The signature model from Snarky Puppy’s Mark Lettieri is a “do-everything guitar”
The PRS Fiore is one of the most exciting new models to come out of the always impressive Paul Reed Smith stable.
The new six-string is the signature guitar of Mark Lettieri, and it’s as versatile as its designer’s background, which spans from the jazz-funk-fusion-rock-world-music collective Snarky Puppy and the all-star Vulfpeck offshoot the Fearless Flyers to his own highly varied solo efforts and playing for everyone from Erykah Badu, Nelly and Eminem to David Crosby, Kirk Franklin and Dave Chappelle.
To demonstrate just how versatile the Fiore is, we put one in the hands of guitarist, YouTuber and “edu-tainer” R.J. Ronquillo, who was only too happy to give it a thorough test run.
“You may have seen it making an appearance in some of my other videos and livestreams,” Ronquillo says of the Fiore (the name is Italian for “flower”). “I’ve been really enjoying it and I want to talk about some of the specs."
(Image credit: PRS)
And what are some of those specs?
For starters, there’s a swamp ash body with a striking Black Iris finish (the guitar is also offered in Amaryllis and Sugar Moon).
There’s also a maple neck with bird inlay outlines, and a “soft V contour which I really like,” he says.
Other features include a 25.5-inch scale, a two-point tremolo “which stays in tune really well” and new HSS pickups that have been specially voiced by Mark and PRS.
Those pickups are controlled by a five-way switch with two push pull pots on the tone controls. “One splits the humbucker and the other allows you to get the neck and bridge pickups together,” Ronquillo says.
Next comes the fun part. "Let’s listen to some of the sounds,” Ronquillo says. And then we do just that, with R.J. running through a host of humbucker, single coil and split-coil clean tones, and then shredding it up with some dirt-enhanced leads and rhythms.
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