Chistopher
malapterurus electricus tonewood instigator
Yesterday I went to visit my nephew, who happens to live right next to the PRS factory. We went through and did a tour, which was very cool in and of itself. Theirs a lot of mythos that goes around guitar building, so it was cool to have a guide, the COO, who was very down to earth about it.
Going through the factory it was cool to see how the same level of care goes into their entire range of products. Every single stage acts as a QC check for every stage before it, and the final QC check requires an amount of detail that borders on insanity. Also all the overseas models sold in the US are shipped into the Maryland factory to be checked and tweaked.
The two biggest things that shocked me was the age of the employees and just the reminder that PRS has almost no derivative designs. I'd say just by looking, the median employee age had to have been less than thirty. I saw a lot of people that almost looked like they got the job out of high school. The majority of their guitar body designs are unique, their hardware is unique, their inlays are definitely unique, a lot of the steps in their process are unique, etc.
Overall a lot of fun.
But the most fun part was that they have a dealer about a half hour from the factory that they basically use as a test kitchen. Many of the guitars on the wall were in colors that don't usually dip into those lower price ranges. For example their was a really cool S2 Vela that had a pearleascent clowdburst finish. My guess is they use those guitars for practice for the private stock instruments. Also the more expensive a PRS gets, the less it looks like wood and the more it looks like a stone.
Any way, this is the one I got. A CE 24 with swamp ash body, maple neck, and rosewood fretboard.
I included one of their pictures and one of mine, because I got home so late that I didn't have time to get a picture with good lighting.
Really phenomenal guitar. Slightly on the heavier side, pickups sound great split and full, looks like a workhorse. I don't know what pickups are in it, but they are probably high medium output. Lots of mids, but when you split them they are good and scoopy.
This one does seem to slightly fall into the one-off category. The slight burst it has is not an uncommon finish, one of their regular limited runs of Vintage Natural. What makes this unique- and the pictures don't quite capture it- is that this is the only PRS I've ever seen that looks like it was made from "bad" wood. It's got an excellent grain, a little bit of curl and a little bit of birds eye. All the other guitars of this finish I can find are pristine, this one looks like they found it in the parking lot. That's actually what made me initially gravitate too it. PRS guitars kind of insist upon themselves, whereas this one was very no nonsense.
Going through the factory it was cool to see how the same level of care goes into their entire range of products. Every single stage acts as a QC check for every stage before it, and the final QC check requires an amount of detail that borders on insanity. Also all the overseas models sold in the US are shipped into the Maryland factory to be checked and tweaked.
The two biggest things that shocked me was the age of the employees and just the reminder that PRS has almost no derivative designs. I'd say just by looking, the median employee age had to have been less than thirty. I saw a lot of people that almost looked like they got the job out of high school. The majority of their guitar body designs are unique, their hardware is unique, their inlays are definitely unique, a lot of the steps in their process are unique, etc.
Overall a lot of fun.
But the most fun part was that they have a dealer about a half hour from the factory that they basically use as a test kitchen. Many of the guitars on the wall were in colors that don't usually dip into those lower price ranges. For example their was a really cool S2 Vela that had a pearleascent clowdburst finish. My guess is they use those guitars for practice for the private stock instruments. Also the more expensive a PRS gets, the less it looks like wood and the more it looks like a stone.
Any way, this is the one I got. A CE 24 with swamp ash body, maple neck, and rosewood fretboard.
I included one of their pictures and one of mine, because I got home so late that I didn't have time to get a picture with good lighting.
Really phenomenal guitar. Slightly on the heavier side, pickups sound great split and full, looks like a workhorse. I don't know what pickups are in it, but they are probably high medium output. Lots of mids, but when you split them they are good and scoopy.
This one does seem to slightly fall into the one-off category. The slight burst it has is not an uncommon finish, one of their regular limited runs of Vintage Natural. What makes this unique- and the pictures don't quite capture it- is that this is the only PRS I've ever seen that looks like it was made from "bad" wood. It's got an excellent grain, a little bit of curl and a little bit of birds eye. All the other guitars of this finish I can find are pristine, this one looks like they found it in the parking lot. That's actually what made me initially gravitate too it. PRS guitars kind of insist upon themselves, whereas this one was very no nonsense.
