ABOVE: This Custom 24 in progress
was among the many interactive
luthier displays set up to show
attendees how PRS guitars are made.
LEFT: This Dragon in progress shows
the inlay handiwork of the PRS Private
Stock team.
FAR LEFT: One of Paul Reed Smith’s
first basses (left), as well as his first
(middle) and second (right) guitars
ever built. The first guitar originally
had just the bridge pickup.
www.premierguitar.com
FEATURE
Experience
PRS 2010
There’s one place to be every year if you’re
a hardcore PRS connoisseur—Experience
PRS in Stevensville, Maryland. That’s when
PRS opens its doors to dealers, distributors,
artists, fans, and the media for a few days of
clinics, factory tours, new gear introductions,
artist meet-and-greets, and performances.
This year marks the fourth year of the event.
The first big announcement of the weekend
involved the extension of the company’s
25th Anniversary offerings, which were
introduced at Experience PRS last year and
were scheduled to only be in production for
a year. The company is now extending availability of those guitars and amps through
December in order to meet demand.
Among the new gear revealed were six new
electrics, all sporting the company’s new V12
finish. The finish, which company says took 12
years to develop, will appear on all new PRS
guitars and is “halfway between nitrocellulose
and acrylic, with a classic feel all its own.” A
new bridge and new neck shapes and pickups
were also unveiled. The company also introduced a 25-piece limited run of Experience
PRS 2010 Recording Amps and a limited
batch of amps with special aesthetic appointments. Still unnamed is the company’s first
two-channel amp, which made a few sneak-peek appearances in pre-production form.
One element of the annual PRS fest worth
pointing out is the company’s growing
reputation for endorsing tonehound art-
ists and notable up-and-comers. It seems
that every year the PRS family, as they like
to call it—which includes artists like Carlos
Santana, David Grissom, Howard Leese,
Mark Tremonti, and Zach Myers—gains new
brothers and sisters you’ve never heard of
before, but as soon as you hear them play
you understand the fit. Sticking with that
metaphor, you could say that a crazy foreign
uncle has surfaced in the family—Andrea
Braido, a monster player from Italy. Braido’s
Saturday morning Tent C performance—
which went from death-defying shred metal
on one tune to chaps-busting country acro-
batics on the next—left the audience howl-
ing for more. Other new artists creating a
lot of buzz included Kristen Capolino and
Donna Grantis.
Main-stage performances during the event
included Orianthi, Ricky Skaggs, Cody Kilby,
Martin Simpson, Davy Knowles, Howard Leese,
Bernie Marsden, Kirby Kelley, and many others.
Other notable moments included a mad
scramble for attendees to look under their
chairs to see if they were the lucky winners of
a new guitar, as well as the buzz-saw death
of several new PRS guitar bodies, pieces
of which were passed around the crowd so
people could examine the feel and thinness
of the V12 finish. There was also a main-stage
Quest for Tone demo/comparison of new PRS
guitars against a Holy Grail-caliber ’50s goldtop Les Paul and a sunburst ’50s Strat. But
perhaps the most talked-about moment of
the weekend involved Paul Reed Smith tos-siwng that same a late-’50s goldtop Les Paul
back and forth with employees. Audience
members shrieked and gasped while peeking at the madness through the cracks of
their fingers. As it turns out, the goldtop was
a Gibson reissue that Paul’s team had done
a relic job on so it matched the vintage Les
Paul from the Quest for Tone demo. People
who saw the guitar up close say it was spot-on. Smith’s point: PRS is capable, but has
decided not to offer relic’ing because they
believe owners should put wear and tear on
instruments by playing them.
For more video and photo highlights
from Experience PRS 2010, visit
premierguitar.com.
PREMIER GUITAR NOVEMBER 2010 205
