(PRS Mira) I'm gonna stick my neck out.....

timmysoft

I hated my first Mira, I had one of the first, with birds, in a slinky gloss black. It sounded alright, was massively neck heavy and was pretty average to play, I spent £1300 quid on it and swiftly lost £600 of that when I sold it. It really put me off the Mira and to a certain extent, PRS as a brand.

Fast forward to the present day. I picked up a Mira X, for not much cash and it's phenomenal! Better balanced, more open sounding, better intonated and just an all round better guitar. Shorter scale suits my tiny hands and I love the fact that there's no coil taps to play around with! The lack of contouring somehow makes it feel nicer against my (clothed) body and I think it looks cooler too.

so in summary: Mira X good, Mira bad.

Richardj

It astonishes me how snooty people are about the 'X' guitars. They were PRSs try at using more sustainable timbers, they were made on the same production lines, used the same finishing processes and had the same hardware and electrics.

I thought my Mira X was so resonant it could almost have been a semi.

Fantastic guitars and an overlooked gem.

timmysoft

Richardj said:

It astonishes me how snooty people are about the 'X' guitars. They were PRSs try at using more sustainable timbers, they were made on the same production lines, used the same finishing processes and had the same hardware and electrics.

I thought my Mira X was so resonant it could almost have been a semi.

Fantastic guitars and an overlooked gem.

Yeah, it does feel like Paul Reed Smiths attempt at the old school Gibson junior vibe. I think most are put off by the super light weight feel, but during a 4 hour rehearsal I'm sure it'll be a blessing. 

Dave_Mc

Don't say that, I remember at one point they were blowing them out new for about £600  

timmysoft

Dave_Mc said:

Don't say that, I remember at one point they were blowing them out new for about £600  

I paid just over half that! 

JayGee

timmysoft said:

I hated my first Mira, I had one of the first, with birds, in a slinky gloss black. It sounded alright, was massively neck heavy and was pretty average to play, I spent £1300 quid on it and swiftly lost £600 of that when I sold it. It really put me off the Mira and to a certain extent, PRS as a brand.

[...]

so in summary: Mira X good, Mira bad.

Mira X good, Mira also good.

Mind you, when I bought mine (also early production, in fact very early, I don't think birds were an option...) I tried two. First one was a very old school looking vintage cherry one, and it was like, "Yeah, that's OK, no big deal but... OK" but then the guy in PMT handed me the lilac one (you can see it in my avatar pic) and "Whoah!" super resonant, fitted me like  a glove, sounded huge even before it was plugged in - a totally different guitar! In spite of some reservations about the colour there was no way I was getting out of the shop without it.

These days it's more workhorse than inspirational but it's still one of my go to gigging tools because I know it's going to come out of the case pretty much bang on it tune and Just Work...

Philly_Q

timmysoft said:

so in summary: Mira X good, Mira bad.

I'd like a hybrid of the two.  My big gripe about the Mira was always that there was no 22-fret, wide-fat option (why, PRS, why???!!).  The Mira X solved that, but I prefer the body contouring of the original Mira.

I still have a Mira X, it's extremely resonant but so ludicrously light (5lbs!) that it's very neck-heavy on a strap.

In some ways the S2 Mira has resolved most of these issues, but it annoys me that it has the S2 compromises in construction - scarf-jointed neck, budget pickups etc.  And I still wish it had a bigger neck!

They should've had that 22-fret option in the first place....

english_bob

Richardj said:

It astonishes me how snooty people are about the 'X' guitars. They were PRSs try at using more sustainable timbers, they were made on the same production lines, used the same finishing processes and had the same hardware and electrics.

I thought my Mira X was so resonant it could almost have been a semi.

Fantastic guitars and an overlooked gem.

Yep. I've got the Starla X. I don't really like all the 10 top, silly colours and shit ton of abalone look of the top flight PRS guitars but I really liked the stripped down, Gibson Jr, Gordon Smith thing of the X guitars.

I got mine at the £600 blow out price (I think the nasty solid coloured P90 ones went even cheaper, mine's the sunburst with humbuckers) and it was head and shoulders above the Gibson guitars I could have bought at that price.

The guy in the shop (DV247 Birmingham) said that they'd had various comments from people about the super light weight, so it might have put people off if they were of that 1970s heavy = sustain = good mindset, but it's resonant and loud acoustically and sustains just fine. It's been my main guitar for the last couple of years and has proved to be reliable and solid to boot.

Philly_Q

english_bob said:

I got mine at the £600 blow out price (I think the nasty solid coloured P90 ones went even cheaper, mine's the sunburst with humbuckers) and it was head and shoulders above the Gibson guitars I could have bought at that price.

I got one of the nasty solid coloured P-90 ones.  

It was pale blue with a white scratchplate, looked great but I didn't keep it very long, it was a good guitar but didn't really match up with my (more upmarket, price-wise) LP Special.

Amazing bargains DV247 had at that time, you don't see that much nowadays.

english_bob

Philly_Q said:

I got one of the nasty solid coloured P-90 ones.  

The pale blue one was alright. They came in bright orange, baby pink and snot green among others.

IMO the Fendery colours didn't really work with the very Gibson-y shapes, and pairing the colours with white pickguards and black pickup covers was a bit naff. The sunburst with the black pickguard worked with the 70s Gibson Jr vibe best.

If I ever get the inclination to tart mine up or modify it (because I doubt I'm going to sell it for enough to make it worthwhile) I'd probably put chrome covered pickups and a tortoiseshell pickguard on it. Would look sharp.

timmysoft

Mines the snot green, its horrifically offensive

Dave_Mc

timmysoft said:

Dave_Mc said:

Don't say that, I remember at one point they were blowing them out new for about £600  

I paid just over half that! 

hahahahahahaha nice score

Dave_Mc

english_bob said:

Richardj said:

It astonishes me how snooty people are about the 'X' guitars. They were PRSs try at using more sustainable timbers, they were made on the same production lines, used the same finishing processes and had the same hardware and electrics.

I thought my Mira X was so resonant it could almost have been a semi.

Fantastic guitars and an overlooked gem.

Yep. I've got the Starla X. I don't really like all the 10 top, silly colours and shit ton of abalone look of the top flight PRS guitars but I really liked the stripped down, Gibson Jr, Gordon Smith thing of the X guitars.

I got mine at the £600 blow out price (I think the nasty solid coloured P90 ones went even cheaper, mine's the sunburst with humbuckers) and it was head and shoulders above the Gibson guitars I could have bought at that price.

The guy in the shop (DV247 Birmingham) said that they'd had various comments from people about the super light weight, so it might have put people off if they were of that 1970s heavy = sustain = good mindset, but it's resonant and loud acoustically and sustains just fine. It's been my main guitar for the last couple of years and has proved to be reliable and solid to boot.

yeah now you mention it i think it was dv247 that had the deals. and as you said, some of the more "interesting" colour choices were even cheaper.

i like light guitars, only thing i really have against them is the neck-dive thing that @Philly_Q mentioned.

grungebob

Well I've gone from owning two Core USA models ( a rather nice McCarty and equally nice CU22) to owning an S2 Standard 24 Satin and an S2 Vela. To me both are better musical instruments.  The lack of body carves (a bevel instead) makes them more comfortable, the quality feels just as good and they sound wonderful plus i managed to buy both for 1/2 the price I got from selling the other two so winner winner chicken dinner!

The Vela is the most comfortable guitar of the two to play seated as it balances great and the offset body feels like it was made for me, its a more vintage sounding guitar than the standard though and sounds much warmer in all positions. The Standard is a great all round guitar, the coil taps give me the singlecoil flavour enough to make it sound convincing in a mix and the humbucker tones are just what I want.  Its quite amazing really how good the S2 pickups sound, the build quality of both guitars is top notch and they are very light and well balanced. In January I should be getting a small work bonus and I hope to add a S2 Standard 22 to the collection.

english_bob

Dave_Mc said:

i like light guitars, only thing i really have against them is the neck-dive thing that @Philly_Q mentioned.

The Starla doesn't do that

Dave_Mc

english_bob said:

Dave_Mc said:

i like light guitars, only thing i really have against them is the neck-dive thing that @Philly_Q mentioned.

The Starla doesn't do that

I guess because of the bigger body? Just I wasn't sure it was as suited to the stuff I usually play. Or that I liked how it looked. (Granted, I was never sure I liked how the Mira looked either )

timmysoft

I've found the Mira X that I've got isn't neck heavy, although I am pretty broad so I find a lot of guitars don't suffer that problem with me. The Mira (core) I had was awful for it though.

Philly_Q

timmysoft said:

I've found the Mira X that I've got isn't neck heavy, although I am pretty broad so I find a lot of guitars don't suffer that problem with me. The Mira (core) I had was awful for it though.

Mine has a particular type of neck-heaviness where not only does the headstock plunge towards the floor, the neck goes backwards and the body swings out, almost like the whole guitar's trying its best to hide behind my back.  I've only experienced a similar thing with a Thinline Tele.

Bucket

I just didn't like the X because it didn't have enough frets.

I think it's kind of ugly as well, but a good guitar is a good guitar.

timmysoft

carried out a few mods on the Mira X over the last few weeks. Its a killer guitar, its ugly, disgusting coloured but brilliant all at the same time. I found the stock machine heads were a touch unresponsive and didn't give a great deal of feel so i replaced those with locking gotohs, which do feel more positive and seem to hold tune better. I also put one of the cool Shadow pickup ring tuners on, its a pretty decent tuner, even when handling my drop C tuning. 

After buying a couple of PRS guitars recently, i've decided that this is the one thats staying, it suits my playing style and always seems to inspire a few new riffs. I may change the pickups, not that theres anything wrong with these, but i'm think Suhr Aldrich humbuckers should sound pretty huge in this.

guitars4you

timmysoft said:

Yeah, it does feel like Paul Reed Smiths attempt at the old school Gibson junior vibe. I think most are put off by the super light weight feel, but during a 4 hour rehearsal I'm sure it'll be a blessing. 

I think that is about right - I know it is 22 fret and I recall 24.5 so to a traditional player then more favourable than a regular Mira - the issue was that PRS made barely a penny on them so a short shelf life - I suppose at the time it was a for runner to the S2 models in that PRS were trying to find the way to a good budget based USA model without compromising quality - Better set of pick-ups and a very good guitar for less bucks