Name: Bourbon Cowboy
Location: East Corinth, Vermont
Guitar: The Bourbocaster-211
Solid-layered camouflage wood, zebrawood neck and headstock, and top-shelf electronics make for a unique and eye-catching heavyweight contender.
I’m the Bourbon Cowboy, a singer/songwriter from East Corinth, Vermont, and proud owner/operator of the Bourbocaster-211, an S-style guitar that I designed and built over the spring/summer of 2021. The guitar body and neck were built by a luthier named Tom Boise from New Haven, Vermont, who hand-labeled this body “Serial #1” on the inside of the control cavity.
The stunning camouflage design is not a paint job: It is solid (layered) wood, stained various colors and glued together before being carved into a guitar shape (you’ve likely seen cutting boards made with a similar technique). The exotically gorgeous neck is zebrawood, I believe, as is the headstock.
When I received the guitar as a gift from my brother and sister-in-law, it was only the guitar body and neck. There were not even screw holes drilled to mount the pickguard! I ordered and installed a set of Hipshot locking tuners, including the very cool Hipshot GT2 Electric Xtender Key, which allows for drop-D tuning at the flip of a switch. I lined the control cavity and pickup routs with black shielding paint, drilled a hole front-to-back for the ground wire, and installed a pickguard loaded with Lace Chrome Burner pickups.
A local luthier friend, Dave Richard, carved and installed the bone nut, and installed the Hipshot US Contour 2-point Floating Tremolo system, which is a delight to play—so much fun!
The Bourbocaster-211 is a heavyweight contender, weighing in at over 10 pounds. It plays with a smooth, charcoal-mellowed feel, but is also capable of delivering kick-you-in-the-face, rotgut whiskey rock ’n’ roll!
The .38 Special shell casing on the 5-way selector switch and a Jack Daniels neck plate complete the design of this stunning and unique dream guitar. If you catch my current musical project, 65 Miles from Normal, you’ll get to see the Bourbocaster-211 in action.
Send your guitar story to submissions@premierguitar.com.
This cheaper version of John Mayer’s signature S-style update plays and sounds like a million bucks.
A truly exceptional S-style instrument in the vintage tradition, with superb tones and playability, an improved cutaway, and a bridge-pickup-dedicated tone pot.
None.
$849
PRS SE Silver Sky
prsguitars.com
Budget renditions of established-model guitars used to make me skeptical. There was often a hitch: rough frets, pickups that were let-downs, funky pots, etc. But over the past decade-plus, the quality of guitars built in Asia by the major brands has continued to improve. PRS’s lower-priced version of their John Mayer signature model, the SE Silver Sky, is a premier example.
Apples to More Affordable Apples
The original PRS John Mayer Silver Sky arrived in 2018 sporting three of the company’s Mayer-co-designed 635JMR single-coils, all voiced the same for even tone. Its C-shaped maple neck—with maple or rosewood fretboard—vintage-style 7 1/4"-radius, bone nut, alder body (with gracefully slanted lower cutaway for easy high-fret access), 6-point tremolo bridge, and locking tuners make it a thoughtful take on Fender’s stalwart early-’60s Strats. And it quickly earned a rep as an exceptionally comfortable and great sounding instrument. At $2,459, it is also an expensive one.
But damned if the PRS SE Silver Sky doesn’t sound and feel like a clone at about a third of the price. The only substantial differences I could find were a poplar versus alder body, an artificial bone nut, a China-manufactured 2-point tremolo bridge, vintage-style tuners, 635JMS pickups (with the S indicating their Indonesian origin), and a slightly flatter 8 1/2" fretboard radius that makes string bending a cinch. The original Silver Sky’s secret weapon is also intact: The lower tone dial controls the bridge pickup. Fender’s Stratocaster provides no tone control for the bridge pickup. That means that when the sound in position 1 gets ice-picky, there’s no recourse besides dialing back your guitar volume (which in vintage circuits also cuts highs), your amp, or switching pickups. Not so here. If not for the distinctive PRS headstock and the diving-bird inlays, it would be easy to mistake this guitar for a very well-built Strat. And the SE Silver Sky is, indeed, priced the same as Fender’s Player Stratocaster.
Ready, Steady, Go!
Our test guitar emerged from its sturdy gigbag in beguiling stone blue—a PRS shade that recalls a cross between Fender’s seafoam green and daphne blue. The SE Silver Sky also comes in dragonfruit, moon white, and evergreen shades. Thanks to a careful medium-low action setup, it was ready to go from the moment I popped in the tremolo arm. The 22 smoothly finished medium-jumbo frets felt inviting and comfortable. They beg for string bending and really digging in, and there is no string buzz. I’ve encountered the same perfect playability on the necks of other PRS instruments I’ve played, so I expected nothing less.
In all 5 pickup settings and with all three amps, the Silver Sky kicked my ol’ dependable Strat’s ass.
The back of the neck has a satin finish for easy mobility. The bridge has individual saddles, of course, and four springs, to help with intonation and tuning stability. The 3-knob control set is laid out like that of a standard S-style, but the input jack’s plate is slightly arched, to make plugging in a little easier.
Playing the Light Fantastic
I have a ’73 Stratocaster with a nice, traditional voice I use as a template for evaluating S-style guitars. The poplar-body PRS SE Silver Sky weighs 7 1/2 pounds, compared to my ash Strat’s 8 1/2. I A/B’d both guitars plugged into a Carr Vincent, a ’64 Supro Tremo-Verb, and a ’72 Marshall Super Lead. I was bummed, though, because in all 5 pickup settings and with all three amps, the Silver Sky kicked my ol’ dependable Strat’s ass. Playing campfire chords and some chord-and-lick riffs, the PRS neck felt faster and more comfortable than my old friend’s, and while I managed to knock the Silver Sky out of tune a bit by bending strings hard while using the whammy bar, it was more stable than my Strat. The vibrato, by the way, has just enough resistance to require a bit of practice, but you can negotiate lovely surfy and textural bends.
Just for fun, I tuned the Silver Sky to open G and open D for some old-school fingerpicking with slide. It was a blast to really dig into the strings and snap the notes—listening to them sustain and fade with buttery, lingering beauty, holding high notes that sang with sustain from a Tone Bender clone, and adding shiver from the tremolo arm’s sway. And while I don’t typically spend a lot of time on the highest frets, the slanted cutaway in the treble horn makes it easier to play radical, over-the-pickups slide.
As great as the playability is, the 635JMS pickups are the Silver Sky’s stars. Compared with my Strat’s 20-year-old Seymour Duncans, they were bolder, more articulate, and responsive in every position, yielding fatter lows, more ringing highs, and mids to die for. And the volume and tone pots were wide ranging. In the 2 and 4 slots, the typical S-style quack and tubular sound qualities are well defined, the center setting is lush, and being able to easily dial back the brightness in the bridge pickup is a gift, yielding tones that cut without drawing blood from the eardrums. The Silver Sky’s well-sculpted sounds also work beautifully with modulation, fuzz, and overdrive pedals. It was a pleasure listening to its already transporting voice with long analog and digital delays.
The Verdict
The PRS SE Silver Sky is a pro instrument with a very competitive $849 price. It’s ready for the stage or studio, with a weight made for multiple-set nights, a fretboard that begs to be played, super-responsive controls, and definitively S-style tones. If you’re already an S-style fan or looking to add that voice to your palette, you should try the SE Silver Sky. It could be love.
PRS SE Silver Sky John Mayer Signature Demo | First Look
It's been nearly 10 years since Mod Garage guru Dirk Wacker taught us how to series-wire a Fender Stratocaster. Now he says he's got an even better way.
Image 1 — Drawing courtesy of singlecoil.com
Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. Today we'll talk about a kind of evergreen mod for a Stratocaster, to implement series wiring of the pickups. Longtime followers of Mod Garage might recall that way back in late 2011 we talked about this, but it's almost been a decade since that article, “Adding Series Switching to Your Strat."
Over the years, I've received many emails about this wiring, and a lot of people failed when trying to set it up … first and foremost because it's not an easy wiring. But even some of you who sailed through it had problems, so it was time to think about this mod again in order to enhance it.
This wiring is at least 20 years old and was the first version we used in the shop. It's not easy and it has some downsides, such as possible phasing issues depending on what middle pickup is used. It also has some problems with the controls. For example, you can't use it with the typical Strat configuration, leaving the bridge pickup without a tone control. No wonder that so many people failed with it! We don't use it in the shop anymore, since over time we developed a new circuit that does the same wiring but without all the aforementioned downsides. Now we have new downsides, but we'll get to that.
The problem with the first version is mostly the standard 5-way switch in combination with only a DPDT switch. When this wiring was developed, the 5-way super switch was not invented yet, and finding switches with multiple switching stages was a real and expensive challenge. But times have changed and today's hardware market is better than ever.
The new solution is still using the standard 5-way switch plus an additional on/on multistage toggle switch. The first "parallel" sound stage is the normal Strat operation we all know:
- Bridge pickup alone
- Bridge + middle pickup together in parallel
- Middle pickup alone
- Middle + neck pickup together in parallel
- Neck pickup alone
While you're playing the two "in between" positions—bridge + middle pickup together in parallel or middle + neck pickup together in parallel—you can engage the second sound stage with the toggle switch to get the two in-between positions in series rather than in parallel. This makes this wiring very easy to handle, because you only have to fiddle around with one additional toggle switch. I think it's a very useful addition to any Strat if you're looking for series pickup tones.
Only a few guitars use series wiring for their pickups. The most popular examples of series setups are the Brian May “Red Special" and almost all vintage Danelectro guitars. But there are several good reasons why you might want to wire your Strat pickups in series. If you want more volume and midrange out of your pickups, the parallel/series switching may be the perfect option.
In contrast to the classic parallel combination of the pickups, wiring two pickups in series produces a longer path with increased resistance, adding volume while preventing the highest frequencies from getting through. With series wiring, the output of one pickup goes into the input of another pickup. Meanwhile, with standard parallel wiring, each pickup takes its own path to the output. Besides being noticeably louder, series wiring emphasizes low and midrange tones, and this is a perfect combination to drive any tube amp into saturation—and also the perfect tone for lead playing.
Before we start, just a note about one of the most popular misunderstandings: Series wiring (also called out-of-phase wiring) is only possible when using two pickups together.
So what do we need for this mod? Not much, only an additional 4PDT on/on toggle switch. These switches are expensive and have a certain physical size, but it's no problem to place them on a regular Strat pickguard. Take care to buy an on/on type, not an on/off model. It's more likely that you'll find such switches in electronic stores rather than guitar supply stores. A 4PDT toggle switch is kind of a rare bird, but there are still plenty of manufacturers and finishes.
So what about the new downsides of this wiring? Because we need a 4PDT switch, you can't use a push-pull or push-push pot because they are only available with SPST or DPDT switches. But you can use a Fender S-1 pot for this, because the switch on these pots is a 4PDT on/on type. For more info about the Fender S-1 system and how to adopt the wiring to this switching matrix please have a look at my April 2011 article “Mod Garage: The Fender S-1 Switching System."
You also can't use this wiring as a kind of "deck wiring" with two preset stages. In series mode the three positions on the 5-way pickup selector switch where each pickup is dialed in alone are not connected and will have no signal output. It's possible to incorporate this feature into this wiring but you will need a 6PDT switch for this and these are really hard to find.
Any more downsides? Yes and no. You'll have to decide on your own if the following two situations are downsides for you or not:
1. There is no way around using two tone caps with this wiring—one on each tone pot. It's not possible to share one common tone cap like in a Stratocaster's standard wiring. I think this is more an advantage rather than a downside, because you can use a standard 0.022uF tone cap for the middle and a lighter 0.01uF cap for the neck pickup.
2. If you want to install the Stratocaster 7-sound mod to get access to all possible pickup combinations, this wiring cannot connect the bridge and neck pickup in series. You'll need an additional parallel/series switch if you want to do this.
So, here it is (Image 1). I tried to clear up the drawing wherever possible, replacing some ground wires with only the grounding symbol so there are no unnecessary connections across the diagram that might be confusing. As you can see, there is a strict separation of the two switching stages on the switch this time, and no jumper wire to connect them. The first switching stage is the stage for the tone controls while the second stage is used for the pickups. This is essential for this wiring and also gives room for further modifications. It's definitely not a beginner's project, so if this is your first attempt to mod a guitar, you should start with something easier. Otherwise chances are good you'll run into troubles with this one.
Next month we will take a deeper look into grounding—some common errors and misunderstandings about it, and, of course, some embosomed fairy tales, so stay tuned.
Until then ... keep on modding!