9 months ago

103

If John Mayer left Fender to use his Silver Sky model then surely there must be something about the PRS that Fender cannot do?
In this demo, I take a 2020 Lunar Ice Silver sky, a 2023 Moc Sand with a rosewood fingerboard and a 2014 Fender custom shop 60th anniversary '54 model and make a comparison.
Does the Silver Sky compete? Does the rosewood board sound 'darker' than a maple one?

Lots of interesting questions...

I was always told that a rosewood board would sound darker and more 'woody'. I was sort of sceptical really as a lot of information on the internet is just nonsense. So I am putting it to the test.
Bear in mind that any differences could be down to the setup or the pickups but in this case I have meticulously duplicated the factory set up of the rosewood board one (which was stock from the factory) on the maple board Lunar Ice, which need a set up after purchase as the previous owner had made it a floating tremolo. All pickup heights and string heights are identical and with fresh strings on all 2 guitars, it's interesting try them.

I'm using a Two Rock Classic Reverb and for the first round, straight in clean. For the next 2 I'm using an Origin Effects Revival drive for some very light dirt. I don't want to flood any subtle differences with distortion.

What do you think?
Can you hear the difference between the maple and rosewood? Is the Fender better or worse?

I am using 2 microphones on one 12" speaker of the Two rock 2x12" cab: a Rode NT1-A and an SM57 placed centre and to the left of the cone just off axis.

Chapter list for quick comparison:

00:00 Intro
00:16 Maple board Silver sky in position 5
01:01 Rosewood board Silver Sky in position 5
01:29 Maple neck Fender in position 5
02:01 Maple board Silver Sky in position 4
02:30 Rosewood board Silver Sky in position 4
02:58 Maple neck Fender in position 4
03:24 Maple board Silver Sky in position 3
03:47 Rosewood board Silver Sky in position 3
04:14 Maple neck Fender in position 3
04:39 Maple board Silver Sky in position 2
05:11 Rosewood board Silver Sky in position 2
05:38 Maple neck Fender in position 2
06:03 Maple board Silver Sky in position 1
06:34 Rosewood board Silver Sky in position 1
07:00 Maple neck Fender in position 1
07:27 Maple board Silver Sky in all 5 positions with Revival Drive
09:05 Rosewood board Silver Sky in all 5 positions with Revival Drive
10:39 Maple neck Fender in all 5 positions with Revival Drive
12:04 Maple board Silver Sky Final round
13:50 Rosewood board Silver Sky Final round
15:22 Maple neck Fender Final round