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The 22-fret Starla uses a slightly altered PRS Singlecut body outline

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It's getting hard to second guess PRS, and never more so than with this new model that brings a Bigsby vibrato to a completely new, and very retro, model. It seems PRS is going forwards and backwards at the same time.

Introduced at the recent Experience PRS event, the Starla is another Joe Knaggs design. It comes a year after the Knaggs-designed Mira that first signalled an attempt by PRS to court a different style of player. "It's our way of going a bit more in the retro direction, the indie market if you like," explains PRS's Peter Wolf.

If the 24-fret Mira went for a more SG-like vibe with its double-cut, thinner all-mahogany body, standard PRS 25-inch scale and Stop-Tail bridge, the 22-fret Starla uses a slightly altered PRS Singlecut body outline, the shorter 24.5-inch 'Santana' scale, a Bigsby and new Starla pickups.

Bling-free

But like the Mira (aside from the maple top version added earlier this year), the Starla is equally bling-free with limited and quite muted colours, no figured maple top or gold hardware. The only option is the (expensive) bird inlays as featured here.

The face of the 42mm thick body is contoured like the Mira – not quite a carve but a little more than a chamfer – and we get a belly-cut on the rear. Only a 22-fret wide-fat neck is offered here (the Mira is offered with either the regular or wide-thin shapes).

Along with a scale length that's 12.7mm shorter, the feel is a little different – the neck sticks out less from the body thanks to the single-cut outline and it joins body at the 16th not the 23rd fret. It's a shorter length and stiffer neck at the expense of higher fret comfort. By design, this isn't a 'virtuoso' guitar.

Aside from the Grover tune-o-matic bridge and Bigsby – "not the first time we've used a Bigsby, we've probably put 10 or 20 on Private Stock guitars, but it is the first time we've used one on a production model," says Knaggs – and the slight oddity that this guitar features non-locking Kluson vintage-style tuners (not the locking PRS tuners fitted on the non-vibrato Mira), the other changes come with the new Starla pickups with Alnico 'X' magnets.

"The 'X' stands for 'not for public knowledge'," says J Hayes rather mysteriously. "The pickup is designed to have an extended range and a flat response."

"Paul and the folks in the pickup area developed these pickups to be really clean and really full," continues Knaggs. "They're actually my personal favourite pickups that we've come up with. They give that sound of '50s and '60s music, also guys like Chris Isaak. The bass and the high-end are prevalent, less mids, perfect for beautiful rhythms and super clean tones. Great for jazz, but what I notice is that it's perfect for older rock 'n' roll and rockabilly, especially with the Bigsby."

Sounds

If the original Mira ditched the bling and went for quite a Gibbo-like tonality, the Starla offers a different, more Gretsch-y, take on the same ballpark tone. It's brighter overall with less smooth mids, a sound that references Gretsch and Epiphone, FilterTron and mini-humbucker more than the Gibson humbucker. Coil-split, the differences are bigger still, and with a clean-ish amp there are timeless pop sounds – ringing and naked, uncoloured and jangly.