Gear-aholic. Tone Freak. Gear Maniac. At least that is what I have been called. I like to think of myself as a “Tone Crusader.”
I comb the ethers in search of implements to try to catch the unicorn called “Tone.” And since tone has so many faces, I need different kinds tools to help me catch the unicorn. Thus, I have an arsenal of axes, both custom and commonly available; a bank of sound amplification devices to announce my presence with special foot pedals to alter my sound to affect a different response.
I spend hours upon hours developing and honing my skills, and learning how to most effectively use my tools. I am a warrior who must constantly be at the ready to perform.
And like the Crusaders of old, my quest for the tone unicorn is a life-long pursuit that has been fraught with both times of extreme joy and with days of dark dispair. But despite its ups and downs, I cannot even begin to imagine abandoning this pursuit! I’ve seen the unicorn! I have even come close to touching it! And until I do touch it, I will never give up. Never!!!
I fully realize that I may go to my grave without ever catching the unicorn. But it is not the goal that matters to me in any case; it is the journey that matters.
I occasionally browse Red Bear Trading’s web site to see if Dave Skowron has come up with anything new, and much to my surprise, he has! Red Bear has come up with a new pick line called the Tuff-Tone line that apparently sound just as good as his originals. But the big difference is that these picks are made of a material that is much more durable than the Tortis material of the original Red Bear picks! Apparently, they also sound just as good as the originals. Could this be a death knell for Tortis? I doubt it. Dave’s Tortis picks are the absolute bomb, and the natural feel of the Tortis when you’re playing is absolutely to die for!
In any case, here’s an excerpt from the Tuff-Tone web page:
Are they tough enough? You bet. These picks aren’t going to warp or break on you anytime soon. They will pick up some discoloration from your guitar strings. When this happens, simply wash them with soap and water. Go ahead and run them through the washer and dryer! No problem! Keep them in your pocket full of change – see if we care! These picks are really tough!
It’s one thing to test gear in a controlled environment, it’s an entirely different matter to use it for a gig. After receiving the Prestige Heritage Elite, I took it through its paces in my home studio, and it performed quite well; so well that I gave it very high marks, reflecting the excellent build quality as well as how it sounds, which was awesome in the studio. The operative word here is “studio.”
As I mentioned above, it’s an entirely different matter of testing gear in a gig situation. After all, during a gig, you don’t have the luxury to stop to make corrections on the fly. Furthermore, during a gig, an instrument’s tone interacts and reacts completely differently to the environment than in the studio.
Hope that little section above doesn’t make you nervous about how the Heritage Elite performed 🙂 because it worked great! I played the guitar at my weekly church gig with a full band. Now before you dismiss this venue, let me say that playing in a church is one of the most sonically challenging environments to play in because you don’t have the luxury to crank it up, and churches have pretty high ceilings so dealing with sound bouncing around a big space makes it even more challenging. In light of that, you have to rely a lot on the natural tone of the gear you’re playing. Especially with something like a guitar, it has to sound great at lower volumes, and have voicing that won’t get lost in the ambient.
In this, the Heritage Elite really excels. Surprisingly enough, it doesn’t have the deep ballsy voicing you’d expect from a Les Paul-type of guitar. In fact, the voicing is much brighter, but from the standpoint of playing live, that’s a good thing, and something for which I’ve always praised Saint Guitars. But like a Les Paul, it has that distinctive chirp – that kind of hard to describe, subtle sound. It’s very pleasing to the ears – I dig it!
The other great thing about playing at my church is that I can play a variety of musical styles throughout the course of the service. I played some hard driving rock as well as some soft, finger-style music. Whatever the style of music I played, the Heritage Elite performed great. I especially dug its clean tone while finger-picking.
I also forgot how fun it is to play with independent volume and tone controls. I usually peg the tone controls, then use varying amounts of gain between the neck and bridge pickups to dial in just the right tone for a song. I actually played most of the service in the middle position so I could take advantage of both volume controls, though I used the treble position for leads – the SH-4 JB in the bridge position rocks!
So, whether you use it in the studio or on the stage, the Prestige Guitars Heritage Elite will do the job handily!
By the way, I found out why these boutique-like guitars come in at such a low price point compared to their more expensive counterparts: The guitars are cut, built and finished in Korea, then shipped to Canada to have hardware added and set up. For people who care about build location, this might be an issue. But PRS does _everything_ in Korea for their SE guitars, and they sound and play great! And I guess that’s the point I’m trying to make. Who the hell cares where Prestige guitars cut and constructed? All I know is that the guitar I’ve reviewed has no finish flaws, and more importantly, it sounds and plays great! I’ve even lent it to my close friend, and he’s diggin’ it! He’s amazed at how well it plays and sounds! That’s the most important thing with any instrument.
Every once in awhile, I contribute blog entries to JemSite, the largest Ibanez gear site with over 750,000 members. It’s an old board. With this installment, I talk about the virtues of using a high-end pick. Check out the article!
Summary: Is it possible to build a better Les Paul. Prestige Guitars thinks so, and I think they’re on to something with the Heritage Elite. With its stunning looks and gorgeous voice, this is a great, all-around versatile guitar that will fit any style of music.
Pros: Very full and rich sound, and all the accoutrements make this guitar a real looker. Very nice treble pickup with higher gain settings.
Cons: This is just a little one. I’m not fond of the abalone outlining on the the neck as to me it takes away from the gorgeous vine inlay. But that’s just me. Also the intonation was off on the 6th string – again, it wasn’t a big deal – I just fixed it and went off to the races.
Tone Bone Rating: 4.75 – 6th string was slightly off in intonation, and I had to adjust it. Weird, because all the other strings were perfectly intoned. If it hadn’t been for that, the guitar would get a 5.0 rating.
Didn’t I just write a First Impressions? Well, I haven’t put this guitar down all day because I was having so much fun with it, so I decided to just go ahead and write the review. I’ll do a gig report once I’ve played it in a gig setting – which will be tomorrow. 🙂
Fit and Finish
What can I say? This guitar is gorgeous, and except for my little nit, everything is perfect on this guitar. I love the stain burst finish that really accentuates the quilted maple top. There’s no glue marks or finish mistakes to be found on this beauty, and the abalone binding around the body and ebonized head stock is to die for! The neck joint is perfect as well, and is nicely set with no extra bulk, so reaching notes in the upper registers is an absolute breeze!
Prestige really thought out the design of this guitar really well. The gold hardware is a nice touch, and the Grover tuners are the bomb. Even though they’re not locking, the guitar stays in tune. I’ve only had to hit the tuner twice all day due to temperature changes in my garage/studio. The vine inlay on the neck is oh-so-stunning, and reminiscent of high-end guitars I’ve seen and played that cost a helluva lot more than this beauty queen. How Prestige was able to build a great-looking guitar with so much boutique bling at a fairly reasonable price is beyond me, but hey! Who’s complaining? Definitely not me.
Normally, I can’t stand pick guards, but somehow, the pick guard on the Heritage Elite is really unobtrusive. This guitar just “works.” I dig it.
Playability
I have to admit that after playing “Goldie,” a Saint Guitar Company Benchmark that has a wide profile neck, it was tough to get used to the comparatively narrower neck profile of this guitar. But once I got my hands dialed in, I gotta say that this guitar is very easy to play. The C-shape neck is a joy to play, and the rosewood fretboard is nice and smooth, yet with enough texture to give great tactile feedback.
The thin body makes positioning very easy – especially for a big guy like myself that has a middle-aged gut, so how it hangs from the strap is important. I didn’t have to make any positional adjustments with this guitar, which is something I have to do with a lot of guitars.
The shorter scale was something I also had to get used to, but that’s not even a nit. Again, once I got my hands dialed in to play this guitar, it was so very easy to play. The action was perfect out of the box – nice and low, which is how I like it. They strung it with D’Addario 10’s to boot, which is my preferred gauge and a brand I’ve used for years (though I’ve lately been using almost exclusively DR strings), so the strings were instantly familiar-feeling. As I mentioned, the only ding that the guitar got was the intonation on the 6th string. I understand that this could be due to shipping, but it was off enough where I had to get my micro allen wrench and adjust it. That always makes me nervous with these demo guitars because I don’t want scratch them out of respect for the manufacturer’s hard work. But all went smoothly, so no harm, no foul.
How It Sounds
In a word, “gorgeous.” It has that classic Les Paul fatness, but it’s also brightly voiced, like a Saint Guitar. It’s not as EQ balanced in its brightness like a Saint is, but for what it offers, this guitar really kicks ass tonally. The Heritage Elite packs tons of nice harmonics and overtones that add complexity to its tonal presentation. And another thing that I really dig about this guitar is that it has tons of sustain, which really comes out in the treble pickup, especially at high gain settings! I’ve played tons and tons of guitars, and most have ear shattering treble pickups. The Saint Guitars and this Heritage Elite have the most usable treble pickups I’ve played. I think this is due to the guitars’ inherent, natural sustain. In any case, check out some sound samples I made:
Clean – Both Pickups
Clean – Neck Pickup
Clean – Bridge Pickup
Dirty – Both Pickups
Dirty – Neck Pickup
Dirty – Bridge Pickup
Clean clips were played in the Clean channel of my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, while the dirty clips were played in the Drive channel. For the dirty treble pickup clip, I slammed the front-end of the amp with a wide-open Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 clean boost, the best clean boost on the planet. That brought on tons of overtones and rich harmonics! Sweet.
Overall Impressions
I really like this guitar. It looks great, it sounds great and it plays great! By the way, this is their top of the line model, and at $1800 Canadian, it’s an incredible value proposition. Believe me when I tell you that you’re getting a boutique-quality guitar for a great price with the Prestige Heritage Elite!
I did a gear find about Prestige Guitars a couple of weeks ago, and was very intrigued about how this company could do such high-end work for a reasonable price. So I contacted them to do a review on their top-of-the-line Heritage Elite model. The guitar arrived late yesterday, but I had a gig last night so I couldn’t play it – oh well…
So with great anticipation, I jumped out of bed at 7 am this morning, and unwrapped the package. The guitar came with a nice, form-fitting old-school, black tolex-covered case. When I lifted the lid to see the guitar, I was blown away by how awesome it looked! The abalone binding on the body, neck and headstock was gorgeous, and the mother-of-pearl vine inlay on the fretboard is spectacular. But that said, if I had my druthers, I’d skip the abalone binding on the neck, but that’s just a nit – it’s all beautiful.
The finish on the body is incredible, with the burst stain bringing nicely bringing out the contours of the curly maple top. Around 8:30 am, my buddy Phil texted me and asked if I had received the guitar (I show him all the gear that I review), and demanded that we meet for coffee so he could see this gorgeous guitar. He fell in love with it immediately.
Out of the box, the setup was awesome, though during shipping, the intonation got thrown off a bit on the 6th string. That was very easy to remedy though, so it wasn’t really a problem. I also expect that out of instruments shipped to me, so it’s not a negative. The action on this guitar is low – very nicely low – with no string buzz unless you really hammer the strings, which is to be expected. To me, the action is perfect! The neck is nice and fast, and with a 24 3/4″ scale length, you can really move around on the neck. Another nice feature of the guitar is that it doesn’t have a big neck joint, so reaching notes in the upper registers is a breeze.
So, how does it sound? In a word, awesome. It’s very much like a Les Paul, with a Duncan ’59 in the neck and a SH-4JB in the bridge – two of my favorite pickups. The bridge pickup is nicely damp and rich sounding, and the treble pickup really screams. Played through my Hot Rod Deluxe, it’s got a great, mid-rangy sound. I especially like the bridge pickup. It’s nice and tight and doesn’t lose bottom end, which is a beef I’ve had about some Les Pauls I’ve played.
All-in-all, this is one sweet guitar, and at about US $1450, it’s a guitar that has a ton of boutique features at a relatively reasonable price point. I need to play with it for a few days to get to know it better, and I’ll do a full review.
But my preliminary rating is 4.75 Tone Bones. This is a great guitar!
It’s a huge step for that little shop in Fresno, CA called Saint Guitar Company. I’ve really gotten involved with Saint Guitars over the past several months, and I think Adam Hernandez on the verge of making the big time with his guitars. So to help him out, I asked Vinni Smith of V-Picks if he would do demo video of a Saint Guitar guitar to help get the word out, and he’s given it an absolutely glowing review! Check it out:
I love writing this blog. In order to keep my content fresh, I have to top into a lot of resources. No doubt, I get A LOT of announcements and stuff. Most of it I just let rot in my inbox, but there are some, like this press release from Orange that really catch my eye. Here’s the verbiage:
British amplifier manufacturer Orange, have for decades produced their instantly recognisable, brightly coloured Orange Amplifiers and picture-frame cabinets and more recently offered Black as a standard option. Their revolutionary styling, have not only set them apart, but literally helped guitarists the world over, stand out from the crowd.
Orange can now announce a ‘limited edition 2009’ white finish on their UK built, valve amps and cabs. The cabs have a stunning white finish, complete with black fittings and come with the classic Orange front grill cloth, Orange logo and crest. This finish has previously only been available for artist’s special orders and is now being offered as a special limited edition for the duration of 2009 and will cease to be obtainable thereafter.
The white finish has already been used by artists as diverse as Madonna, Monte Pittman and The View and following numerous requests, Orange are able to offer this for a limited period only at the same price as existing Orange amps and heads.
For further information contact:
UK and rest of world info@omec.com and for the USA info@orangeusa.com
Saint Guitar Company just released its first set of inventory guitars to the public today on its site (http://www.stguitars.com)! OMG! These guitars are gorgeous! As I test guitars for Adam, I’ve had the privilege to play both Messengers (double-cut): the Vintage Metallic Green Messenger, and the Solid Walnut Baritone Messenger. Both of these guitars are just super sweet to play. The two Benchmark (single-cut) and the Green Messenger guitars actually hung on a rack at the Mesa Boogie store in Hollywood for a few months, but Adam decided to take them back for inventory to sell them directly from his site.
This is a huge step for Adam. For the last ten years, he’s been selling his guitars to individuals purely by word-of-mouth. With the new site, he’s opening up a whole new way to get these excellent pieces of playable art! I’m so excited for him.
In the next few days, Vinni Smith of V-Picks will be releasing a video review of one of Adam’s guitars. I’ll keep you posted!
When I stumbled upon Tone Freak Effects as I described in a recent article, I didn’t let on that with the Abunai 2, there might be a Tube Screamer killer in my midst. As you may know if you’re a regular reader here at GuitarGear.org, I love my Tube Screamer. It is the one overdrive pedal that has stayed on my board for years. That creamy-smooth distortion with the mid-range bump just stirs me to the core. I use it all the time, even though I’ve been playing GREAT amps that break up beautifully.
So it is with incredible excitement and anticipation that Dereck over at Tone Freak Effects is sending me an Abunai 2 to evaluate. I’m always a bit dubious about overdrive pedals, and always make the comparison to my beloved Tube Screamer when I run across new ones. But the more I listen to the sound clips, and read reviews on the web about the Abunai 2, the more I’m thinking that if this pedal performs as well as the clips suggest, my Tube Screamer may have some serious competition.
Here are a couple of clips, both through a Suhr Badger:
Clean
Pushed
Impressive, huh?
The thing that REALLY turns me on about this pedal is that it has three switchable clipping configurations in addition to the gain, drive and tone knobs. That kind of versatility is extremely intriguing to me. We shall soon find out in the next couple of weeks.
I love writing this blog. In order to keep my content fresh, I have to top into a lot of resources. No doubt, I get A LOT of announcements and stuff. Most of it I just let rot in my inbox, but there are some, like this press release from Orange that really catch my eye. Here’s the verbiage:
Guitar Gear 