The PRS NF3 SE was officially released this very day (19/6/24). It’s up for order on Anderton’s and GuitarGuitar. Every YT guitar channel has a review. I’m going to enter it for new product launch of the year 2024. Man, PRS’s marketing people are slick.
Everyone reviewing it said almost the same thing about it - which would okay if they were just talking specs, but they also said the same things about it. Almost as if the PR company sent them a press kit, or they were all watching each other, and nobody wanted to disagree. From what I gather, the PRS online media relations people really seem to know what they’re doing - way better than the Big Two. (And none of the other guitar makers seem to give a darn if anyone reviews their gear.)
However, when they played it? Everyone made it sound different. One reviewer was playing it through a setup almost as clean as a Roland Jazz Chorus, others had some edge-of-breakup, others did a here’s-clean-and-here’s distortion. And it sounded different every time. It didn’t seem to have a sound of its own on which to build other sounds. (And yes, I have liked the sounds of other PRS’s.)
For those who don’t know, a Les Paul sounds like a Les Paul, whether it’s made by Gibson, Epiphone, PRS or anyone else, and whether you’re playing it clean, dirty, at the neck, at the bridge, or whatever. The double-humbuckers have a unique depth and oomph of sound. At the other extreme, a Strat sounds like a Strat no matter who makes it and how it’s played, and it has an neat, clean edge to its sound. Every other solid-body guitar is in-between those two. (And sure, in a blind test no-one can tell the difference between a Russian acoustic ukulele and an American-made Les Paul through a Marshall stack, but that’s just science…)
On paper, I liked the idea of the NF3 SE. SE means it’s the sub-£1,000 version, NF3 refers to having three narrow humbucking pickups. It’s an S-style body with a five-way selector switch. During most of the reviews, I could tell the difference between bridge and neck positions, but I wasn’t sure I could notice the change from one position to the next.
As I’m learning my way round the effects in the HX Effects - what works, what doesn’t - I’m coming to see the guitar as a note-generator, rather than the origin of all tone. In that sense, what matters is the strength of the signal and the overtones it generates.
The day before the NF3 SE reviews, I had three guitars on my list: Fender / Squier Jazzmaster; PRS John Meyer SE; PRS NF3 SE. That has gone down to two now. Amps, if you’re wondering, are between a Fender Blues Junior or a Roland JC-22. At low volumes, the amp can’t be used to get “tones”. So the idea is to have a clean amp (or studio monitors or FRFR speakers) into which to push already messed-up signals from the effects units.
I do think about gear upgrades, but every time I get even close to buying anything, I have a serious session with the HX Effects and get better tones out of the current gear.
Right now I have some monster tones - but that’s another story.
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