I wish I had photos of all of them for you. For years, one of my buddies was the head guitar salesman at Woodwind and Brasswind, and I worked a couple blocks away so I would always go in to see new instruments when they would get a truck.
I've seen sunburst finishes with a thin black sharpie line on the wood that wasn't sanded off... then cleared over. I've seen nuts that look worse than any $500 MIM strat.... and the one-off custom shop stuff was the worst. Dave had a customer return a very expensive 335 multiple times until they got it right. We both commented how they would receive PRS guitars that would come out of the case in tune, yet these custom shop guitars often look like they had zero setup. And he was more heartbroken than I because he owned 3 Gibsons... but he commented on how many he had to play through to get a decent one.
I seriously considered getting a Dark Fire or Dusk Tiger, just to gut the supid-tronics and just have an interesting guitar, but I went through FIVE Dark Fires and they all had something wonky that I would have just dealt with, sanded the neck to a different shape, etc if they were $1,100-$1,500 instruments... But I think they wanted $3700 or some nonsense.
One of the guits I had was a fucking nightmare. The later ones are supposed to be better, but I'm not over getting another one. Life's too short to spend half of it tuning your guitar.
)
Paul's nuts are legend.I used to think that PRS improved on the tuning stability primarily with the alignment of the 6 tuning posts in a straighter line, and the 10 degree headstock instead of the 17 degree.
After dicking around with annoying D and G strings on an import PRS this past weekend... I have to give a LOT more credit to the material and beautiful cut of the PRS nut. Even though I have three import PRSi, one has a USA nut, one I wrote off the tuning issues as the stupid non-locking Klusons.... this third one with USA locking tuners but the SE nut? Fuck. Handful of USA nuts have been ordered (I'm going to cut the nut slot on one of my Warmoth necks and install a PRS nut on that one too.
I used to think that PRS improved on the tuning stability primarily with the alignment of the 6 tuning posts in a straighter line, and the 10 degree headstock instead of the 17 degree.
After dicking around with annoying D and G strings on an import PRS this past weekend... I have to give a LOT more credit to the material and beautiful cut of the PRS nut. Even though I have three import PRSi, one has a USA nut, one I wrote off the tuning issues as the stupid non-locking Klusons.... this third one with USA locking tuners but the SE nut? Fuck. Handful of USA nuts have been ordered (I'm going to cut the nut slot on one of my Warmoth necks and install a PRS nut on that one too.
I even installed a brand new Graphtech Tusq nut on the LP I had (after also getting locking tuners and a better bridge), nevermind frequently having to lube everything on it. It took about two weeks until the tuning issues were back. Strings literally digging into the nut material due to those brutal angles. The only thing that worked over time without constant lubing and filing was getting the String Butler which made sure I had straight string pull through the nut. That's just too much hassle. Sold it and got a Sterling for half the price.
I've developed a really low tolerance for pieces of gear I can't trust on a live gig. They stay at home and eventually get sold.
The wake up call was a gig 2-3 years ago, when both myself and the other guitar player probably spent 30-40 minutes just tuning during a gig. That shit's unprofessional to say the least, and the LP I had was never used on a gig again.
