Friday, 21 October 2011

The Legendary Prs Guitar

One of the most famous American guitar manufacturers is PRS guitars. PRS guitars has its headquarters in Stevensville, MD, and was founded by Paul Reed Smith, whose initials form the namesake of the company.

PRS guitars specialise in high end electric guitars, and they are famous for their unique tone. They were originally made for the average guitar player, but their reputation has grown such that they have become collectors items.

The guitars themselves are made of mahogany wood (hence the legendary sustain), with most of the guitars having a maple top. Paul Reed Smith guitars are famous for their highly figured tops, which include quilt maple, flame maple, and figured maple designs. The necks are generally made of mahogany as well, though some are made of Brazilian or Indian rosewood necks. The fingerboards of the guitars, like the Gibson Les Pauls are made of rosewood.

The guitars are also known for their signature fret markers, which have moon designs on the lower end and birds on the higher end. The bird inlays are especially unique, with each guitar having nine or ten different bird designs inlayed at the appropriate fret. The inlay materials themselves are also of the highest quality and have included semi-precious stones and materials: abalone laminate, gold, and (according to Wikipedia!) even unearthed ivory from the woolly mammoth (yes the extinct one!).

The tuners of PRS guitars are a proprietary model, and some feature Kluson style tuners from Korea. The guitars have three bridge designs: a wrapover tailpiece, a one piece pre intonated stoptail, and vibrato.

PRS pickups are an in house design, and are also wound there. The company keeps their wire and magnet type construction secret, which helps keep the unique sound of the pickups unique to PRS guitars. They have been given many nicknames because of their unique sound and are one of the reasons for this guitars popularity.

The finishes on these guitars are one of their most celebrated features, and they are achieved through a process known as "popping the grain." Popping the grain is a comprehensive staining process that helps bring out certain elements on the maple top, giving it a depth that is unique to PRS guitars.

The Singlecut PRS guitar was accused of looking and sounding too much like a Gibson Les Paul in 2001, and the manufacturer of Les Paul guitars, Gibson guitar Corp., filed a trademark infringement suit against Paul Reed Smith. A decision of a lower court was overturned and the lawsuit was eventually dismissed. The Singlecut guitar is currently in production. This remains the only incident in which a PRS guitar was ever accused of looking or sounding like any other high end guitar. The reality within the guitar community however is that if you own one of these beasts, you own a serious guitar capable of playing any style, with style.

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

Archtop Guitar - Why A Number Of Guitar Players Like This For Their Music

Of the many attainable types of guitar today, one worthy of considering in choosing which type of guitar you'll prefer to use in learning to play guitar could be the truly popular Archtop guitar.

Archtop guitars end up becoming the type of preference for players in all genre’s due to their volume, resonance, and tone. Archtop guitar may perhaps cannot match up the other guitar types in most aspects, but once you learn the reason why Archtop guitars are manufactured the way they are, it is possible to enhance your musical instrument by playing your guitar as it was made.

Archtop guitar or blues guitar is a steel-string guitar which has a distinct “curved” waist, and especially ample sound of archtop and blues. Because of this, Archtop guitars possess a reputation being an Archtop box.

Archtop guitar are designed to assist build rhythm parts in mandolin orchestras, and after some time, also with jazz and also dance bands. Made to strike out notes with highest power, they are even louder than flattops but maintains much less.

Archtop often have 3-a-side pegheads as well as neck that is very similar in width to a steel-string acoustic rather than an electric. High end versions normally have “block” or perhaps “trapezoid” position markers.

The top part or maybe the belly (and sometimes the back) of the Archtop guitar is either designed from a block of wood, or heat-pressed making use of laminations, the second way is a more affordable building technique.

The waist commonly includes two f-holes, the lower one is partially covered by a scratch plate lifted over the belly so that they will not damp the vibration. The arching of the top and the f-holes are similar with the violin family, which actually they had been based.

European spruce, Sitka spruce as well as Engelmann spruce are usually used for the resonant tops of Archtop guitar, although some guitar builders use Adirondack spruce (Red-colored spruce), or Western red cedar.

The very first acoustic Archtop guitars have been developed to boost volume: due to this these were created to be used using relatively large guitar strings. Even though electrification took over as the trend, jazz guitarists carried on to fit strings of 0.012 gauge or perhaps heavier for the tone reasons.

Visit us and check out our free Guitar Lessons For Beginners, offering series of lesson where you can learn how to play a few new chords as well as rhythm patterns. By the end of the course, you'll be able to play the song, ‘The Midnight Special’ together with the Jamorama band.