I was talking to a fellow guitarist at my local music store today and we were discussing custom made guitars when he stated that “Prince’s guitars are perfect examples of show guitars rather than specific performance guitar”. What he meant by that was the symbol guitar and cloud guitar don’t necessarily give a required performance than he usual Honer guitar gives.

I know pick ups and fret board size does play part but is this statement accurate? I have checked the “Prince’s Guitars We page link” but I was hoping if anyone could tell me what does Prince obtain from each guitar. For instance which would give greater sustain, tone etc.

Thank You

The symbol and cloud both have recognizable tones. Prince has stated that especially the symbol guitar sacrifices some playibility in favor of good looks.
The cloud tone is very distinct. it's the lead tone on the Lovesexy and Batman albums and you can hear it very characteristically on the SOTT live DVD. To hear the difference between hohner and cloud, listen to Purple Rain on the Syracuse Prince and the Revolution live video. P switches guitars to the cloud halfway through and the difference in tone is huge. As you can hear on the Undertaker video, the cloud sounds best w/ heavy distortion. I think the clean sounds are a little lifeless. Most early prince rhythm parts are the hohner. As for the Love Symbol, I doubt he plays it much in the studio. Live however, you can hear the tone is like the cloud, but a little less focused in the midrange. Also, there's a symbol guitar w/ floyd rose tremelo which influences the way P plays it. hope this helps.

PBS said: