PRS SE Silver Sky
PRS Guitars and John Mayer announce two updates to the popular PRS SE Silver Sky model: a maple fretboard version and the first color refresh on the rosewood-equipped model since its introduction in January 2022.
The specifications of the SE Silver Sky Maple are all the same as its rosewood-appointed predecessor, except for the fretboard wood and colors. The PRS SE Silver Sky comes in a unique color palette: Nylon Blue, Overland Gray, and Summit Purple.
“Adding a maple fretboard option to the PRS SE Silver Sky lineup is an exciting expansion for this guitar. Players have always enjoyed having fretboard material options for tone, feel, and looks. The buzz that the prototypes have created around the office has not been small. Having the opportunity to work with John on some new colors has been a bonus,” said Jack Higginbotham, PRS Guitars Chief Operating Officer.
The original PRS SE Silver Sky is also getting an update. Originally released in four colors (Dragon Fruit, Ever Green, Moon White, and Stone Blue), the SE Silver Sky is saying goodbye to Dragon Fruit and Ever Green and adding Storm Gray and Piano Black.
Shared specifications for the two models include poplar body, maple neck, 22 frets, 25.5” scale length, 8.5” fretboard radius, 635 JM “S” pickups with one volume, two-tone, and 5-way blade pickup switch, synthetic bone nut, PRS small bird inlays, and PRS Classic 10-46 strings.
“The PRS SE Silver Sky, and the Silver Sky before it, both disrupted the market with their introductions and have since become quietly accepted as real instruments with their own personalities,” said Bev Fowler, PRS Director of Artist Relations. “It’s been highly rewarding to be John’s [Mayer’s] guitar maker and also to see these designs in the hands of so many talented musicians who trust PRS to deliver the tone and playability they need.”
The SE Silver Sky Maple | Demo | PRS Guitars
A collaboration between John Mayer and PRS Guitars, the PRS Silver Sky is a modern take on a classic three single-coil guitar. John Mayer can be seen playing his signature model on solo work and in his work with Dead & Company.
For more information, please visit prsguitars.com.
On this year-end, in-person edition of Dipped In Tone, our two hosts look back on the year’s most inspiring pedals, guitars, and amps, plus the biggest gear disappointment.
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It’s the most wonderful time of year: the “year in gear” season is finally upon us, and we’re celebrating with this special in-person episode of Dipped In Tone. Zach and Rhett gang up at Zach’s place to run down the best of the best of musical excellence and oddities in 2023.
The guys start in with their favorite stompboxes. Rhett tips his hat to Old Blood Noise Endeavors’ Beam Splitter, Hologram’s Chroma Console, and Universal Audio’s 1176 pedal, which he runs as a hard-clipped overdrive. Some might say it sounds shitty, but as Zach notes, “Shitty is pretty in the mix!” Zach’s “boring” picks include the Nobels ODR-1, his collection of new Tube Screamer variants, and the Poly Beebo. Along the way, they talk about the magic of going back to old gear they’d written off in their younger days, and dig into the root causes of Zach’s discomfort with more experimental playing approaches.
Rhett sings praises for the new Orange OR30 and remembers its early 2000s predecessor, the AD30, and he and Zach agree on the superior, “8K” quality of Two-Rock’s current offerings over nearly every other amp on the market. Out of this year’s axes, Rhett favors both Fender’s Vintera II ’60s Bass VI and the Mexican-made Jason Isbell Custom Telecaster, plus the Collings 470 JL—Julian Lage’s signature. Zach spotlights his PRS SE Silver Sky, and a gorgeous Gibson Custom Shop 1959 ES-335 Reissue.
Be sure to stick around for the end,when the duo call out the year’s biggest disappointment in gear, which Zach describes as “baby’s first modeler.”
Judge not, lest ye miss out on a lot of great guitar tones!
Over the years, at various gigs, I’ve been asked “What do you need all those pedals for?” If it’s a civilian or guitar novice, I tend to run down a quick explanation of what’s on my board, citing examples, ideally, in songs they’ve just heard my band play. If it’s a wise guy with a beef about pedal tones, I simply reply, “Just following orders from Mr. Hendrix.” And I step away.
Wise guys about pedal tones irritate me. Any guitarist should be able to approach their sonic palette without judgment. After all, guitar playing is about freedom. Even if you're playing scripted parts, there is a nearly limitless way to nuance them. And, laughably, I’ve also heard, “Link Wray didn’t need pedals.” And “Muddy Waters didn’t need pedals.” Is it even worth pointing out that pedals, as a widely available resource for guitarists, didn’t exist in the days of “Rumble” and “I Can’t Be Satisfied?” Further, I got to know the late bluesman Louisiana Red a bit, and he was a hard-core Muddy disciple. He was also a fiend about overdrive and fuzz boxes. (And slide. In Red’s estimation, any tubular metal was fair game if it fit his finger and he could slice a length off.) Nearly every time I saw him play electric, he had a stompbox next to his feet, and his primary goal was to use it to recreate the dirty patina of the guitar on Muddy’s early Chess recordings—not “Creeping Death” or “Hell Bent for Leather.” I’ve also heard “Johnny Ramone didn’t need pedals.” And that is true. And I don’t care, as much as I love the Ramones.
There is also a difference between needing and wanting. In the late ’90s, I had a 14-piece pedalboard with my band Devil Gods. The lead guitarist, Mark Sullivan, had even more. And we had a blast with everything from waves of gooey modulated fuzz to live looping. For most of the life of my next band, Scissormen, I played a guitar plugged into a Marshall and, later, a modded Epiphone Valve Standard, with a tuner in line. That’s it. The program was music influenced by the blues of Mississippi hill country, so pedals would not have been appropriate. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's,” y’know.
“Louisiana Red was a hard-core Muddy disciple. He was also a fiend about overdrive and fuzz boxes.”
These days my pedalboard is messy. It’s got 11 pedals, but when I find time to populate the 24" two-deck Pedaltrain board I have waiting, that population is going to increase. Perhaps radically. I like having myriad, potentially unpredictable sounds at my feet and, more importantly, in my brain. At heart, I am an improviser, and sound is my paintbrush.
Clearly, I’m not the only one. This is our annual issue focusing on pedalboards of the pros, and yours, our readers. I’m always excited about this issue. Whose boards can I cop ideas from—about ordering the chain, about new devices or blends of tones? Who’s gonna make me nod my head and say, “Yeah, I can hear that,” even through the silence of print? I know that when this issue is done, it will have punched through my inertia and compelled me to set up my new board. And I’m excited about that, too.
It’s been a long, strange trip from learner to perpetual learner with the guitar, including effects. I started with a single MXR Distortion+ and now I’ve got granular delays, insane stereo tremolo pedals, classic vibratos, and a host of overdrives and fuzzes, including a prized one-of-a-kind Burns Buzzaround clone made by Gary Kibler at Big Knob Pedals. I also love Gary’s Tone Bender clones, and used both extensively on recent soundtrack recordings. I even own a Mantic Conceptual Flex Pro, which puts Hunter Thompson’s oft-quoted observation—“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro”—into a 6-dial stomp.
The other great thing about pedals is their relative affordability. You can find a lot of great pedals, like an MXR Phase M290, for around $100. And you can get a lot of expression from a good phase shifter. I can’t afford to buy David Gilmour’s black Strat that he used on Dark Side of the Moon, which sold at auction for nearly $4 million. But during the height of my drunken-sailor pedal-buying spree over the pandemic lockdown, I did spend a little under $300 on a modified B.K. Butler Tube Driver, which helps Gilmour get his sustain. And dang if it doesn’t get my Strat and PRS SE Silver Sky in the right tone zone. And that makes me happy. And isn't the pursuit of joy one of the reasons—maybe the biggest—you and I started playing guitar?Mesa/Boogie-built updates of two classic combos add boutique amp control and character to stellar vintage sounds.
Reimagines a classic small combo while adding modern clarity and punch to vintage tones. Power scaling is a plus for at-home and small-venue players.
Might not appeal to guitarists seeking a wider variety of sounds. Tremolo could use more range and is noisy at highest depth settings.
$1,799
Gibson Falcon 20
gibson.com
I love old science fiction and horror movies, and one of my favorites is The Fly, both the Vincent Price and Jeff Goldblum versions. The premise: A scientist developing a teleportation machine accidentally steps into its chamber with a fly inside, and their genetic material gets blended. Mayhem ensues.
Gibson Falcon 20
But imagine if that scientist was teleporting a vintage amp, and accidentally left a high-end boutique amplifier at the back of the chamber? The result might be the reimagined Gibson Falcons, which combine the pleasures of old-school tone with the clarity, quality, robust punch—and some of the functionality—of a modern boutique amp.
I love the sound of low-wattage Gibson and Valco amps from the early 1960s, and original Falcons and Skylarks—the latter model inspired the Falcon 5—are classic examples. They have lush midrange, fat, elegant bottom-end, snappy high-string response (with a bit of top-end roll-off), and they break up beautifully. It’s a sound that’s perfect for blues and other rusty-tractor-style roots and rock. Just ask Ry Cooder. But vintage examples can have a little fog in their voices, which amounts to a lack of clarity—especially with brisk, heavy-handed chording. I used to think eliminating that patina would kill the vibe that made those amps special, and I had largely ascribed that patina to aged components and speaker dust, until I heard a mothballed NOS Gibson GA-20 that had the very same qualities. Thankfully, that fog is gone in these two canny birds.
Let's Boogie
The Gibson brand hasn’t appeared on an amp since 2008, although in 2021 the company did acquire Mesa/Boogie. So, it seems only natural that Mesa’s founder Randall Smith and R&D director Doug West would be involved in resurrecting these avians, which are built in Mesa’s Petaluma, California, shop.
The only outward signs of Boogie in these amps’ bloodstreams is the power-scaling toggles on the control panels and the monitor and 4-ohm outs on the rear panels. The Falcon 20 also scales between 1, 5, or 12 watts (or 2, 6, or 15 watts, with 6L6 tubes rather than the 6V6s in our test model), and the Falcon 5 can flip from 3 to 7 watts with its 6V6s, or 4 to 8 with 6L6 replacements. The 20 has a 12" Jensen Blackbird alnico speaker, while the 5 has a 10" Blackbird. They are serious sound generators.
While power-scaling has become common, Smith was a pioneer. “I really enjoyed the Falcon project, as it harkened back to my early days in the late ’60s as a repairman— becoming the first boutique amp builder before that category existed,” Smith told me, when queried about the reissues. “I could try out radical ideas on a small scale, in response to what players were seeking, like separating gain and distortion from playing loudness, and providing switchable power levels to fit different venues.”
Playing through both amps with a Les Paul, a Flying V, a PRS SE Silver Sky, and a custom Zuzu with coil-splitting, it readily became apparent that power-scaling wasn’t Smith and West's only renovation here. With each instrument, notes and chords were tightly focused—even with my raucous Tone Bender clone. Overtones hung in the air, the mids and lows were fat and present (even with the Falcon 5) with just the right amount of sag, and that light, distant fog that colors the originals was supplanted by clean, well-defined tones—all without sacrificing the essence of the classic sound I associate with old, small Gibson combos. The adjectives punchy, clear, beefy, airy, and responsive filled my head every time I plugged in.
The Gauntlet
To challenge these Falcons, I played them against character on gigs, bringing the 20 to a quiet room and the 5 for a loud rock set. For the low volume gig, I left the 20’s power full and turned down the volume. Not an iota of its character was diminished. And the 5 was a barking wonder, cranked up to noon, with its humble 10" speaker maintaining clarity and focus and characterful tones despite the incursions of my drive, fuzz, delay, and modulation pedals—proving it’s far more than a practice amp. I’d play either Falcon anywhere, without reservations. And at home, the amps managed to maintain their essential personalities at all power settings.
Smith offers an explanation: “What I did in resurrecting the Falcons was retain parts of the circuit that contributed to its character while getting creative with my bag of experience to make it a hot rod instead of a reproduction. Doug and I auditioned different capacitors and resistors to get vintage characteristics, but the power and output transformers were custom-designed and refined”—the key to the amps’ sounding both old and new at once.
There’s no mystery to the Falcon’s controls. The 5 is dirt simple, just like original Skylarks. There are two inputs, power and standby toggles, and volume, tone, and reverb dials. On the 20, there’s all of that plus depth and frequency dials for the tremolo, and an included on/off pedal for tremolo and reverb.
The tremolo on the Falcon 20 is a bit too subtle for my taste, but it’s a sore spot for me with the originals, too. If I want to use an effect, I really want to hear it, and unless the depth control is close to noon and higher, it's not terribly effective on the Falcon. That said, there are pleasing, colorful tremolo textures to be found in the upper half of the depth’s range, particularly with frequency settings ranging from 10 o’clock to near maximum. This tremolo isn’t about extremes; it's about mood and vibe. Unfortunately, at high depth settings—say, after 5 o’clock—the pulses get noisy. That’s likely because the tremolo is part of the power section. And that’s an unfortunate trait of vintage examples, too.
The spring reverb on both Falcons, however, is perfect and perfectly vintage to my ears. It’s comparable to that on my own ’64 Supro Tremo-Verb, but with a wider range and glorious depth. It made my guitar sound warm and glowing, or, when I wanted to crank the reverb up, like a flashback from the original psychedelic era or a ’60s Chess session. It sounds almost otherworldly at maximum. I basked in its warmth and weirdness. Smith, again, shares his strategy: “The original Falcons were the very first guitar amps to incorporate reverb and did it in a way that we consider to be unconventional now. One could literally turn up the reverb while keeping the dry guitar signal completely off. But it was new technology at the time, which later evolved. I retained the original input, tremolo, and power amp circuitry, but the reverb was, again, more of a hot-rod approach.”
The Verdict
These small, easy-to-lift combos are loud, clear, and bold, and dialing in great sounds is easy. Dressed up in cream bronco vinyl and plastic handles showing the Gibson name inside them, they transmit old-school vibe as they provide updated takes on classic tones. They‘re also a cheaper, more efficient option than actual vintage Skylarks or Falcons, which fetch high prices these days. For their blend of modern efficiency and reliability, and classic tones, these birds certainly soar.