Title:
Behind the Music: The Making of a Paul Reed Smith
Guitar
Description: This is
a VOA Special English General News Report.
See text below
Text:
Latin-rock musician Carlos Santana ... and jazz
great Al Di Meola play different kinds of music. But
they both use guitars from the same manufacturer:
Paul Reed Smith.
PAUL REED SMITH: "I started building guitars in wood
shop in high school and in my brother's bedroom and
in my bedroom. And I would rent equipment." Today,
Paul Reed Smith builds his guitars at a factory in
Maryland.
PAUL REED SMITH: "We are selling a lot of these blue
sunburst guitars ... they are going very, very well
for us."
His company, PRS Guitars, now has 260 employees.
They have made 13,000 guitars in the United States.
Another 25,000 guitars were manufactured in South
Korea. The company opened in 1985. It had 40 million
dollars in sales in 2010. Paul Reed Smith says he
tries to make the best instruments possible.
PAUL REED SMITH: "We have been asked the question a
lot about what, why the guitars are different, and
I've come to the conclusion [that] it's a very
complicated long list of attention, attention to
detail."
That detail is clear in the built-to-order Private
Stock guitar line.
JACK HIGGINBOTHAM: "We have maple tops, we've got
mahogany necks ..."
Jack Higginbotham is the president of PRS Guitars.
JACK HIGGINBOTHAM: "Nice piece of mahogany. Nice
ring to it." PRS buys woods from around the world.
Its guitars are known for their curly maple tops.
JACK HIGGINBOTHAM: "And this is a pretty exceptional
example of what will probably become a private stock
guitar. What we're about is just trying to obtain
the very best wood as far as visual goes and sound
goes."
Jack Higginbotham says the manufacturing process is
equally important. The wood is slowly dried. All
pieces are hand-sanded and stained before a
protective finish is added. On average, it takes
about six weeks to build one guitar. Paul Reed Smith
says his company seeks perfection.
PAUL REED SMITH: "It's our job to try to make the
guitars better and better and better and better and
better. And then we get to the point where we don't
really want to mess with them, we try to repeat the
same thing over again."
That attention to detail is not lost on musicians.
Brian Meader sells guitars at a music store in
Washington.
BRIAN MEADER: "This is a PRS Custom 24. This is
basically the original PRS guitar. This is what
essentially launched the company." He says the
quality of PRS is unequaled for a mass production
guitar.
BRIAN MEADER: "You're getting custom guitar
construction, build quality and tone from now a
production guitar company. And there's very few out
there that can kind of compete with them on all of
those levels at the same time."
Paul Reed Smith is putting the same attention to
detail into a new line of acoustic guitars.
PAUL REED SMITH: "I mean the thing is going nuts. It
sustaining forever, right?"
A PRS Private Stock line guitar can cost as little
as $600 or up to tens of thousands of dollars. I'm
Jim Tedder.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
