PRS S2 Vela Semi-Hollow - Black Review

PRS' take on a thinline Tele?

It's lightweight. Mine is 5lbs 14oz. Has a comfy front and back bevel. Sounds fairly resonant and jangly acoustically. Incredibly versatile in sound. Think of it as a lightweight thinline telecaster with a 25" scale, 3 a side locking tuners, and a bridge humbucker with a very usable (as per PRS usual) coil split (I think they use a resistor to prevent all of the second coil from… read more going to ground, which both reduces hum and gives the single coil sound some more oomph so it doesn't sound thin and anemic). The neck pickup sounds a bit like a hot gretsch single coil and a stratocaster neck pickup had a baby. The middle position sounds are great with coil tap engaged or disengaged. Although it may take some work to really get the pickups balanced so they all sound good separately and together. Adjustable pole pieces help a lot with that. It sounds like there is a treble bleed circuit on the volume, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. But it's implemented well (many aren't and do weird things with the pickup EQ as you roll down volume) and sounds fairly transparent. It's just not what I'm used to. It feels more "hi-fidelity" to me. The volume and tone both have nice tapers, and feel very functional apart from my being used to hearing a bit of tone bleed with the volume. The neck feels great. I was worried it would be a bit too thin, but it's not. And I love the aesthetics -- classy and understated. It's a guitar that doesn't call unnecessary attention to itself and isn't visually distracting, which is more than I can say for a lot of the rest of the PRS line...no insane flamed maple tops and bright transparent finishes, no bird inlays. Just classic (in my case) gloss black. Mine came with a few small finish flaws on the body, at a pretty nice discount for me. It'll have a lot more on it by the time I'm done with it. This might be the first electric guitar that has screamed to me in no uncertain terms that it's a keeper and barring any unfortunate events, will be with me a long time. PRS hit this one out of the park.

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