PRS Guitars History

Paul Reed Smith Guitars wasn’t established until 1985 which makes it the new kid on the block in terms of classic guitars. Despite this, due to the company’s strict adherence to high production values, including the use of their own components, PRS guitars have become a big name in quality. If Hendrix had been around and had picked one of them up, who knows, maybe they’d have become the new Fender. Even so, despite the lack of iconoclasm, they are still highly sought after guitars, by both players and collectors alike.

The guitars were originally produced on a small scale for local musicians before any serious commercial production happened, which is probably why they are of such a high quality, not quite made to order, but having close contact with customers has probably informed PRS’s design philosophy.

They have an eye for detail especially on an aesthetic level when it comes to their highly figured maple tops, and their fret markers are also quite distinct and in some case some would say overly ornate. Others might even say that they went a bit too far with the inlay materials which have included mammoth ivory, which is not going to help the sound one bit, but will obviously whack the price up – it all depends on whether your perspective is that of a player or a collector. (They’re definitely not after the vegetarian dollar).

Most of the components are unique to PRS except for the Korean made tuners on some models – but – a tuner is probably the least intricate part on a guitar, which is probably why they ‘dropped their standards’ a bit there. The pick-ups are designed and wound by PRS themselves, and they’ve got several different designs, some of them even have alternate direction winding for placing in different positions on the top.

The good news for guitar players occurred when PRS decided to bring out the SE Edition guitars which were designed to a high standard, but to make them more affordable, the model was actually assembled in Korea. While not a collectors item, this guitar was and still is very popular among non-professional musicians.

Despite a legal wrangle with Gibson over design copy (which PRS won), PRS are still going strong and there’s a lot of guitarists out there just waiting to see what they are going to come up with next.

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