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PRS Private Stock Wants to Build Your Dream Guitar

lundi 1 février 2021, 14:00 , par Sweetwater inSync
Don Carr couldn’t stop playing this gorgeous Private Stock archtop guitar (seen above). Take a listen.

Paul Reed Smith needs no introduction among guitar players. For the
past 35 years, his namesake company, PRS Guitars, has been making some of the
finest instruments available. Many players believe that Paul has truly elevated
the guitar-making craft.

This year, 2021, marks the 25th anniversary of PRS’s Private Stock,
the “custom shop” arm of the company that makes one-off instruments that are
built to order for players who want customized, personalized instruments built
precisely to their taste.

In honor of 25 years, I decided to call up Paul and find out more
about the history of Private Stock: how it all began, what he envisions for the
future, and more. We were joined by Paul Miles, the Director of Private Stock, who
has been building the Private Stock guitars since 2002.

How It All Began

Fuston: How did you start making Private Stock guitars? Where did the idea come
from?

Paul Reed Smith: There was a collection of wood that I had kept, I called it my “private stash” because I had stashed this wood away, and I would invite our dealers to go through it, and they’d look through and start picking out woods and coming up with ideas for guitars. It started just like what is now the Vault, but it was literally just a rack. Then I moved the rack into my office, and I called it “the mousetrap for rock stars.” The idea was if there was somebody famous who was a guitar player and they got anywhere near the stack, they’d find a piece of wood and want a guitar made out of it — just like a mousetrap. You see, guitar players don’t start as rock stars — they start as guitar players!

Smith: So, my original idea was to call it “Private Stash.” But we decided to call it Private Stock because that sounded better. Since then, 25 years ago now, Paul [Miles] has helped propel it all the way to an international, worldwide brand. Paul and I probably talk to each other five to six times a day, so it’s a very active relationship. And Paul recently made me one of my favorite guitars by himself, so now I’m playing guitars that the employees have made for me instead of ones I made for myself. As a matter of fact, today I bought one. Honest to God, today I checked one off the line, and I bought it. There’s been about four times I’ve tried to buy guitars off the line and Paul will say, “Sorry, you can’t have it. That was ordered by Customer X,” and I would call them up and say, “Will you sell me your guitar?” and they’d say, “Uh... no.” Of course, the fact that I wanted it made it even more desirable.

Finished Private Stock guitars awaiting final playing, approval, and autographing by Paul Smith himself.

Smith: These guitars we’re making today, like the one I just bought, are some really, really great guitars. I don’t like having my ___ kicked by history — where the old guitars are better than the ones we’re making now — but that’s not going on right now. Right now, you got a really happy Paul Smith and a really happy Paul Miles ’cause we are hitting our stride on guitars.

I asked Jimmy
Herring (Widespread Panic, Allman Brothers), “Why do you play PRS?” And he says,
“‘Cause Paul, they’ll do things my vintage guitars won’t do,” and I felt so
much better that day.

Looking Back

The Private Stock archtop featured in this article was built for one of our own Sweetwater employees. I got to play this one, and it’s absolutely amazing.

Fuston: For historical perspective, how many Private Stock guitars have you made
in the past 25 years?

Miles: We’re right at the 9,000 mark.

Fuston: Wow! That’s a lot of guitars.

Smith: No, it’s not.

Fuston: Well, that’s a lot of custom, one-off guitars.

Smith: That’s true.

Private Stock #9081 from November 2020, signed by Paul Reed Smith and Paul Miles.

Fuston: So, how
many craftsmen/luthiers are involved in making a Private Stock guitar?

Paul Miles: We have 16 luthiers building guitars full-time on the Private Stock side.

Looking Forward

Fuston: Are there things — finishes,
techniques, colors — that you discover when making Private Stock that work
their way down into the Core production models, like in car racing, where the Formula 1 team is the testing grounds for new
technologies and ideas. How much cross-pollination is going on?

Smith: Yea. We call it “coming down from Private Stock,” like when’s it going to come downstream, and we talk about it all the time. There are times when ideas come down fast, and sometimes it takes longer. Right now, the timing on things coming downstream is dead perfect. We’ve developed a protocol for when things are going to come down. We’re always trying to innovate, and there’s a huge amount of pride in the crosstalk.

Miles: A lot of the stuff we’ve done between production and Core — coming out with a Private Stock model first is always a good idea because it makes people eager for that model to come out on Core. We use the communication between Private Stock and Core to get all the bugs worked out.

Fuston: So, what
happens if a customer has an idea for a finish, or a color, or inlay, and it
turns out so good that you want to include it on other guitars? Does that ever
happen?

Smith: Sure, it happens. Here’s the thing — that customer gets the first one, and it’s documented as that. It’s signed by me and Paul, and they alone have the original.

The “brushstroke” owl on the headstock is unique and was first suggested by the owner of this guitar.

Fuston: So, a
Private Stock customer may order a guitar that turns out so well that it spawns
a whole line of others? That’s pretty flattering. And they can boast about
inspiring that color or inlay or whatever?

Smith: Have you seen the Paul’s 85 color? That’s a stained and sprayed burst. It looks like an old Lloyd Loar mandolin — like something from the ’20s. When I saw that color, I said, “That’s the prettiest thing I ever saw on a guitar. Let’s do that.” I had a completely different color in mind for these guitars. I wanted them a blue/black, like a charcoal blue. But this was prettier. I couldn’t even believe what I was looking at. Then Paul [Miles] said —

Miles: Well, that’s what we do. (Smiles)

Scaling New Heights

Fuston: Do you discover new things every day, or is there a long-term plan of
what you’re going to develop and work on?

Smith: It’s like spotting UFOs. You have dry spells, and then there are really wet spells. You have no idea. Sometimes the ideas are coming so fast that you can’t catch ’em all, and then sometimes you’re just doing your job over and over again. It depends. Right now is a very fertile spell. We are learning a huge amount really fast.

Miles: Well here’s the other part. For the past nine months, because of the pandemic, we’ve been able to just put our heads down and really focus on being creative during this bittersweet time.

Smith: Yea, I’m working on guitars every day. I’m not doing clinics or traveling. Don’t get me wrong — I like being on the road. But I like working on guitars better.

Miles: It’s important for us to feel like we’re pushing the boundaries of color. We don’t want to follow a trend; we want to be the trend.

A Private Stock on the bench showing the gorgeous PRS “dipped in glass” finish.

The Private Stock Vision

Fuston: Paul, so are
you making your vision of what you think guitars should be?

Smith: Actually, it’s sort of the opposite of that. What happens is, when you come to the vault and you design the guitar, then we’re going to make that guitar the vision of what you want. There’s a push and pull there.

Fuston: Well, what
I meant was, if someone comes to you and wants you to make a guitar that is
exactly what they want, you (PRS) start at a place that far exceeds what they
might even envision. You have wood they’ve never seen. It sparks their
imagination or their dreams of what it could become. The “mousetrap,” as you
put it. And then you allow them to go above and beyond that, in terms of
inlays, pickups, woods, personalizing the look.

Smith: And the sound! Because the ultimate Private Stock customer is someone who’ll play the ____ out of it.

Our ultimate goal is
that it’s a combination of what the customer wants, what the artist wants, and
what we think is the best thing we can offer as guitar makers. It’s that
combination. If someone wants us to make a guitar that won’t work, I’m not
gonna make it. I like guitars that work.

This fabulous paisley case was ordered specifically for this archtop guitar.

What the Customer Wants

The
Private Stock archtop photographs in this article are of a guitar that was
built for one of our own here at Sweetwater. Here’s a list of the choices (in his own words) that
will give you an insight into the level of customization that is possible.

Bearclaw Sitka spruce for the body top — a traditional archtop tonewood. It’s all about the tone. Bearclaw is figured spruce that is arguably slightly stiffer.

East Coast Curly for the body back — Wide Curl is my favorite figure. East Coast is a bit harder and more reflective than West Coast.

Honduran rosewood for the neck. I love the way rosewood feels in the hand. It also does some magical things to the mids. Plus, Honduran is used for concert marimbas, and it has an amazing tap tone.

African blackwood for the fingerboard. While being a true rosewood, it feels and looks much more like ebony. It is used for wind instruments, as well. Fantastic attack and articulation.

African blackwood for the headstock veneer, tuner buttons, and pickup rings, as well.

I chose the DGT fret wire because I like a taller fret.

I opted for a custom, 4-knob
control layout instead of the stock configuration with two knobs. I use the in-between
pickup sounds a lot. I also asked for them to be in specific positions.

The position markers on the neck are mother-of-pearl and red dino bone. And the side dots are red dino bone, as well. And the brushstroke owl on the headstock was the guitar owner’s suggestion.

The Private Stock Experience

Fuston: If you had to sum up the Private Stock “experience”
in just one word, what would it be?

Smith: You get two words: “aesthetic arrest.” That’s a Joseph Campbell concept. When you open a guitar case and it takes your breath away, you are literally aesthetically arrested. That’s what I want. I want them to feel that way about the sound, the way it plays, the way it looks, and the way it feels.

The aesthetic experience is a simple beholding of the object…. you experience a radiance. You are held in aesthetic arrest.Joseph Campbell

Miles: The “aesthetic arrest” thing is perfect because it’s what you see, what you feel. It’s like opening the case of the Holy Grail.

When you’re ready to realize the guitar that is your own
Holy Grail, your dream guitar custom-made to your specifications, give us a
call at (800) 222-4700 so we can help you get started on your PRS Private Stock
guitar. You know you want it — and, frankly, you deserve it! That way, you can
have your own special Limited Edition [YOUR NAME HERE] guitar and a “Wow!”
moment every time you open the case.

Don played this custom Private Stock archtop strung with Thomastik-Infeld Jazz Swing flatwound strings (.011–.047) through a Morgan SW22RC 1×12 22-watt combo miked with a Royer R-122 MKII ribbon mic and a Warm Audio WA-67 tube mic in Sweetwater Studio A. The PRS archtop guitar featured here was masterfully photographed by Sweetwater’s Chad Jenkins, and the images were edited by Tyler Ross.

Check out this article about the Sweetwater-exclusive range of PRS Private Stock Owls in Flight.To see more photos of Private Stock guitars and Private Stock guitar owners, check out the PRS Instagram feed.And check out this 25th Anniversary Private Stock tribute video:

The post PRS Private Stock Wants to Build Your Dream Guitar appeared first on inSync.
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/prs-private-stock-custom-guitar-builder/
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