PRS SE SWAMP ASH SPECIAL

The return of a PRS player’s favourite

Though better known for their glued-in neck models, a PRS bolt-on has actually been around since 1988 when the company introduced their Classic Electric – originally a Fenderinspired, alder body/maple neck version of the pricier Custom and Standard. Despite its lower cost, the market didn’t really get the Classic Electric, and, renamed ‘CE’, it slowly became more like the Custom, including a change to a mahogany body around 1995. After dropping in and out of production it returned to the USA line in 2016.

In 1996, PRS introduced the Swamp Ash Special, named after its lightweight ash body. It lasted, in various formats, until 2011-12. This year it’s back in the Indonesian-made SE line – and is joined, for the first time, by an SE version of the CE 24.

Of course, the oh-so Fenderlike Silver Sky has taken PRS’S bolt-on offering to dizzying heights in the USA Core and SE lines, but the SE Swamp Ash Special (SAS) is quite a different proposition: definitely a PRS, not a Fender with the wrong headstock. The SE SAS sticks more closely to established PRS style, with a 25-inch scale length, the patented version of their classic vibrato and 85/15 ‘S’ humbucking pickups – Indonesian-made versions of the USA pickups. The HSH format is unique to the SE line.

Although weightier than we’d hoped for, the SAS is a superb playing platform with its shallow ‘C’ wide-thin profile neck, with satin back and perfectly installed and polished medium gauge frets on the 10-inch cambered fingerboard. There’s a certain duality to its sounds. In its standard drive mode, the two humbuckers are selected by a Gibson-style three-way toggle: bridge, both, and neck. Pull back the tone control and you get bridge/single-coil, all pickups together, and neck/single-coil.

Like that original SAS, this model captures a hot-rod vibe like a modded Strat. The tone is Fender-like, but with humbucking

CAPTURES A HOT-ROD VIBE LIKE A MODDED STRAT

clout giving a strong strident voice at the bridge and a deeper hot-paf-like voicing at the neck. There’s plenty of indie jangle to be had thanks to PRS’S treble bleed capacitor which helps retain clarity as you lower the volume.

Even with the single-coil out of the mix, there’s more depth to the sound than the newly released SE CE 24, which uses the same humbuckers. With the middle pickup in play it adds more Fender-y flavour (though you can’t select that single-coil on its own) that, aside from the Silver Sky, is unique in the SE line-up. Good to have you back, ol’ fella!