Paul Reed Smith SE Custom Electric Guitar

August 9, 2007 by Jo Minor 


When you talk about good quality guitars, ones that have a reputation for fine craftsmanship and great tone, someone always brings up PRS guitars. PRS stands for Paul Reed Smith of course. The Paul Reed Smith SE Custom electric guitar retails for $798.00, which is a good price for a guitar with a reputation like a PRS has.

The wide mahogany neck with 22 frets and mahogany body of the Paul Reed Smith SE Custom electric guitar will provide you with all kinds of resonance and sustain. Paul Reed Smith guitars are known for having a bite in the high end sounds. This is due to the mahogany with maple top construction among other things. The double cutaway body is beveled to give you even greater upper fret access.

Paul Reed Smith is a talented and innovative luthier who began building solid body electric guitars when he was in college. He has a principle by which he develops his design. Every time he makes a new guitar, he plays it and looks for new ideas for making the next one even better. This motto has resulted in some of the best guitars you can find.

Smith also does not limit his methods to only old-fashioned hand crafting or only state of the art robotics. He chooses the best method for each step of the guitar creating process. That means part of the guitar might be factory made with the latest machinery while other parts are painstakingly hand made.

In the early years, one method Smith used for getting ideas for the best guitars was that he would contact rock guitarists when they came to town and tell them about his guitars. He offered them a money back guarantee, but required them to put down a down payment. His first well known buyer was the legendary Ted Nugent. He soon had also sold one to the equally illustrious Carlos Santana.

Since the 1980’s, the double cutaway Custom has been the flagship guitar of the Paul Reed Smith collection. The name “SE Custom” specifically refers to those Customs which are made in Korea with less expensive methods so that they can offer the guitar at a more affordable price. For instance, one change they make in craftsmanship is that instead of an expensive carved maple top, they still use the veneer of maple, but they skip the carving and leave the top flat.

 

Advantages: Even though it has a mahogany body and neck, it is not as heavy as other mahogany bodied guitars. The tremolo on the Paul Reed Smith Custom SE guitar, if you choose to get the trem style, is a nice version of the John Mann tremolo.

And the sound of the Paul Reed Smith Custom SE is very good. It is often compared to the sound of a Les Paul, which also has a mahogany body, but a lot higher price tag. The pickups on the PRS are very good whether the guitar is played clean or distorted. They really growl.

But one of the most notable advantages of this guitar is that the Paul Reed Smith Custom SE electric guitar is more affordable than other guitars of the same quality!

Disadvantages: The Paul Reed Smith Custom SE has a very wide, fat neck, which might appeal to someone with big hands, but could be a real disadvantage to smaller people. The Custom SE electric guitar lacks the arched, carved top of the more expensive American made PRS guitars, but the flat top does not affect the tone of the guitar.

The PRS Custom SE also does not have a great deal of features, since it has only one tone knob and one volume knob. This decreases your options and flexibility a little bit, but it does simplify your playing choices, which can be a good thing.

Specs:

  • Mahogany back
  • Genuine maple top with flamed veneer
  • Set mahogany neck
  • Chrome tuners
  • Rosewood fretboard
  • 22 frets
  • 25 inch scale length
  • Moon position inlays
  • Wide fat neck carbe
  • PRS-designed open-coil zebra humbucking pickups
  • 3-way toggle pickup selector switch
  • One master volume control knob
  • One master tone control knob
  • Choice of high sustain wraparound stopbar tailpiece or vibrato bridge
  • Comes with a gig bag

 

Here is an article from Guitar World telling all about the Paul Reed Smith guitars, including the SE Custom.

To read a personal interview with Paul Reed Smith, go to the Harmony Central website for this one.

 

And here is one more short article about Paul Reed Smith and his wonderful guitars. This article is in the Mel Bay Webzine. You know Mel Bay - the guy that gave us all the wonderful how-to-play

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