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.
Comments
I thought my Mira X was so resonant it could almost have been a semi.
Fantastic guitars and an overlooked gem.
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...
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....
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.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
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.
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.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
i like light guitars, only thing i really have against them is the neck-dive thing that @Philly_Q mentioned.
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.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
I think it's kind of ugly as well, but a good guitar is a good guitar.
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.