Electric Guitars

PRS Electric Guitars founded by Reed Smith in1985 is based in Stevensville, Maryland. Paul Reed Smith guitars seem to honour the heritage of guitars, while still using new technologies to equip the guitars with uncompromising tone, playability and beauty. Paul Reed Smith Guitars now manufactures a spectrum of electric guitars and take pride on several famous endorsees like Carlos Santana and Al Di Meola. The attention paid to quality and craftmanship of every PRS guitar is the same now as it was when Paul Reed Smith was hand building guitars and tested them himself while gigging.

In the following review, we will see about PRS’s SE Singlecut Korina Hardtail Electric Guitar. The new SE Singlecut Korina is a versatile, light weight guitar with a musical tone, and is the first solid Korina SE model offered by PRS Guitars. PRS SE Business Unit Manger Doug Shive said, Musicians looking for all Korina guitars now have a new option within the PRS family that is unmatched in the market in terms of price, aesthetics and quality.

Body:

PRS Singlecut guitars have enjoyed incredibly popularity since rockers like Mark Tremonti picked them up. It is hard to not be moved by the SE Singlecut’s beautiful bodylines. Fortunately, since the recent resolution of Gibson’s lawsuit against the design, Singlecut production is back on track, we can now enjoy the new SE version of the PRS Singlecut guitar. PRS singlecut body’s simplicity really well suits the golden glow of the korina that has been used to build it. PRS Korina Electric Guitar has the advantage of excellent tonal properties without the heavy weight associated with such tonewoods like mahogany. The result is a fairly light instrument that is comfortable to wear and play for extended periods. There is a hardly traceable carving to the front and rear of the guitar that contributes a delicate grace to the simple body design. This is enhanced by a shallow comfort contour on the back and the “scooping out” of the body at the cutaway.

The maple tops they use are not heavily carved; the SE Custom’s top is totally flat; the flame effect on the maple caps is achieved through a seamless veneer application, and the famous PRS bird inlays are not on offer. But these are mere cosmetic differences. Vintage Amber is currently the SE Singlecut Korina’s exclusive colour offering. This Korean made instrument is finished extremely well throughout.

Controls:

There is a master volume and a master tone that are topped with copper coloured speed knobs that compliment the colour of the Korina quite well. Behind these is a 3 way pickup selector switch. The two large strap buttons are attached, one on the base of the body and one on the edge of the upper bout and the output is on the lower edge of the body in a chrome oval mounting plate.

Bridge:

The bridge is quite a simple wrap around design. It is a single lump of metal that hooks onto two large bolts that are set into the body. The strings are fed through holes in the front of the bridge, the side closest the pickups and wrap around over the top of the bridge. Here they rest on a fixed moulded saddle which is staggered to compensate the intonation. This means that intonation is not that adjustable although action can be adjusted using the bolts at each end of the bridge.

The PRS SE Singlecut Korina Guitar is loaded with two in-house PRS humbuckers, a “Treble” at the bridge and a “Bass” at the neck. These are black open-coil pickups that sit in cream surrounds. The SE’s specially wound humbuckers are designed to please a wide range of players, and they mate equally well with everything from clean to heavily over driven amps.

Neck:

Moving on to the neck, it is a fixed one that is made from three pieces of korina, which is the same wood that is used for the body. The profile of the neck is described by PRS as “wide-fat” and it has a nice substantial feel about. It is not wide or fat enough to cause any inconvenience to any but the smallest of hands, but if you are used to the ultra skinny necks, then it will take a few minutes playing time to get used to it, but note that it is really worth the effort.

Fretboard:

The rosewood fretboard is not bound but the edge of the board has been taken in with the gloss lacquer of the neck and this gives the visual impression of black binding. The rosewood of the board is medium brown with a slight stripe to the grain. The fret markers are crescent moons. Essentially the marker is a dot marker inlaid with two materials, the crescent moon is white pearloid and the rest of the dot is grey pearloid that represents the night sky. The medium fat frets have a rounded profile and are well polished.

Tuners, Headstock and Nut:

The sealed PRS branded mini-tuners have chrome finishing with medium to large tuning knobs. They are quite smooth and accurate in operation. Headstock is the reverse scalpel PRS trademark three a side headstock is faced in gloss black and carries the legend “SE Singlecut” and the truss. rod cover bears the PRS logo.

The nut is a chunky black plastic, which abuts the fretboard and has quite a tidy finishing.

Action and Sound Quality:

The PRS SE Singlecut Korina Hardtail Electric Guitar arrives with a decent action but there is still scope for tweaking it down a tad. In use, the SE instruments are no less playable or beautiful sounding than the legendary guitars built in Stevensville, Maryland.

There seems to be a real quality of strutting brashness about the bridge Treble humbucker that almost has a punk persona about it, glassy without being brittle, airy without being weak. Knock over to the neck Bass humbucker and the sound darkens considerably. We found this selection works best running on a clean amp channel rather than overdriven. Running both pickups together produced a beautifully balanced voice with the two characteristically different pickups complimenting each other perfectly. We found that the bridge humbucker was set closer to the strings than the neck humbucker, illustrating the value of experimenting with these setting when seeking to balance your sound for optimum sonic results.

Warranty:

PRS SE Singlecut Korina Hardtail Electric Guitar comes with one year warranty for parts and labour.

Verdict:

PRS SE Singlecut Korina Hardtail Electric Guitar is a very simple yet beautiful guitar. Playing on clean settings, it has a lovely airy tonality that wound suit jazz, blues or even country and rock’n'roll. But it can also punk it up or rock with the best of them. The neck profile is really comfortable once you get used to it and the looks of the korina are to die for. The PRS Korina comes with tough-looking padded PRS gig bag. We would happily buy one of these.

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PRS SE Singlecut Korina Electric Guitar – Technical Specification Table

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