PRS Guitars
Paul Reed Smith Guitars, also known as PRS Guitars or simply PRS, is an American guitar and amplifier manufacturer founded by Paul Reed Smith in 1985 in Annapolis, Maryland. After dropping out of college, Smith began making guitars by hand and found early customers like Peter Frampton and Carlos Santana. Smith achieved wider success with his namesake company's first production model, the Custom, and the ornate Dragon series. PRS has continued to expand its product line with models like the vintage-inspired McCarty, affordable SE range, and signature models for players including Santana, Mark Tremonti, and John Mayer. PRS also produces acoustic guitars, basses, and amplifiers. By 2024, PRS had become the third best-selling guitar brand behind Fender and Gibson. The company is currently based in Stevensville, Maryland.
History
Pre-factory era
Paul Reed Smith built his first stringed instrument, an electric bass, in 1972 while a student at Bowie High School. After graduating, Smith briefly attended St. Mary's College of Maryland, where he completed his first electric guitar at the age of 19. The college awarded Smith four credits for the guitar, which was deemed "of professional quality." Smith dropped out of college to open his own repair and luthier shop in Annapolis, from which he and several employees built on average one guitar per month. In 1976, Smith built a custom guitar for Peter Frampton and took it to several concerts, where he knocked on backstage doors to try and show it to guitarists. Ted Nugent bought an early guitar from Smith. Al Dimeola ordered a 12-string model. Howard Leese bought Smith's first maple-topped guitar, the Golden Eagle. Carlos Santana requested a guitar similar to Leese's, and it was delivered in 1980.By the end of 1984, Smith had refined his initial designs, creating his brand's upcoming signature design elements, including its Strat-meets-Les Paul body shape, headstock design, birds-in-flight fretboard inlays, and dual humbuckers with rotary, five-way pickup switching. Smith debuted his new guitar model, the "Custom," at the 1985 NAMM Show, and afterwards traveled to retailers along the East Coast, collecting enough preorders to open his own Annapolis factory that same year.
Breakthrough
Paul Reed Smith introduced two factory production models, the "Custom" and the "PRS Guitar" which was an all-mahogany version of the Custom. It would later be named the "Standard" in 1987. As demand began to increase, the brand celebrated its 1,000th guitar, built by June 1986. With the company's reputation growing, a friend of Smith's suggested that he was not charging enough for his instruments; Smith would respond by introducing a "Signature" series, produced from 1987 until 1991. The "Signature" line proved successful, but the increased price facilitated a negative response among critics for building guitars only afforded by "doctors and dentists."In 1988, PRS introduced a more affordable option, their "CE" models, which were characterized by bolt-on necks, alder bodies, and maple necks, similar to Fender guitars. The CEs were originally produced until 2009, and then reintroduced in 2016. These were followed in 1990 with the even more affordable, 22-fret "EG" models and the more successful "EG II" of 1992, which included PRS's first left-handed offering. PRS introduced the "Dragon 1" model in 1992, with only 50 units made and an $8,000 price tag. It featured an intricate dragon inlay which ran down the fretboard, a wide 22-fret neck, a non-vibrato stop-tail bridge, and a new pickup design. The changes from previous models added a noticeable tonal improvement, which led the company to create a mass production model in 1993, the Custom 22. PRS then launched the "McCarty" model in 1994, offering a more vintage-feeling and sounding PRS guitar in honor of former Gibson president Ted McCarty, who had become a friend and mentor to Smith. The following year, PRS began producing a signature model for Santana, who became the brand's first formal endorser. In 1996, the company moved to its present facility in Stevensville on Kent Island, launched its website, and opened its "Private Stock" custom-build service.
Expansion
For decades, PRS's entire guitar production occurred in the company's Maryland factories. In 2000, the company introduced the "SE" line of instruments. These instruments, imported from Asia, offered lower priced versions based on many PRS popular models. SE models were originally manufactured in Korea by World Musical Instrument Co. Ltd., but since 2019 production has been moved to Cor-Tek factories in Indonesia and China. In 2008, PRS expanded its catalog to include acoustic guitars. Two years later, despite the economic downturn, PRS released 20 new models, 13 of which were anniversary editions, alongside new models like a singlecut McCarty and SE versions of the Singlecut and Santana models. With the S2 range introduced in 2014, PRS began offering less expensive, American-made versions of their guitars. The S2 range launched with an S2 version of the Custom 24 and two new models, the Starla and Mira.In 2007, PRS began offering amplifiers with its Archon model and subsequently added to its lineup signature models for Mark Tremonti and David Grissom. PRS also produces the HDRX series, an amp series based originally on a Marshall Super Lead used by Jimi Hendrix and housed at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Washington.
PRS offers multiple signature model guitars and amplifiers, most notably designing the Silver Sky with John Mayer. The Silver Sky and SE models were both included in Guitar World's 2025 list of the 50 greatest pieces of guitar gear of the century so far.
Construction
10 Top
As PRS's profile grew, the brand started getting individual requests for guitars with the most attractive figured maple tops they had available. Smith was unwilling to part with them without charging extra, however, and began designating woods with deep, consistent figuring as "10 Tops" and selling guitars made with them at a higher price point. Tops with particularly deep figuring—even by 10 Top standards—are designated for premium Artist Package and Private Stock models. How PRS rates these maple tops can change during the course of manufacturing, with tops upgraded or downgraded depending on how the figuring changes after being carved or stained. Although purely aesthetic, 10 Top models are among PRS's most sought after.Fretboard inlays
One of PRS's signature design elements are its birds-in-flight fretboard inlays. Smith first used bird inlays in a guitar he built for Peter Frampton in 1976, prior to PRS's official launch. Smith credited his mother's love of bird watching for the choice, with most of the designs inspired by a bird book he purchased for the task. He has stated the birds featured in the smaller upper frets were the most difficult to design, and several friends helped with their depiction. The birds shown are a peregrine falcon, northern harrier, ruby-throated hummingbird, common tern, Cooper's hawk, kite, sparrow, storm petrel, and hawk. Twenty-four-fret models additionally have a perched screech owl as the final inlay, although some fans refer to it as a "flying turtle."Originally, the birds-in-flight inlays were offered as an option alongside what was expected to be the more popular dot, or "moon", inlays, but guitars with the bird inlays were met with much higher demand and PRS made them standard. The birds-in-flight inlays have since undergone several revisions, with the original solid birds joined by hollow versions, as well as more artistic depictions. Some custom and limited edition models depart from PRS's bird theme. The Dragon models, for example, feature elaborate dragon-themed inlays that cover much of the fretboard. Signature models can also use different designs, like the Private Stock Orianthi Limited Edition's "Lotus Vine" inlay, which is similar to a tree of life inlay design the brand has used.
Hardware
Nuts are synthetic and tuners are of PRS's own design, although some models feature Korean-made Kluson-style tuners. PRS guitars feature three original bridge designs: a one-piece pre-intonated stoptail, a vibrato, and a wrapover tailpiece. The vibrato was designed with the help of guitar engineer John Mann. It was an update on the classic Fender vibrato and used cam-locking tuners, which offered wide pitch bending with exceptional tuning stability.Pickups
are designed and wound in-house. While most of the brand's pickups are humbuckers, some are a pair of single coils wound in opposing directions, one intended for the neck and one for the bridge position. Through the use of a unique rotary pickup selector switch, PRS pickups offer five different sounds: a combination of thick humbucking Gibson-like tones, and chimey single-coil Stratocaster-like tones. The standard treble and standard bass pickups use magnetic pole pieces in the non-adjustable inner coil, and a rear-placed feeder magnet in order to achieve a more authentic single-coil tone when split by the rotary switch.PRS developed pickups for the aggressive rock market, offering pickups such as the chainsaw, and the Hot-Fat-Screams initially used on the Special model.
In 1998, an electronic upgrade kit was released for pre-1993 instruments which included lighter-weight tuner buttons, nickel-plated brass screws for saddles and intonation, a simulated tone control, and high-capacitance hookup wire. In 2012, PRS released the 408 pickups used on the 408 and Paul's Guitar models. These pickups include innovations that feature no loss of volume when in coil split mode. They have an exclusive agreement to use wire drawn from the same machine that made wire for Les Paul and Stratocaster pickups in the 1950s.
Certain models of PRS guitars have also used pickups by Lindy Fralin, notably in the EG II and certain specs of the Custom 22.