Paul Reed Smith Guitars, also known as PRS Guitars, is an American guitar and amplifier manufacturer located in Stevensville, Maryland. The company was founded in 1985 in Annapolis, Maryland by Paul Reed Smith. Products manufactured by PRS include electric & acoustic guitars, basses, and amplifiers. History Beginning: 1985-1995 Paul Reed Smith set up a partnership to create a factory in Annapolis, Maryland. and set off work on producing guitars. The company's first outing was for the 1985 NAMM Show where they debuted the PRS Custom. Featuring a mahogany neck set into a mahogany body with a maple cap, a patented vibrato, customized tuning pegs, and custom rotary pickup switching with high quality electronics, the guitar represented influences from both old and new; something striking in the midst of an industry that was producing "high tech" guitars. "I saw Adrian Belew on King Crimson's Beat tour in 1982," says Smith, "and the sound he was getting out of his guitar was on another planet somewhere. He let me rebuild his Ibanez Blazer. I put in our whole tuning-peg/bridge system and a new electronic system with an Alembic Stratoblaster pre-amp. It sounded unbelievable. Right then I decided that I wanted to put those sounds on a humbucking guitar, which is when I went back to the rotary switch and redesigned it for humbuckers." After three years, the company employed 45 people, and was producing 15 guitars per day. Construction Hardware Nuts are synthetic and tuners are of PRS's own design, although some models feature Korean-made Kluson-style tuners. PRS guitars feature three original bridge designs: a one-piece pre-intonated stoptail, a vibrato, and a wrapover tailpiece. The vibrato was designed with the help of guitar engineer John Mann. It was an update on the classic Fender vibrato and used cam-locking tuners, which offered wide pitch bending with exceptional tuning stability. Pickups Pickups are designed and wound in-house. While most of the pickups are humbuckers, some are actually a pair of single coils wound in opposing directions, one intended for the neck and one for the bridge position. Through the use of a unique rotary pickup selector switch, PRS pickups offer 5 different sounds: a combination of thick humbucking Gibson-like tones, and chimey single-coil Stratocaster-like tones. The standard treble and standard bass pick ups use magnetic pole pieces in the non-adjustable inner coil, and a rear-placed feeder magnet in order to achieve a more authentic