What is this Wood Library that you keep hearing about? PRS are known for having some pretty lovely looking timbers on their guitars. I’d go as far as to say that beautiful figured tops are as much their trademark as their Bird inlays. You think PRS, you think ‘spectacular wood’. It’s how it has always been.
So what is the Wood Library? And why are some PRS guitars called Wood Library guitars?
Worry not: I have answers. In today’s brief article, I’ll give you the lowdown on what the PRS Wood Library is, and why you should care about it!
PRS fans: this way, please!
What is the PRS Wood Library?
Okay, first thing: what is this Wood Library? The PRS Wood Library is an area at the company’s Stevensville, Maryland premises. It’s a corner of the main factory, and in this corner houses a superlative selection of timbers. Body blanks, neck blanks, slim slices for decorations…there are woods here from every corner of the planet, from the most humble chunk of mahogany to the rarest blank of Brazilian rosewood, Burl maple and African blackwood. There might even be slender pieces of Pink Ivory there, one of the rarest woods on earth and one used on only a select few Private Stock builds.
The Wood Library contains all of these woods sorted into species. Exotic woods, mature woods, standard woods…they are all here, in differing levels of supply. There is nowhere else like it, and for guitar fans, it’s pretty mesmerising.
What the PRS Wood Library Isn’t
All types of timbers live within the Wood Library. Some people seem to believe that the place is reserved only for the very best wood examples in the world, and that’s not true, nor is it the point. Yes, a great many of the woods within ARE the greatest timbers available anywhere, but the purpose is to provide a comprehensive selection of wood to those who are speccing out instruments. Normal and fancy, in equal measure! More on this below. But to reiterate, the strength in the whole concept is to have as many wood options as possible, from the everyday to the exotic. Choice is key!
How It Works
The Wood Library is no museum, it’s a place from which customers - that is, very select dealers, ourselves included of course - hand-select the exact woods in exact combinations for using to build custom guitars. These guitars can be one-off specials, or limited runs featuring the same woods, but what they all have in common is the fact that such wood combinations are not available on any existing production guitars from PRS. This is all about finding new combinations, whether for tonal properties, visual reasons or indeed both of these reasons!
When we visit the Wood Library, we are able to mix and match different woods and create new combinations for our PRS Wood Library guitars. These are available on a very limited, non-regular basis of course, and no two runs are the same.
PRS Wood Library Guitars
As mentioned, PRS Wood Library guitars are unique, made with custom combinations of timber hand-picked from the Wood Library itself. In terms of the overall PRS hierarchy of guitars, Wood Library instruments sit in between the company’s Core line and their Private Stock instruments, which is their name for their Custom Shop creations. I think it’s fair to call these ‘semi-custom’, in terms of them being more exclusive, collectable and unusual than regular Core guitars.
In the past, we’ve been able to have Custom 24 guitars with incredibly figured maple necks, Brazilian rosewood fingerboards, swamp ash bodies with quilted maple tops…it’s sumptuous stuff, and a real celebration of just how spectacular wood can be in the right hands.
Not all dealers have access to this program, and not many have as much of a long-term relationship with Paul Reed Smith and his company as we do, so really, when it comes to finding the best PRS guitars, there’s only one place to go: guitarguitar.
View Our PRS Wood Library Guitars
