The PRS Custom 24: A Short History

[Music] hi miss Keith lambs welcome to five wot world learn stand helping you get the most music from the least gear after a decade as a custom guitar builder having bought guitars for carlos santana ted nugent and peter frampton by the end of 1985 a young Paul Reed Smith moved into a factory on Virginia Avenue in Annapolis Maryland he did this solely on the backs of orders he generated from a recent sales trip and on their success at the Winter NAMM show that spring they worked on the 20 or so guitars that they were prepping for the upcoming summer name show and the first serial number instruments came off the line in August of 85 at that time he had 18 people working at the factory now in December of 2019 PRS employs over 300 people and produces approximately 1,800 guitars a month how did PRS in just 35 short years become one of the big three guitar builders in the world and how did the history of their flagship model the custom 24 figure into that success if you're as curious as I am stay tuned because this is the five white world short history of the PRS custom twenty four if you enjoy our videos take a minute to subscribe and hit the bell icon to be notified when we put out new videos and if you've already subscribed swing by the store and grab a t-shirt or a mug to support what we're doing here there's a link in the description any student at guitar history will recognize the construction principles of the iconic 50s Les Paul like so many inspired innovations the earliest PRS guitar was not revolutionary but it was rather evolutionary in 1982 Smith Tolga tar Player magazine the whole idea is to understand why those old Les Paul guitars the standards the customs TV models cherry sunburst and gold tops were great guitars he said to my ears old juniors specials Les Paul sounded good so did old strats with Brazilian rosewood boards sometimes the maple board one sounded really good too the PRS guitar appeared in a market crowded with oddly shaped hair metal guitars and it was a breath of fresh air the custom as it was simply called had a one piece mahogany neck glued into a one piece mahogany body topped with a uniquely car from maple top with what became known as a natural binding Smith hadn't used the traditional plastic binding instead opting for the natural curly maple showing through Smith didn't shy away from the combination of fender meets Gibson influences he settled on a 25 inch scale somewhere between the 25 and 1/2 inches of most fenders and the 24 and 3/4 of many Gibson's he intentionally split the difference between the two worlds hoping to reach both distract guys and the Les Paul guys so as not to lose half of his market right out of the chute Smith said we took a strat shape and a junior shape and drew them on top of each other and averaged the lines and that came out looking horrible it was unusable so I started on the new design my baby I worked very slowly and it took about two years to draw there were two guitars and all mahogany guitar and the one with a fancy maple top on the early price list they listed the all mahogany guitar as the Paul Reed Smith guitar and the curly maple top guitar as the Paul Reed Smith custom it wasn't until 87 that the mahogany guitar became known as the standard of the early model designations Paul simply states the PRS model with the moon inlays was supposed to be a workingman's guitar it just so happened that most people wanted the curly maple top there was a way for style 5 way rotary switch which gave you the full humbucking positions but also split coil sounds that you might have found on a Stratocaster and interestingly there was no tone control on a guitar rather there was a sweet switch this switch simulated the use of a one hundred and four foot guitar cable as anyone that's looked into adding buffers to their pedal board would have learned adding cable between your guitar and amp adds capacitance effectively rolling off the top end by most accounts this was added at the request of Carlos Santana it was moving from using very long guitar cables onstage to a wireless system and this was there to simulate the cable tone he was used to the guitars had speed knobs that were connected to note we now call PRS standard treble and bass pickups the next shape of the pre factory in early factory guitars were very similar to the current pattern neck and if you're curious about the history of net carbs at PRS over the years I'll refer you to an excellent page on the PRS website the minutia of changes in shapes and models is detailed there and is worthy of a video of its own the fret boards on the early guitars were Brazilian rosewood and they covered a single-action truss rod the original Santana commissioned and sent Smith tracking down everything he could learn about keeping a strat vibrato in tune the generation 1 vibrato was the work of Smith and John Mann an engineer and guitarist the Smith had met in 78 when man needed an SG that he'd received as a wedding present from his cousin refinished his cousin referred him to Paul and the rest as they say is history the bridge they built together had a single casting of both the bridge plate and the block it's a six screw pivot bridge like a vintage strat but with each screw notch so there's a specific pivot point for the knife edge of the bridge plate man had suggested the waltz around on the plate to eliminate sideways movement of the saddles and the original screws used were stainless steel to eliminate corrosion the Bharata arm itself is also the product of Smith's experience repairing Stratocasters screw and strat arms often broke off if over tightened requiring expensive repair to avoid this they designed a push in arm the early ones were simply lubricated to fit but the later ones had Delrin bushings an adjustment screw for tension but the success of the system doesn't come down to just the vibrato itself it also depends on the nut which was made from a nylon teflon compound and the PRS locking tuners that were fitted as standard Smith developed the tuners with Erik Pritchard and together they developed the original wing collar tuners that were on the original guitars at NAMM in 1985 the first review of the guitars was done in the April 86 issue of Guitar Player magazine the reviewer was no less than luthier Rick Turner who was probably best known for building guitars used by Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac Turner concluded the review saying I've not played an electric guitar I like better and very few I liked as much including ones I made myself this is a wonderful subtle instrument for discerning players who know the difference but all this quality came at a price a really big price a fully loaded custom with burden Lay's and Brazilian rosewood fingerboard listed for one thousand five hundred and fifty dollars in the same year a Gibson Les Paul Standard listed for 995 and a us-made vintage style strat listed for seven hundred and fifty dollars so there may have been grumblings about the high price but when you looked at the construction unique parts and finishing and amount a handwork it brought that price back into focus remember the Fender Custom Shop was founded in 87 and the Gibson Custom Shop would now be formalized until 93 Paul Reed Smith was setting out to create custom shop quality in Woods hardware and construction in the production guitars at PRS before the big two had even created their custom shops it might be argued that the advent of PRS and their early success was a wake-up call to both Gibson and fender and on top of that PRS had succeeded in doing something that neither the others had done in over 30 years they brought an entirely new guitar style to the market and it's sold by the mid 80s fender and Gibson's best efforts were concentrated on looking back to the beginnings and tried to recreate their glory days whereas PRS learned from them both and leapfrogged over them into the future early adopters of the new guitar included Tom Johnston from the Doobie Brothers and David Grissom who was playing with Joey Lee at the time after the huge push that brought the custom to market was done they headed down the road of constant improvement that continues to this day the first batch of changes had to do with the electronics in October of 87 the rotary switches middle position which was originally both pickups in humbucking mode like the middle position of a Les Paul changed to what they called series strat a sweetened version of position to bridge and middle pickups of Stratocaster this was accomplished by using the two inside coils of the humbuckers and wiring them in series the next change was to remove the out of phase sound and it was replaced with two the two outside coils of the humbuckers for sound they described as deep and clear like a Telecaster with both pickups on by 1991 the pickups would be replaced with what PRS called the hf s and vintage bass pickups and the fret boards were changed from brazilian to indian rosewood except for limited runs though the custom 24 was evolving and guitars could be ordered with lots of custom options there wasn't another model in the catalog until the custom 22 in 1993 the 22 was the result of the ultra high-end project dragon guitars the PRS had made with a shorter and stiffer 22 fret neck Smith really liked the different sound of the 22 fret knack so by the next year all the guitars in the line were offered with a 22 fret neck as well but not just the length of the neck had changed the standard neck shape moved to what PRS called their wide fad known in the UK as the artist profile which was the width of the wide thin neck with the depth of the standard neck profile the heel of the neck was lengthened as well to add stiffness a stop tail piece version of the guitar became available in 93 - it was at this time that the custom had to become known as the custom 24 to differentiate it from the new custom 22 guitar in 93 they moved to the second generation two-piece tremolo bridge the first gen trim as you might remember was a single cast block but the second gen bridge was a more traditional separate bridge play and block that were then screwed together also in 93 PRS adopted a dual action truss rod in all their guitars in the mid 90s PRS installed computer assisted machinery and changed the way guitars would be made from that point forward the new machines eventually took over the rough cutting and shaping of the necks and guitar bodies this added even more to the Custom Shop level of finish and consistency and left other companies trying to catch up all of these big changes were happening in 95 as PRS was getting ready to move to a new plant in Stevensville Maryland was part of the phenomenal growth at PRS had had in its first 10 years from their first year sales of a half million dollars they had grown 20% each year to 10 million dollars in 1995 was also in 95 that PRS began its private stock program Smith said it was like they had opened up the old workshop Joe Nags was set to run the shop and he said that these were customer designed guitars the orders were taken through the dealer network with PRS than providing a quote nags estimated that the machine to hand work ratio on private stock guitars was about 50/50 private stock guitars began to come out in April of 96 and by spring of 99 85 private stock guitars had been built the guitars each had a private stock number along with the PRS serial number on the back of the headstock things that were learned in the private stock shop made their way into production guitars as well 96 saw moved to a PC board five-way rotary switch and in 97 new low-mass locking tuners lightweight buttons were being used Tim Mahoney would the band 311 burst on the scene playing stop tail Custom twenty fours in the mid 90s and he's continued to play them until this day the next ten years saw PRS bring out an array of models the bolt on C II guitars the swamp ash special a clear bid for more fender customers the short-lived eg guitars the McCarty and the McCarty archtop guitars the Overseas produced se guitars the 513 the first production run of the single cut guitars all the while the custom 24 perked along is the best-selling guitar in the line the core of the company you might say that the custom 24 is to PRS what the Telecaster has been for fender the root of all that is best about the company and the perfect platform for applying new knowledge gained along the way by 2000 Linkin Park's hybrid theory was breaking sales records and lead guitarist Brad Delson was rocking a custom 24 on stages worldwide in a decidedly different style david Knutson of - the bear was tapping and looping his way on his twenty fours as well in 2002 they changed the face to locking tuners and in O 4 they switched to using lampshade style knobs by the 20th anniversary in 2005 PRS was taking a look back at his success still their best-selling guitar paul said at the time of the custom 24 i'm always surprised when i plug in a custom 24 it always sounds good it's just a good guitar Parris had set new standards for guitar production in its first two decades company president Jack Higginbotham said why is PRS PRS there's always going to be debates about what makes a good guitar sound but the goal of creating an instrument with great tone and great playability is just saturated inside a PRS that's not to say we all agree on what that is but we all have the same intention that I believe is paramount we couldn't be PRS unless that was the case to celebrate the 20th anniversary PRS released special 2005 versions of their three main guitars the custom 24 custom 22 and standard 24 the guitars featured special green abalone inlays designed by art director mark Quigley and Joan eggs the truss rod covers had an engraved xx on them and as an aside interesting to any student of custom colors offender in the 50s and sick these which were DuPont do Co based the car color paints after all Jack Higginbotham tied up with DuPont to use their hot hues hot red colors on the new C egit our models Higginbotham was looking to broaden PRS as brand recognition and deciding the partnering with a car company would help do that so he forged a deal with General Motors and to Corvette model custom 22 guitars also came out that year also that year the first custom 24 signature artist came along Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers Navarro had been a PRS user for many years and it was only the third signature model after Santana and Mark Tremonti the jet white custom 24 had a wide thin neck mother-of-pearl burden lace and Dave Navarro on the truss rod cover around 2007 Michael Carter was playing with country star Luke Bryan putting his custom 24s in front of a country audience while back in heavier rock music Peter Leffler was using Kustoms with his van Chevelle in 2006 PRS had begun building a new factory to expand US manufacturing next to the current factory the new building would be approximately five times larger than the original building and it opened its doors in 2009 in the foreword to the 2008 catalog Smith said one constant over the entire history of PRS is changed the desire to make our already fine guitars have bit more responsive a bit more toned full we strive to build the kind of guitar that speaks to you as soon as you pick it up the kind of guitar that even though it's brand-new and full of possibilities somehow feels as comfortable as an old friend 2008 saw PRS continuing to make changes to their pickup designs they acquired exclusive rights to the original pickup wire from the machines used to make the most revered 50s era pickups since 1957 was the first year of the humbucker pickup was available PRS named the pickup the 1957 2008 these pickups were used in the sunburst series a car t2 and a limited run of 750 custom 24s at that year's PRS experience Paul joked think of it this way we're selling you access to these exclusive pickups and giving you a free guitar and a case to go with them in the next year PRS to introduced the 50 909 pickups into the custom 24 PRS still sells fifty nine or nine cups as an accessory and they described them as articulate while providing rich harmonic overtones with a powerful bridge pickup and a touch of brightness in the neck pickup these pickups are the perfect to to achieve clarity and definition with a punch by the early 2010's hybrid guitars electric guitars with Pho pickups and become part of the modern electric guitar scene in 2012 PRS added both a p 22 and a p 24 to their lineup PRS had used the pxo system a decade earlier on their hollow body guitars but this new system smaller size allowed for it to be fit into solid body guitars even those with a tremolo bridge in 2011 they transitioned to the open back phase 3 tuners and the pickup selector on the custom 24 was changed to a traditional 5 way blade switch in 2014 as a bit of a throwback to the 80s the decade where it had all started they offered a custom 24 floyd model the guitars featured a figure maple top mahogany back but with a maple neck with an ebony fingerboard volume tone and a five-way blade switch a Floyd Rose tremolo with the corresponding locking nut and M metal pickups the custom 24 floyd being released was no doubt influenced by PRS working with dusty wearing from the band Between the Buried and Me in 2015 the pickups were changed again to the new AE 5 15s the 8515 is their take on the original 1985 pickup design updated with all that they'd learned from the past 30 years of pickup development and research Paul said the standard trouble in bass pickups from 1985 were more about the special wiring to get different sounds and the beginnings of getting single coil tones from a humbucker we've learned a lot since then and I believe we've done a very good job advancing the art into modern and vintage sounds and greatly refining single coil sounds all out of hum canceling pickups in 2017 they added a custom 24:08 a custom 24 with the individual micro switches for each pickup from the 408 model guitar providing eight different pickup settings including a double single coil option that's unique to that model what Paul said about the pickups is a perfect summary of how they've approached every detail of the guitars over the years I was talking to Bob we'll cut of will cut guitars in Lexington tucky a PRS dealer since 1986 I said I thought that from all my reading Paul was perhaps more obsessed with wood than any other builder I could name and put Bob quickly corrected me saying oh no Paul is obsessed with every detail of the guitar from the wood down to the metal that makes up the smallest screw and I think we can all agree that we've all benefited from Paul's obsessions if I miss something or if you have your own PRS story to share please put it in the comments for everyone to enjoy I need to thank Bob loka I woke up guitars for sharing his insights on PRS history and some beautiful high respects of their current batch of drool-worthy custom 24s I also need to thank Jean Mooney Sean Nuttall and mark Quigley at BRS for answering my questions and for sharing images of 24s across the decades finally and most importantly I need to thank Dave Erlich from guitars magazine this video would not have been possible without his excellent book the PRS electric guitar there's a link to the book in the description I also need to send a general thank-you to his colleagues a guitarist for the use of the intro and outro music played by Mick Taylor from their 30th anniversary custom 24 video if you enjoyed this short history of the PRS custom 24 hit the like button if you haven't subscribed yet go ahead and hit that too remember to click the bell icon be notified when we put out a new video you want to support the channel even more stop by the store and grab a t-shirt or a mug there's a link in the description thanks for watching until next time thanks for being a part of the 5 [Music]

Channel: five watt world

Views: 232,582

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Keywords: five watt world, keith williams, short histories, PRS, Paul Reed Smith, Custom 24

Id: 2fIxlVNiMhE

Length: 19min 33sec (1173 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2019