Comments about PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt Electric Guitar:

I currently own about 70 guitars including 6 other PRS's, 4 SE's and two American made. Been playing guitar over 40 years, do tech work ect. I wasn't too impressed with the Akerfedlt Sig at first glance but after looking at the specs and reading reviews the idea of owning one started growing on me. To make a short story long I bought one online. Normally I wouldn't buy a guitar without playing it first but PRS quality makes an unseen purchase more assuring. In person the guitar is very striking. I'm not an Opeth fan so the "O" looks like a sign of extra character. The faux binding is attractive. Along with the old school birds, nice flame with matching head-stock, ebony fret-board, and gold hardware, adds to the uniqueness. Also noteworthy is the maple neck, this adds sturdiness and a bit of snap to the sound, plus with 24 jumbo frets that sound true all the way up the neck. I thought I would get lost with all that upper fret access but really isn't a problem. The back of the neck has a satin feel which is nice, you could really have done this yourself with some fine steel wool. This guitar has a very professional feel to it, the electronics are good enough, pickups sound fine, no problem getting a pretty good vintage sound using the tone and volume. I set my amp with the guitar's volume at around 7 and tone around 5 to get the sound I want plus some headroom and this guitar works well for that. The sign of a good guitar is not being distracted by it's shortcomings and this is one that lets you enjoy what you're playing.

Comments about PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt Electric Guitar:

Great neck, I love the feel and sound.

Comments about PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt Electric Guitar:

Was a real good instrument for the price, I just didn't care for the neck shape at all. Call me picky but, it felt like a 2x4 to me, so I returned it.

Comments about PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt Electric Guitar:

Let me start off by saying that any negative feedback given on this guitar is giving such an injustice to PRS. Yes this guitar is not your American made PRS, but with what you get for the price it is unbeatable. I have been playing for about 14 years, and I have owned all kinds of guitars, from Fender, Ibanezes, Peaveys, Gibsons, Parker, etc all theses guiatrs ranging from $700 and up to $1800. For this guitar being my first PRS all though SE, it holds its weight 10 fold. Little neck adjustments needed to be made right out of the box as well as levels being rasied and lowered on the pickups, other than that awsome. The sound for stock pu are refreshingly crisp and clean; full of tone if you know how to adjust your pu correctly. I've owned this guitar for over 8 months now and still love it, about to check out the Paul Allender SE and see what it can do. My advice dont listen to the crap about this guitar yes the "O" is a little cheesey I'll give it that, but the dark rich color of the brown is enough to careless about the O. Gold hardware still holding strong no fades and bridge and trem are out of the box quality still.So instead of breaking your bank trying to get that Gibson or American Fender, save some money and gain better sound and quality. BUY IT.

Comments about PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt Electric Guitar:

The Mikael Akerfeldt PRS SE signature guitar is a wonderful but strange instrument. That is also how I would characterize a lot of Opeths music, so its a fitting parable. Ive played with it since May of 2011 and have had a positive experience despite some hiccups.

The color is described as tortoise shell but it definitely has a burgundy and brown feel. With the gold hardware it has a classy look. The neck is smooth and has a satin finish making it extremely fast to play. The fret board is real ebony and not a look-alike. It is also refreshing to see the signature PRS bird inlays that arent normally on the more affordable SE models. The Opeth O symbol is a bit tacky and you'll certainly have to explain to people who don't know what it is; though it does match the overall look of the guitar.

It has two humbucking pickups; a PRS designed Bass in the neck and the PRS designed Treble in the bridge. The Treble does not have a particular bite to it and I found that it couldnt make pinch harmonics scream like I could on something like a Duncan JB. It does have a nice classic rock crunch to it. Metal tones are hard to obtain, even when I tried it using a Boss Metal Zone and a Blackstar DistX. The Bass pickup, on the other hand, was very versatile and I was able to get good jazz and blues tones from it. I even preferred it for warm, singing solos. If you're looking for a Mikael Akerfeldt and Opeth tone I would recommend switching out the bridge pickup to something a little hotter. I do believe that Mikael Akerfeldt uses older PRS models with the excellent Dragon-II pickups. I did feel a bit hamstrung with only one volume and one tone control.

As I stated earlier the guitar has a classy look with its gold colored hardware, but overall it feels cheap and affects the quality. The tremolo is quite solid for being non-locking. The instrument goes out of tune quite frequently and I found myself having to do quick adjustments after each full song performed. Finally, after about five months of ownership the tremolo started humming any time many notes were struck. I took all the strings off and found that several of the saddles were loose and some of the other fittings on the tremolo could have been tightened up. I haven't had a noise issue since.

This is a great guitar for blues, rock, or that melancholy style that Opeth is known for. It may fall short in terms of crushing metal tones, but it has a characteristic all its own. It reminds me of a much better looking Epiphone Les Paul Standard. If youre an Opeth fan or you just want a great PRS branded budget model this is a great choice. I was lucky enough to compare this model against 3 American PRS models ('58 Singlecut, Custom 22, Santana). I feel that if this guitar had better hardware and better electronics the difference between them would be almost unnoticeable

Comments about PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt Electric Guitar:

I am the lead guitarist that Ron McDonald references in his review of this amazing instrument. Ron brought me this guitar to try during a sound check. I am quite partial to my Les Paul Custom and my SG, so I was hesitant about playing someone else's guitar. But I decided there was no harm in cruising it during a sound check.

I was struck by the quality and feel of this guitar - namely the color, character and depth of tone. The pickups are warm, colorful, soulful and smooth like a Burstbucker or PAF. They are NOT harsh, shrill metallic garbage. They churn out fat tone with a TON of character. And this guitar LOVES tube amps. With every notch dialed back, the signal cleans up nicely. You can go from clean, to a really glassy Eric Johnson-like tone, to all out mayhem just by rolling the volume.

The neck is absolutely the finest neck to solo on that I have ever laid hands upon. I have owned and continue to own various Gibson USA guitars, Fenders and other noteworthy instruments. This guitar stands with any Les Paul Standard I've ever touched. The frets are jumbo, the neck is smooth as silk, fret edges perfectly dressed and you can access the upper register like it's nothing. I can't say enough. I couldn't put this guitar down. I practically begged our bass player to trade me for my Gibson SG, realizing it cost several hundred dollars more, but I was in love. Instead I sold the SG and added one of these to my arsenal.

This is one high-quality axe. Think this is just some heavy metal shred machine with no character? Think again. It encompasses everything great about vintage instruments wtih modern edge to push it over the top. This is my new favorite guitar.

Comments about PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt Electric Guitar:

This is a great guitar that could be used in any style. I love Opeth and Mike Akerfeldt but my playing leans towards more rock than metal. And all I can say is how nice this guitar plays, sounds and looks. By trade I am a bass player but I use this in studio work. PRS knows what they are doing. Buy this guitar, you won't regret it.
This guitar has anything you could expect out of a guitar. The pickups are exceptionally nice. They are clear focused and just a tad on the hot side, making them great for Rock/Metal. I use Guitar Rig 4 with a M-Audio Fast track pro and it comes through the monitors sound great. The trem is also very well made. It will stay in tune fairly well (And even better with Gotoh Locking tuners) so long as you dont abuse it like a Floyd Rose, I mean come on, this isn't the 80's guys.
Aesthetically speaking I thought the O was going to bother me, but in reality I think it looks nice matched up with the gold hardware, the only reason I wish it wasn't there is because the flame maple top is so gorgeous. The guitar isn't nearly as red as the picture appears. It's much more of a brown color, which I find more appealing.
The satin neck isn't really satin. (hence the 9) It's actually just the standard lacquer dry sanded to about 600grit sandpaper. I thought it felt awful. I have hands on the dryer side and prefer a gloss finish on the back of necks. The sanded neck dried out my hands and made them feel gross. This was easily remedied though with some taping and wet sanding followed by polishing. I wasn't able to get every little spot back to gloss bur it was good enough for me, and I'm certain it will only get better with time.
I wasn't able to try this guitar prior to purchasing it although I had triedother PRS's with the same neck shape (Wide-fat) and it feels just as good.
Also, I love the Ebony board and all its slickness.
The quality on this guitar is about what I expected. There are a few spots where you can tell it was made over seas. I have a spot on the headstock where the buffer wheel burned through but I'm sure I could have returned it had it bothered me enough.
I poked my head in the electronics to make sure everythign was soldered well and it was.
The stock tuners are very nice although because of the trem I would suggest eventually upgrading to locking tuners. I went with the Gotoh locking machine heads and they were a direct fit and have the same buttone shape. I highly reccomend them
The thing that impressed me most with this guitar was the fretwork. The Frets were perfectly leveled, dressed, crowned and de-tanged. The side of the neck feels like theres binding because they are so nicely worked. Very impressive PRS.
This guitar may be the best value out of all the PRS SE models. It has gold hardware, 24 frets, bird inlays, flamed top, and a ebony fingerboard to boot. Best value of any guitar in the 500-700 range in my book.

Comments about PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt Electric Guitar:

I ordered this because I wanted a cheap-ish guitar with humbuckers to play some heavy stuff(All my other guitars have P-90s).The neck is amazing, it's the first "satin" finish neck I've played on, and honestly I think I want every future guitar to have one. It's sooo smooth! The neck is beefy, sort of the fat gibson style.The pickups sound great, but I might change them eventually. But they are pretty solid as is.The tremolo is pretty nice, it stays in tune A LOT better than I expected. The inlays are nice, I never really liked the bird thing, but they have grown on me.The finish looks great, and the Opeth logo is considerably better looking in person than I thought it would be. That was my least favorite part of the guitar, buuuut it too has grown on me.

Comments about PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt Electric Guitar:

The images of this guitar do it absolutely no justice. Online, it appears red and the "O" is very vibrant; however, it is actually a beautiful brown and the "O" is very subtle. Don't let the Opeth logo scare you away from this guitar. It plays easily and sounds wonderful on clean and distorted channels. The back of the neck is sanded and the bridge is a frosted, which allow for both hands to move easily and smoothly about the guitar. 1000 characters is not enough to explain how much I love this guitar.

Comments about PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt Electric Guitar:

I have this order since late Nov and still Anxiously waiting for delivery. Does the finish and color look the same as in the PRS website. I am hoping its cherry colored but I've seen pictures of a very tannish color. Hoping it looks like the PRS website. Please comment