New signature model from Snarky Puppy’s Mark Lettieri boasts brand-new body shape, custom pickups with expanded switching system and more
PRS never lacks for new and exciting guitar models. But the company may have outdone itself earlier this year with the release of the PRS Fiore electric, a collaboration with six-string master Mark Lettieri, who is known for his diverse resume, which includes funk-fusion-rock collective Snarky Puppy, the all-star Vulfpeck offshoot the Fearless Flyers, his own solo work and playing for other artists like Erykah Badu and David Crosby.
The model features a brand-new body shape beveled and balanced to Lettieri’s specifications, as well as custom Fiore pickups.
There’s also a swamp ash body, maple neck and fingerboard, two-point steel tremolo and 25.5-inch scale.
“There’s a few things that I was initially drawn to about this guitar,” says guitar ace Molly Miller in the above demonstration video. “First off, playability. That’s the number one thing I look for in a guitar. And I know that’s a big thing that Mark and Paul Reed Smith were going for – getting a guitar that was easy to play. And they definitely accomplished it.”
(Image credit: PRS)
She continues, “I have relatively small hands so the neck is a big thing for me. I don’t feel like I’m playing a baseball bat. It’s easy to wrap my whole hand around and do all the things I want to do.”
Another signature feature Molly enjoys? “When you pull out the tone knob it engages the front and the back pickup,” she says. “It’s a subtle difference but I find it opens the sound out a bit.”
Indeed, the tonal options on the Fiore are seemingly endless, with a five-way selector switch and push/pull knobs on each tone control that make it possible to activate the three pickups individually or in any combination (including all three together), or run the humbucker in series or parallel.
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“In total you basically go from five pickup options to 11,” Molly says. “So you double… plus one more. It’s a nice amount of versatility where I feel like I can play so many different genres on this guitar.”
Finally, Molly concludes, “I want to say one more thing I thought was oh-so-sweet. ‘Fiore’ in Italian means flower. And Mark’s mother drew the flower on the truss rod cover. I thought that was a nice touch to this beautiful instrument.”
To check out this beautiful instrument for yourself, head to PRS.
Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.
