PRS Guitars now builds its S2 Series instruments with USA-Made pickups and electronics, including the renowned 85/15, 58/15 LT, and proprietary Narrowfield and TCI pickups.
Meaning “Stevensville 2,” the S2 Series was named for a second manufacturing line that was created inside the PRS Stevensville, Maryland shop. However, since its introduction, the S2 Series has grown to be fully integrated into the same production line as PRS Core and Bolt-On instruments.
“This just makes sense,” said Paul Reed Smith. “We have worked very diligently on pickups for the last several years and made big strides. To infuse the S2 Series with the life that comes with this kind of attention to detail was the next logical step for these instruments.”
Loaded with PRS's renowned 85/15, 58/15 LT, and proprietary Narrowfield and TCI pickups – made right in PRS’s Maryland shop – the S2 Series now carries more PRS DNA than ever. The PRS S2 Series also comes with the same electronics as PRS Core instruments, including potentiometers with extreme audio tapers and other components with custom-designed features. To top off the specs, all Maryland-made PRS electric instruments feature a nitrocellulose finish. This finish is thin, allowing the guitars to have a resonant, organic tone. The nitro finish also has a natural feel, elevating the playing experience from the moment the guitar is picked up.
With thirteen model choices, the S2 Series features both variations on well-known PRS models (like the Custom 24 and McCarty 594) and also truly distinct model choices found only in S2 (like the S2 Vela, S2 Standard 22, and S2 McCarty 594 Thinline).
For more information, please visit prsguitars.com.
USA-Made Pickups Now in PRS Guitars S2 Vela & Custom 24-08 | First Look
The final day is here! Enter Stompboxtober Day 31 for your last chance to win today’s pedal from Keeley and finish the month strong!
Keeley Octa Psi Transfigurating Fuzz Pedal with Polyphonic Pitch Shifting
Meet the OCTA PSI Transfigurating Fuzz – The Ultimate Combination of Pitch-Shifter, Octave Generator, and Tri-Voiced Analog Fuzz! Key features include: Instant Effect Order Switching, Flexible Output Configuration, Momentary or Latching Octave/Pitch, and more! Each pitch shift mode includes an up, down, and dual setting, resulting in 24 different modes.
Does the guitar’s design encourage sonic exploration more than sight reading?
A popular song between 1910 and 1920 would usually sell millions of copies of sheet music annually. The world population was roughly 25 percent of what it is today, so imagine those sales would be four or five times larger in an alternate-reality 2024. My father is 88, but even with his generation, friends and family would routinely gather around a piano and play and sing their way through a stack of songbooks. (This still happens at my dad’s house every time I’m there.)
Back in their day, recordings of music were a way to promote sheet music. Labels released recordings only after sheet-music sales slowed down on a particular song. That means that until recently, a large section of society not only knew how to read music well, but they did it often—not as often as we stare at our phones, but it was a primary part of home entertainment. By today’s standards, written music feels like a dead language. Music is probably the most common language on Earth, yet I bet it has the highest illiteracy rate.
Developed specifically for Tyler Bryant, the Black Magick Reverb TB is the high-power version of Supro's flagship 1x12 combo amplifier.
At the heart of this all-tube amp is a matched pair of military-grade Sovtek 5881 power tubes configured to deliver 35-Watts of pure Class A power. In addition to the upgraded power section, the Black Magick Reverb TB also features a “bright cap” modification on Channel 1, providing extra sparkle and added versatility when blended with the original Black Magick preamp on Channel 2.
The two complementary channels are summed in parallel and fed into a 2-band EQ followed by tube-driven spring reverb and tremolo effects plus a master volume to tame the output as needed. This unique, signature variant of the Black Magick Reverb is dressed in elegant Black Scandia tolex and comes loaded with a custom-built Supro BD12 speaker made by Celestion.
Price: $1,699.
Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is one of the loudest guitarists around. And he puts his volume to work creating mythical tones that have captured so many of our imaginations, including our special shoegaze correspondent, guitarist and pedal-maestro Andy Pitcher, who is our guest today.
My Bloody Valentine has a short discography made up of just a few albums and EPs that span decades. Meticulous as he seems to be, Shields creates texture out of his layers of tracks and loops and fuzz throughout, creating a music that needs to be felt as much as it needs to be heard.
We go to the ultimate source as Billy Corgan leaves us a message about how it felt to hear those sounds in the pre-internet days, when rather than pull up a YouTube clip, your imagination would have to guide you toward a tone.
But not everyone is an MBV fan, so this conversation is part superfan hype and part debate. We can all agree Kevin Shields is a guitarists you should know, but we can’t all agree what to do with that information.