, for sure. I also use 9s and lower than stock action on my custom 24. I say that because this guitar and it’s unique radius and frets were not the need for the setup change I made. I only changed it from stock due to my own preferences. I lowered the action on both of my 594s, as well. It’s just my thing. I’m sure you guys get it.
 
rmg471 said:
I can’t wait to get home today to put this thing through some more tunes. I was nailing the sultans of swing tone last night. I think I didn’t consider the amp may have been the issue right off the bat because my Custom 24, which is a maple neck and fretboard, is bright and chimey with the same amp settings. The 85/15s are known for their top end clarity. Obviously that pickup and a vintage inspired single coil are two totally different beasts, which would cause the amp to react in two totally different ways.

Guys, the guitar sounds great. I just wanted to share the experience I had in detail, because I always enjoy those posts. String gauge and treble bleed are just personal preference. Many, many people would be happy with it right out of the box, for sure. I also use 9s and lower than stock action on my custom 24. I say that because this guitar and it’s unique radius and frets were not the need for the setup change I made. I only changed it from stock due to my own preferences. I lowered the action on both of my 594s, as well. It’s just my thing. I’m sure you guys get it.
Click to expand...

Glad to hear that a simple tweak of amp settings brought ur Sky to life!

I can't wait to try mine. I know for sure I wouldn't be lowering the action or swapping strings, I love 10's!
 
I had a chance to sit with it a little more the other night. First up, I'm not a tone chaser, and when I record a cover, I don't usually try to copy the tone of the original.

I recorded a cover of Zappa's "Watermelon In Easter Hay" some time ago. Did it with my PS, I think - humbuckers, maybe coil tapped. I don't remember. I've also had a loop of the backing guitar pattern in my looper for a long time, and I'll play that to warm up a lot (and experiment). I listened to Dweezil's version of the song from his latest live album not long before this, so I figured what the hell, let's try that #4 position with this.

Damn near brought tears to my eyes. Nailed that tone. Had that snap and quack to it. It was glorious.
 
Dirty_Boogie said:
Great choice! Doesn't get much better than that.
Click to expand...

One of my all-time favorites. Almost broke out in tears when Dweezil played it at soundcheck last tour. Then again when he played it during the show and he was in tears.

I'm thinking about redoing it w/the SS. Something's not right w/me...
 
ex2music said:
My preorder came in and I told them to keep it. The frets are tiny, the same they use on mandolins?? Say what?!? Sounded good, but my wife thought it looked like a Squier lol.
Click to expand...

So, you're saying your wife doesn't have a very good eye for quality guitars? hmmm, that could come in handy. I think its way too late in the game to fool my wife though, since she's bought me 3 PRS guitars.
 
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