Why do so few 'big name' bands/artists use PRS?

Paul7926

RandallFlagg said:

I know I'll never be cool or a dentist but I do like that.

fatherchewielewie

deano said:

I think I am catching a faint smell of class envy on this thread. In case you can't smell it, it is an odour that some people experience when they realise someone earns a pound more than they do; that's the smell. Once you know what you are smelling, you can't miss it.

Not in my case. I own a few guitars but my no.1 is my 2010 R0, which I bought new. I'd take it every time over any PRS I've ever played. I'd also take my USA Tele and Strat, my mongrel Strat..... hell, I'd even take my Hohner SE35 335 copy over PRS. I just don't like em....... never have, maybe never will.

Sporky

I do like that some people are defining "cool" as "mainstream".

Remember, kids, being different is not cool. Conforming is cool. Dull mediocrity is totally on fleek.

Fretwired

Sporky said:

I do like that some people are defining "cool" as "mainstream".

Remember, kids, being different is not cool. Conforming is cool. Dull mediocrity is totally on fleek.

:-)

RandallFlagg

Paul7926 said:

RandallFlagg said:

I know I'll never be cool or a dentist but I do like that.

I'm neither but I do own this DGT

mgaw

I am shallow enough to concede I don't like them purely because of the headstock...don't doubt how good they are I cant really handle the look of them

guitarfishbay

The headstock does look a bit like a chip fork. It suits the guitars though.

gearaddict

Sporky said:

I do like that some people are defining "cool" as "mainstream".

Remember, kids, being different is not cool. Conforming is cool. Dull mediocrity is totally on fleek.

Lols

The guitar I have been using mostly for 'real stuff' recently is a Godin...which nobody knows and I always feel mildly chuffed that I'm a bit different in that regard...silly I know but still. I've owned a few LPs but never gigged them, partly because I never felt that comfortable with them but also I felt I might get judged slightly for having a posh guitar, without having the talent to back it up. The PRS only cost slightly less but people don't recognise it.

...the one LP I did gig a lot was a Japanese copy (Signature HB01) - for some weird reason that did feel comfortable. It was a bit annoying that people would ask me if it's a Gibson and I always felt a bit judged when I said it was a copy.

thegummy

StuartMac290 said:

if you watch any of the early 2000’s Rush live DVD’s you get to see Alex Lifeson playing some of the same songs through the same rig on a variety of different guitars. When he goes from PRS CE24’s to his Les Pauls. There’s more low end maybe . But a lot less clarity.

Geddy Lee has said many times that he much prefers the sound of the band when Alex is playing Gibsons to when he's playing a PRS.

I do think the issue is pretty simple - they're just not very cool guitars, despite their obvious merits. They are often a bit blingy, and they have a wee bit of a pointy headstock going on. They're just not very rock and roll.

Can you imagine Keef and Ronnie playing one?  Like it or not, that's still pretty much the benchmark for rock and roll cool. Or in later years folk like Johnny Marr, or Bernard Butler, or Graham Coxon, or any number of others who you just can't imagine slinging a PRS around their necks.

Considering Keith Richards was 42 when the PRS company was even founded, I don't see how that has anything to do with it at all.

Hattigol

thegummy said:

Considering Keith Richards was 142 when the PRS company was even founded, I don't see how that has anything to do with it at all.

FTFY.

DeeTee

gearaddict said:

Sporky said:

I do like that some people are defining "cool" as "mainstream".

Remember, kids, being different is not cool. Conforming is cool. Dull mediocrity is totally on fleek.

Lols

The guitar I have been using mostly for 'real stuff' recently is a Godin...which nobody knows and I always feel mildly chuffed that I'm a bit different in that regard...silly I know but still. I've owned a few LPs but never gigged them, partly because I never felt that comfortable with them but also I felt I might get judged slightly for having a posh guitar, without having the talent to back it up. The PRS only cost slightly less but people don't recognise it.

...the one LP I did gig a lot was a Japanese copy (Signature HB01) - for some weird reason that did feel comfortable. It was a bit annoying that people would ask me if it's a Gibson and I always felt a bit judged when I said it was a copy.

People who sneer at copies should be directed to early Guns n Roses. The iconic Gibson LP player wasn't actually playing a Gibson LP.

Musicwolf

mgaw said:

I am shallow enough to concede I don't like them purely because of the headstock...don't doubt how good they are I cant really handle the look of them

I think that this is a perfectly valid reason for either liking or not liking a guitar.  What appeals to, or repels, one person will be completely different for another.  All that is important is that your guitar appeals to you and that you can't walk past it without an overwhelming desire to pick it up and play it.

There are a myriad of guitars out there.  I start my search based on looks (and I'm not afraid to say that the name on the headstock is also important to me).  That still leaves me with a list containing more guitars than I can afford (or that my wife will allow me) so then I start playing them.  Some guitars work for me and some don't.  I've never owned a Gibson LP because, for some reason, I don't get on with them (despite them being played by some of my heroes on my favourite recordings).  PRS on the other hand do appeal (although not the Santana shape) and they 'fit me'.

On the subject of headstocks.  I have no problem with the PRS design on a 'standard' PRS guitar but I really don't like the reversed version on the Silver Sky (I have no problem with the shape of the guitar, I love Strats).  Eye of the beholder and all that.

skullfunkerry

Funny thing about headstocks... I've got a thing and I know it's ridiculous where singlecut guitars should have a 3-a-side headstock and doublecut guitars should have 6-in-line.

Strat-type guitars with 3-a-sides (Schecter and LTD do it a fair bit) just look wrong to me. The only guitar I can think of with a 6-in-line headstock that doesn't suit it is a BC RIch Mockingbird; the ones they do with a 3-a-side look *much* better... I'm sure there's a 6-in-line headstock on a Les Paul looking guitar somewhere... ewww O_o

There are exceptions to this: an SG is most definitely a doublecut, but that looks fine as it is; any kind of Flying V is okay with any kind of headstock (apart from the Dean and BC Rich monstrosities), and a PRS headstock looks fine on any PRS body shape to me...

None of what I've said affects the guitar really, does it? I know there are discussions about break angle and tuning stability, but they're all fixable... in short, I totally agree with everyone who's saying that the appearance of a gutar affects whether you'd play it or not.

Oh, and my Squier has got a reverse headstock, so that's obviously the coolest of the lot

deano

I must admit to being a bit of a headstock "snob", and if the headstock looks wrong it puts me off. Fenders and Gibsons are fine, as are, in my view PRS, but the one I like best of all is the Music Man/Ernie Ball 4+2 arrangement! I love that compact yet elegant shape.

Pointy or "shouty" (no, don't ask me to define it, I know what I mean) headstocks just don't do it for me. I don't care about the name on them, as long as the shape is elegant and "right". One I like at the moment is the standard one on the Crimson Guitars Descendant...

crunchman

Musicwolf said:

On the subject of headstocks.  I have no problem with the PRS design on a 'standard' PRS guitar but I really don't like the reversed version on the Silver Sky (I have no problem with the shape of the guitar, I love Strats).  Eye of the beholder and all that.

It does look better in the flesh than in pictures.  If I didn't already have a good Strat, I'd quite like one of those.

I'd be interested in a PRS version of a Tele.

Another guitar that looks better in the flesh than in pictures, is the Taylor solid body electric.  That one never really caught on at all though.  It's very difficult to break into the market with something new.

jeztone2

StuartMac290 said:

if you watch any of the early 2000’s Rush live DVD’s you get to see Alex Lifeson playing some of the same songs through the same rig on a variety of different guitars. When he goes from PRS CE24’s to his Les Pauls. There’s more low end maybe . But a lot less clarity.

Geddy Lee has said many times that he much prefers the sound of the band when Alex is playing Gibsons to when he's playing a PRS.

I do think the issue is pretty simple - they're just not very cool guitars, despite their obvious merits. They are often a bit blingy, and they have a wee bit of a pointy headstock going on. They're just not very rock and roll.

Can you imagine Keef and Ronnie playing one?  Like it or not, that's still pretty much the benchmark for rock and roll cool. Or in later years folk like Johnny Marr, or Bernard Butler, or Graham Coxon, or any number of others who you just can't imagine slinging a PRS around their necks.

PRS owners balk at all of this, but it's essentially what it boils down to.

I've had six of them. I liked the way they played, loved the wide fat neck profile, hated the headstock and the stunted upper horn, and generally didn't like the look, even though mine were strictly non-blingy.

More importantly, I virtually never used one in the studio if there were decent Fenders or Gibsons in there, because not once did they sound as good in direct comparison. I find them pretty characterless tonally.

Also, to return to the "not cool" thing, two specific incidents from my own career spring to mind. I once  did an audition for a European and UK tour for a fairly big act using a McCarty Soapbar gold top, and got the gig - on the strict condition that "on no account" was the PRS ever to appear on stage in my hands.

I also once recorded two different parts for a well-known female artist on the same song, one on an Ocean Turquoise McCarty, and one on a lovely Sonic Blue strat. The part I played on the McCarty was far better for the track in every way, and she herself said so...until she asked me if that was the strat. She was visibly disappointed when I said it was the PRS. When I eventually got my copy of the album when it was released about a year later, I was disappointed but not entirely surprised to hear they'd used the less-good part.

You can consider that as ridiculous as you want, but like it or not image is EVERYTHING for the vast majority of successful acts. 

I’m sorry but I just laughed out loud at that. Not a dig at you, because I’ve heard a similar comment from a guitar tech I know who works for a couple of bigger indie bands. Not all of us want to be Graham Coxon. 

Maybe I’m not superficial enough to be a successful musician. I mean my priorities are tone and intonation & how things sit in a mix. Now imagine if Rankin was told he couldn’t use a Phase One Digital Camera on a shoot because they had to use 1960’s analog cameras like Nikon F’s & Minolta SRT101’s because that’s what the really “cool” 1960’s photographers used? 

No wonder guitar music is in the toilet these days. Chasing iconography rather than making new art.  

Jonathanthomas83

deano said:

...but the one I like best of all is the Music Man/Ernie Ball 4+2 arrangement! I love that compact yet elegant shape.

Ha, the only thing putting me off a Musicman Petrucci style guitar is the headstock, I think it looks awful. Reminds me of a flacid penis.

fatherchewielewie

People who sneer at copies should be directed to early Guns n Roses. The iconic Gibson LP player wasn't actually playing a Gibson LP.

Yeah, I used to always shake my head in Sheldon Cooper-style haughty derision when people talked about 'Which Gibson LP do I need to get for Slashs tone on AfD?'.

thegummy

Musicwolf said:

mgaw said:

I am shallow enough to concede I don't like them purely because of the headstock...don't doubt how good they are I cant really handle the look of them

I think that this is a perfectly valid reason for either liking or not liking a guitar.  What appeals to, or repels, one person will be completely different for another.  All that is important is that your guitar appeals to you and that you can't walk past it without an overwhelming desire to pick it up and play it.

Definitely agree with that.

The Marcus Miller range of Sire basses are hyped big time for being amazing quality for the money but to me the headstock is the ugliest part of any guitar I've ever seen and that alone puts me off them completely.

thegummy

deano said:

I must admit to being a bit of a headstock "snob", and if the headstock looks wrong it puts me off. Fenders and Gibsons are fine, as are, in my view PRS, but the one I like best of all is the Music Man/Ernie Ball 4+2 arrangement! I love that compact yet elegant shape.

I love that headstock too.

Chapman were wanting to use that style initially but they couldn't because it's patented by MM.