Friday, May 15, 2009

New Paul Reed Smith acoustic guitars debut, the Tonare Grande and the Angelus cutaway.


Finally unveiled at the January 2009 NAMM show, P.R.S. has added their take of what a high quality acoustic guitar should be to the list.

The headstocks of both of the PRS acoustic guitars have a close resemblance to the well known headstock and “bird logos” on the neck of the more popular PRS solid body electric guitars, and that is where the resemblance stops.

The standard models of the Tonare Grande and the Angelus Cutaway have a much simpler inlay and sport wooden binding, but both of these guitars can be extensively customized with Celtic cross inlays on the fret board and different tonal woods for the back, sides, and top.

These “up scaled” woods and finishes include cocobolo wood used for the guitar's back, sides, and fret board, and Adirondack Spruce for the all important, sound vibrating top. Other construction features are a Mahogany neck with a cocobolo fret board on a truss rod-less design. Instead of a truss rod, these ‘butes feature carbon fiber in the necks’ construction, which was introduced for its strength! Nice touch.



These are not Grandpas “camp guitars”, and with each one costing between 5,000 to 8,000 dollars (new), I wouldn’t expect to find one being played around the fire at your local campsite either.

The retail price goes up according to any of the extra options that you might wish to splurge on. These guitars are aimed at the serious acoustic guitar player. With the high price comes high durability, rich thick and deep tone, and years and years of pure musical enjoyment.

I have found some great videos online that show these two guitars in better depth, and being played. The first one is Martin Simpson, and can be found here.

Next up, is Tony McManus, and his video can be watched here.

The “Acoustic guitar” site has posted a great review featuring the Tonare Grande, and it can be viewed here.

For more information and “tech specs” please refer to the P.R.S. site links below for each of the two guitars….

Tonare Grande The Angelus Cutaway

If one thing can be said about these two guitars, their quality is superior. PRS knows a thing or two about making fine guitars.

A very special Paul Reed Smith story for you….

As a “shout-out” to one of my inspirations, Johnny Highland, I would like to leave you all with this: From a small town in the deep woods of Maine, Johnny Highland would one day hit the big time. Years upon years of practice pays off, and here is someone that we all wanted to see get what fame was coming to him.

He has been recorded by a ton of major labels, for everyone that is on the radio. Johnny Highland has his own P.R.S. endorsement, the Johnny Highland model guitar by P.R.S. I believe that the Johnny Highland model guitar is the only solid body with a maple neck available from P.R.S. guitars.

Steve Vai signed him to his own label by chance as he left a demo snippet on Steve Vais’ answering machine! Pure “old school wit”!

I felt the same shock as Steve Vai must have felt the first time I heard him play at a local pub in Maine, before all of the fame came. This cat is cool too! He was very polite, and shook my hand as I gave him some compliment that he’d probably heard ten million times before.
Check out Johnny Highlands’ own site and read his inspiring story by following the link.

You should take a moment and read his words found at the bottom of his page. Determination and fate prevailed. Bravo!


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