{"id":8593,"date":"2023-03-11T18:28:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-11T17:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thestoryinst.com\/?p=8593"},"modified":"2023-12-01T21:53:24","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T20:53:24","slug":"carlos-santanas-guitars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thestoryinst.com\/en\/2023\/03\/11\/carlos-santanas-guitars\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Santana’s Guitars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Carlos Augusto Alves Santana<\/strong> (born July 20, 1947) is a Mexican and American rock guitarist. He became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana<\/strong>, which pioneered rock, Latin music and jazz fusion. Santana<\/strong> continued to work in these forms over the following decades. He experienced a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine listed Santana<\/strong> at number 15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He has won 10 Grammy Awards and 3 Latin Grammy Awards.<\/p>\n

As far as Santana\u2019s<\/strong> guitars and gear, it is\u00a0somewhat hard to investigate the subject mainly for the fact that he\u00a0never attaches himself to one particular guitar like some other guitarists do. In the late 60s he played mostly Gibson<\/strong> SG Specials with P90 pickups, and with the beginning of the 70s he migrated towards Les Pauls<\/strong> and more beefy humbucker sound. In mid 70s he had a short affair with a Gibson\u00a0<\/strong>L6-S model, but soon switched to Yamaha SG2000<\/strong> \u2013 which he helped design. In the early 80s he made a final switch to PRS<\/strong> guitars, and he\u2019s been playing them exclusively to this day.<\/p>\n

\n

Yamaha SG-2000<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At the time Santana<\/strong> was playing the previously mention Gibson<\/strong> L6-S (circa 1975), Yamaha<\/strong> approached him with their new SG-175 model for a possible endorsement deal. Santana<\/strong> agreed to try out the guitar, and he\u00a0ended up making a list of the things he didn\u2019t like on it. He complained that the\u00a0weight was too low\u00a0and that the guitar needed to be heavier\u00a0in order to get\u00a0enough sustain. He also argue that a\u00a0two-octave\u00a024 fret neck was needed.<\/p>\n

After the first prototype was made with the intention of addressing those issues, Santana\"\"<\/strong> still didn\u2019t fully like it.\u00a0Yamaha<\/strong> went back to the drawing board, and with the Carlos<\/strong>\u2019 help decided on\u00a0a few more changes.<\/p>\n

They went for\u00a0neck-through-body design, meaning that the neck and the body are now actually glued together.\u00a0They used what is now known as the\u00a0T-Cross construction, where there are\u00a0two pieces of mahogany surrounding the center maple part going thought the whole width of the guitar,\u00a0with a piece of teak wood\u00a0(maple was used on mass-produced model) on the top of the body. All the hardware was replaced with brass, and\u00a0a sustain plate was installed to\u00a0sit underneath the bridge. As for the electronics, two\u00a0OPG-1 Alnico V pickups were used.<\/p>\n

Santana<\/strong> used this guitar\u00a0from around the time it was finished in early\u00a01976, to around\u00a01982 when he switched to PRS<\/strong>. His main guitar was the actual prototype which at the time it was made still didn\u2019t have an official name \u2013 only\u00a0in July 1976 Yamaha officially released the guitar as the SG2000<\/strong>. It featured dark natural finish, and custom Buddha headstock inlays, as well as body decals. His second most widely SG2000<\/strong> was a black model featuring somewhat similar decals.<\/p>\n

\n

PRS<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ever since the early 1980s this has been Santana<\/strong> choice of guitars, and he\u2019s been playing them almost exclusively. The person behind it all is\u00a0Paul Reed Smith, who approached Santana<\/strong> at a concert in late 70s. Here<\/a> is the video of Paul<\/strong> telling the story himself.<\/p>\n

Few details that weren\u2019t mentioned in the video \u2013 Paul<\/strong> said that the two met at\"\" Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD, around the time when Leon Chancler was playing drums for Santana<\/strong>. But going from the fact that the gig at Merriweather was played on 8\/9\/1980, and knowing that Leon left the band in 1976, drags some confusion into this story.<\/p>\n

Next important thing is that we get an almost exact date when Santana<\/strong> started recording with PRS guitars \u2013 early 1981, or during the \u2018Zebop!\u2019 recording sessions. And lastly \u2013 we are introduced to the fact that\u00a0the Washington gig on\u00a04\/21\/1981 was the first concert that Santana<\/strong> ever played on a PRS<\/strong> guitar.<\/p>\n

Now, lets actually focus on the guitar itself.<\/p>\n

Several different models were made through the years, and most of the time Carlos<\/strong> does not stick to one guitar in particular. The mass-produced models include\u00a0Santana<\/strong> I, Santana<\/strong> II, Santana<\/strong> III, Santana<\/strong> MD,\u00a0Santana<\/strong> SE<\/a>\u00a0(Korean made), and the 25th Anniversary Santana<\/strong> model. The first ever PRS Santana<\/strong> I was made in 1995, which means that Paul made guitars for Carlos<\/strong> for 15 years before they actually decided to make a signature line.<\/p>\n

The pickups used on all\u00a0Santana<\/strong> models are\u00a0designed by PRS<\/strong>, and in the beggining they were mostly all without the pickup covers\u00a0with zebra patterns on the Santana<\/strong> I, but since Santana<\/strong> II and III\u00a0they mostly\u00a0feature metal covers.\u00a0The body shape was designed by Paul<\/strong> himself as a sort of a crossover between a Stratocaster<\/strong> and a double-cut Les Paul Junior, and it is\u00a0built using mahogany as a base, and specially selected maple wood as the top. The neck\u00a0features\u00a024.5\u2033 scale length and 24 frets. The fretboard was\u00a0Indian rosewood on the Santana<\/strong> I model, while the later ones feature\u00a0Brazilian rosewood.<\/p>\n

As said, it\u2019s pointless trying to single out one guitar out of the all PRS<\/strong> guitars that went through Santana\u2019s<\/strong> hands, since he\u2019s kind of a person who doesn\u2019t\u00a0really stick to one guitar in particular.<\/p>\n

His guitar tech Ed Adair speaks of a guitar nicknamed \u201cSalmon\u201d, which is a sort of Santana\u2019s<\/strong> number one PRS<\/strong>, but most of the time Paul just makes a new guitar, and it gets sent to Carlos<\/strong>. If he ends up liking it (which he almost always does according to Paul), it becomes a part of his arsenal, and he takes it on tour. He talks very highly of Paul Reed Smith<\/strong>, and he trusts his skills and judgments when it comes to taking care of his guitars.<\/p>\n

\n

BELOW A REVIEW OF THE PRS SANTANA REPLICA<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carlos Augusto Alves Santana (born July 20, 1947) is a Mexican and American rock guitarist. He became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, Latin music and jazz fusion. Santana continued to work in these forms…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559,575,685,566,569],"tags":[307,642,749,644],"class_list":["post-8593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-guitar","category-latin","category-rock-en","category-yamaha-en","tag-guitar","tag-prs-en","tag-santana","tag-yamaha-en"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t