New Gear Review: PRS Guitars New Baritones

PRS Guitars adds the SE 277 Semi-Hollow Soapbar and the SE 277 baritone guitars to their line. Both models include a beveled maple top with flame maple veneer, mahogany back, 22-fret maple neck with rosewood fingerboard with bird inlays, PRS-designed plate-style bridge and tuners, volume and tone with a three-way toggle pickup switch.

This baritone guitar is tuned from B to B—that’s two and a half steps below standard guitar tuning. A staple for Country and Rock music styles, these two new baritones offer a tight low-end sound for playing distinctive and colorful melodies or thematic leitmotifs. Sounds range from powerful aggressive tones going from chimey clean, to warm depths, to articulate tonal hostility.

Both these guitars have 27.7-inch scale lengths with the PRS SE 277 Semi-Hollow Soapbar going with a maple top with chambered back, F-hole and dual soapbar pickups.

Sonically apples to oranges, the PRS SE 277 has the same neck but with a solid body and PRS SE dual humbucking pickups. The SE 277 covers the spectrum of sound from sparkling highs, to surf- rock jangle, to heavy dropped-tuned aggression.

Available finishes for the SE 277 Semi-Hollow Soapbar are Gray Black and Vintage Sunburst while the SE 277 comes in Black Cherry and Tobacco Sunburst.

prsguitars.com/se277

Barry Rudolph is a recording engineer/mixer who has worked on over 30 gold and platinum records. He has recorded and/or mixed Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs and more. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and loves teaching audio engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. He is a lifetime Grammy-voting member of NARAS and a contributing editor for Mix Magazine. barryrudolph.com