“I had a really famous guitar player tell me, ‘Don’t do it!’ The next day he phoned me and said, ‘What did you find?’”: Paul Reed Smith admits he takes razor blades to pickups to find out how they work
Paul Reed Smith is continuing to take fans behind the curtain at PRS Guitars, and in a new video he’s confessed to taking a razor blade to pickups to find out how they’re waxed.
Given his eccentric leadership – from intentionally pitching ideas he knows his team won’t like, to championing tonewood like no other CEO – it’s not all that surprising that Reed Smith will quite literally butcher a pickup to understand it better, even when a famous pro advises him not to.
READ MORE: “Paul Reed Smith has mastered creating an instrument that behaves”: Carlos Santana on his love of PRS guitars
In the latest episode of PRS’ Rules Of Tone YouTube series, Reed Smith chats with Chuck Lenderking, who works as part of the new products engineering team at PRS, and collaborates closely with the boss on all things pickups.
“How many experiments do you think we’re running a day?” Reed Smith asks him.
“Oh, five to 10 probably,” replies Lenderking. The pair stand before a dissected electric model with a large chunk missing from its body and empty pickup slots, which is used as the company’s test guitar.
“You can take the electronics out of it and snap on the pickups any way you want. And I know it looks ridiculous, but it has worked so well for us to be able to slide the treble pickup in and listen, slide the bass pickup in and listen,” explains Reed Smith.
“We keep using it. It gets the job done… It actually is not that great sounding, which makes the pickup have to do its job even more,” he adds.
“You have seen me take a razor blade to [pickups] to find out how they were waxed, right? I had a really famous guitar player say, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it!’ I said, ‘Why not? I need to know.’ He goes, ‘Don’t do it!’ The next day the phone rings. He goes, ‘What’d you find?’”
You can watch the full episode below:
In another Rules Of Tone episode, Reed Smith also explained why neck making is the most important part of building guitars. “Neck making in my mind is fundamental to guitar making. You’re a guitar maker, you’re a neck maker – there’s nothing more important on the guitar,” he said.
PRS celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. You can view the brand’s full product range over at PRS Guitars.
The post “I had a really famous guitar player tell me, ‘Don’t do it!’ The next day he phoned me and said, ‘What did you find?’”: Paul Reed Smith admits he takes razor blades to pickups to find out how they work appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
