I was looking for a nice 7-string guitar. One that I could use for different kinds of music and not just the heavy, sharp metal distortion sound. After watching a few video-reviews online, I found a PRS SE sVn 7-string, a signature model by Mark Holcomb. I was instantly in love, but I wanted to play one first before I’d buy one. I mailed the seller (Thomann) for this guitar in November 2019 and they told me this one would be available in June 2020. WOW!!! I got a bit sad. I really felt like I had to buy this (and I think I will). But I continued my search anyway. One day at work, I received a message from my dad (awesome guy, you should know him). He found a PRS SE sVn in a place near us. The store (Kees Dee) had two off them. So I directly called the store and made an appointment for a day later to try the thing out. They had two models of the PRS SE sVn GB. A red and a blue/grey one. I went for blue/grey. I sat there playing on a random amp, tried different settings and I knew: “This is mine”. I bought it directly and took it home with me. And then the fun and magic started to happen.

Neck

Neck: maple

Fretboard: palisander

Frets: 24

Scale: 673mm / 26,5’’

PRS bird inlay

Neck Profile: 7-string wide thin

I like to call this a “fast guitar”. The neck is very thin and has a nice profile, which makes it easy to play for the average female hand. It might be too thin for the average male hand, but hey, everyone has got a different taste and in this case: feel. The neck is well polished so you can make easy and fast slides throughout the whole neck.

I use the Ernie Ball regular slinky strings (.10 – .56). With these strings on this neck, making bends or do a fast run, everything is easy on this guitar.

Ooooh, fun fact: I can still use my thumb on the fretboard! Jimmy Hendrix style 😉

It has 24 frets and that’s a big plus for me!

Mechanics

Pickups: 85/15 “S” 7-string treble and bass

Volume and tone control with push/pull switch for humbucker/single coil

3-way blade switch

PRS 7-string plate style bridge (string thru)

This is really an all-round guitar. Of course, I bought the thing for the heavy, metal sound of the seventh string, but I need it as well for the rockier songs. And its AWESOME! It can handle quite a lot of gain and the clean sound is really sparkly. I only add more treble on my amp with this guitar, because it’s got a lot of mids and lows in it (that’s what gives this guitar a warm sound). Thanks to the push/pull switch out the tone control you can create the typical single coil sound, which is really awesome in ballads and softer rock, especially when you need the more sparkly sound instead of the warm wooly sound.

Body

Body: mahogany with binding
Waved maple top

The woodwork is awesome. The waved top is perfectly finished, and the bindings are great. Also, the body is not too heavy. You can easily perform for 3 hours on stage with this guitar and feel great afterwards. It’s very different from a Les Paul standard for example (but I like those very much as well). It has a real natural feel when playing on it. There are no heavy chunks in the way, just perfect as it is.

Overall review

I think this really is an awesome guitar, especially for €815,- including gigbag. But I would have liked a hard-shell or flight case…

Keeping in mind that this PRS is a student edition (SE), it’s not really that different from the Carlos Santana or the Orianthi Panagaris PRS guitars. Oh well, in price. But not so much in performance. There are many reviews on YouTube about these PRS SE series. If you are interested in buying one, you should check these out!

The only minor I have on this guitar is the hideous yellow/white color of the pickups and the three-way blade switch. Why they didn’t make this black… I really have no clue. For me, that would have made this a perfect guitar.

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