PRS - How much of the tone is the graphite nut?

[ItsaBass]

Re: PRS - How much of the tone is the graphite nut?

I have not ever owned a PRS. But in general, I have noticed no tonal differences between nuts of different materials on the same guitar. Anything that I thought I noticed while playing ended up being purely imagined (as are most tonal differences that people claim to hear after hardware swaps IMO), as it was impossible to detect in recordings. But guitars are usually much nicer after a well-done nut replacement, simply because very few stock nuts are actually crafted well, even on "high-end" guitars. I put graphite or Tusq XL nuts on my guitars without any qualms whatsoever. It never makes them worse, and it always makes them better.

 

[Bludave]

Re: PRS - How much of the tone is the graphite nut?

I'm starting to wonder if all the players who attribute the difference in tone between PRS and Gibson are wrongly accusing the finish of being the culprit. Of course, the two guitars will sound different, but when Gibson lovers always suggest that PRS's have something "missing" I wonder if it's the difference in nut material that's a huge part of it?

PRS's are great guitars, so it's funny that people say there's something they can't describe that turns them off to them. What if it's been the graphite nut all this time??? It's such a minute detail, that we may have overlooked it.

Now, I can't wait to get a Tusq nut on my teal black McCarty with zebra pickups. The Tusq nut will give the guitar a new look too, matching the cream in the zebras.

For me its more about the scale length. It just feels a little odd in my hands & I have never been a fan of the tone of Paul's pickups. I have many friends who have owned a variety of models. And it seems like it always goes when they first get the guitar, they love it, then after a few months they want it to sound better and they wind up changing out the pickups, switch, etc. Then they put it all back and sell it.

Will a graphite nut make that much difference? No i don't think so.

Will the finish make a difference? Yes I do believe it can

But as I said earlier its the scale length that seems to bother me more.