Members LP Heaven Posted September 22, 2008 Members Share Posted September 22, 2008 Buddy went to the tour this weekend...left out some personal bits Hey, I had a blast at the Paul Reed Smith factory this weekend. I actually got to meet, shake hands and talk a while with Al Dimeola, Pat Travers, J Hayes, Johnny Hiland, Dave Grissam, some heavy metal guy, Mark Tremonti and afew others. All of them were extremely nice, spent time talking, joking around and taking pics and signing autographs for any one who wanted. The factory was amazing, they took us through every stage of the guitar building process. We met the staff at each stage in the process and got to talk to them and ask questions. We even got to take a shot on some sanding, staining and finishing work, putting in frets. It was pretty cool. I really got a good appreciation for how difficult the process is and how talented these guys are. I took a 10 minute staining lesson from one of the guys and got to do a fast rough drafton a piece of wood. When it dried all the master builders there signed it for me. They also had a museum like setup as well with all the original first models as well as the rare and extreme private stock owned PRS guitars. They let us pick em up, take pictures with them and play them (no amps in that section though). We also met Paul Reed Smith and talked with him too. They sold about 2,000 guitars while I was there, and I am not even sure how many orders they took. I didn't buy one :-( They had designated 2 times both days - morning and afternoons where they brought out stock to one wing in a section of the ware house. They had 4 long rows, 8 sides of guitars each time. You could only buy through a dealer, and they gave the dealers an additional 10% on top of their normal 40% dealer rate. Even still their guitars are $$$$$. The Carlos Santa model, retails for like over $8,000 People were just walking up and putting their names down or holding on to the guitars and the staff was marking down names and orders. I never saw so many guitars sell that fast!!! They had a big concert Friday night where all these guys came up and played. And Saturday afternoon they had another one where they all came up and jammed again on stage. It was a great show with lots of killer guitarplayers. PRS is now also gonna make Amps. They announced at the show that they were going partners with a famous boutique amp guy and all the guys were using the prototypes of the first ones that will be hitting the market. They had some areas setup where you could demo some of the guitars and they had this amp. I got to play it with the Al Dimeola signature model guitar. It was a killer. I was waiting for him to say that they were going partners with David Bray, but it turned out to be this other guy from Texas, Dave Sewell amps. They had a single channel head and a 2x12 bottom that would blow you away. I was starting to fall in love with one of the guitars - the Johnny Hiland signature model. It has 2 humbuckers and a Maple bolt on neck. It is the only maple neck PRS offers. The neck pickup has a switch that lets yousplit it from humbucker to single coil and you can blend it in with the Bridge humbucker pickup. It also has a tremolo bar. Oh, yea, I almost forgot, check out this guy Johnny Hiland on You tube. I had never heard of him before, but he was amazing. He played several sessions to demo his signature guitar and he also played in the concerts. He was incredible. He completely blew us all away. Definitely one of the most versatile players I have heard in a long time. He did jazz, rock country and blues. We spent time with him talking about music and stuffa really nice guy too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members glenecho Posted September 22, 2008 Members Share Posted September 22, 2008 PRS is now also gonna make Amps. They announced at the show that they were going partners with a famous boutique amp guy and all the guys were using the prototypes of the first ones that will be hitting the market. Hopefully their amps will turn out better than their amp modeller that they partnered with Waves on. Between PRS and Waves you would have thought that their modeller would have rocked but it is by far the {censored}tiest one out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Holy War Posted September 22, 2008 Members Share Posted September 22, 2008 Hopefully their amps will turn out better than their amp modeller that they partnered with Waves on. Between PRS and Waves you would have thought that their modeller would have rocked but it is by far the {censored}tiest one out there.I hope its a Suhr or Dr. Z type amp but with a bit more gain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tws! Posted September 22, 2008 Members Share Posted September 22, 2008 I didn't know they had a modeller amp Excited to hear the amps, the guitars kick ass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members glenecho Posted September 22, 2008 Members Share Posted September 22, 2008 I didn't know they had a modeller amp Excited to hear the amps, the guitars kick ass. It's not an amp...it's modeller software called Waves GTR, and it's hideous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tws! Posted September 22, 2008 Members Share Posted September 22, 2008 It's not an amp...it's modeller software called Waves GTR, and it's hideous.ahhh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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