Paul Reed Smith already got a head start on the NAMM 2020 announcements last week, with the unveiling of three brand-new McCarty model entries to the highly regarded S2 guitar line. But the big brand isn't stopping there. Today at the NAMM show, PRS unveiled the result of years of development and close collaboration with award-winning musician John Mayer: the updated Silver Sky.
About the model, Mayer said, “It’s been a dream of mine for years to design a guitar that includes some of my favorite vintage specifications but with a modern spirit and aesthetic. After two years of study and refinement, the Silver Sky is my vision of what a reboot of the electric guitar should look and feel like.”
With an eye on modern improvements, the designers and engineers worked with John Mayer to create an "idealized vintage single-coil guitar" that takes the best parts of classic axes from 1963-'64 and updates and refines them for 2020. The result is an instrument that, in the brand's words, "delivers the warmth and familiarity of an old guitar with the finesse of a brand- new instrument."
The new Silver Sky offers either a maple or rosewood fretboard option, but both are equipped with an inverted version of PRS's trademark headstock, vintage-style closed-back tuners with PRS added locking design, a steel tremolo with patented PRS Gen III knife-edge screws, and very round, full-sounding (but never brash) 635JM single-coil pickups.
The Silver Sky models are available now in Dodgem Blue, Frost, Golden Mesa, Midnight Rose, Moc Sand, Orion Green, Polar Blue, or Tungsten. According to a post on John Mayer's Instagram, there is also a limited edition (500 units) Nebula finish, which uses a "unique paint process using prismatic flakes that reflect light differently when viewing angle is shifted, giving a dramatic color change effect."
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