After dropping out of college, Smith began making guitars by hand and found early customers in players like Peter Frampton and Carlos Santana.

Paul Reed Smith (born February 18, 1956) built his first stringed instrument, an electric bass, in 1972 while a student at Bowie High School.

"[3] Smith dropped out of college to open his own repair and luthier shop in Annapolis, from which he and several employees built on average one guitar per month.

[4][5] Smith debuted his new guitar model, the "Custom," at the 1985 NAMM Show, and afterwards traveled to retailers along the East Coast, collecting enough preorders to open his own Annapolis factory that same year.

It featured an intricate dragon inlay which ran down the fretboard, a wide 22-fret neck, a non-vibrato stop-tail bridge, and a new pickup design.

In 1996, the company moved to its present facility in Stevensville on Kent Island, launched its website, and opened its "Private Stock" custom-build service.

[10] PRS offers multiple signature model guitars and amplifiers, most notably designing the Silver Sky with John Mayer.

It was an update on the classic Fender vibrato and used cam-locking tuners, which offered wide pitch bending with exceptional tuning stability.

While most of the brand's pickups are humbuckers, some are a pair of single coils wound in opposing directions, one intended for the neck and one for the bridge position.

[8] PRS developed pickups for the aggressive rock market, offering pick ups such as the chainsaw, and the Hot-Fat-Screams (HFS) initially used on the Special model.

[8] In 1998, an electronic upgrade kit was released for pre-1993 instruments which included lighter-weight tuner buttons, nickel-plated brass screws for saddles and intonation, a simulated tone control, and high-capacitance hookup wire.

[20] The "pre-factory" design was similar to a double cutaway Les Paul Junior,[21] with a rounder lower bout and a shorter bass-side horn compared to PRS's later Custom-style silhouette, but had two humbuckers, a carved maple top, and vibrato bridge.

[22] The customer it was built for, however, declined to follow through on the purchase and it was instead sold to Heart's Howard Leese, who bought the guitar based entirely on a photo Smith sent him.

It followed much of the original Golden Eagle's format,[20] with alterations like an Om symbol on the truss rod cover, a single knob (for volume), and on/off mini-toggles for each pickup.

[4] The 24-fret Custom model was the brand's first production model, released in 1985, and introduced many of what would become the brand's signature design elements, including a body shape that merged the designs of the Fender Stratocaster and Gibson Les Paul, along with a 25" scale length that similarly sits in between Fender and Gibson specs.

[3] Like with many future PRS models, both Customs would see iterations that introduced new features, such as piezo and soapbar pickups and Floyd Rose locking bridges.

It featured an intricate dragon inlay which ran down the fretboard, a wide 22-fret neck, a non-vibrato stop-tail bridge, and a new pickup design.

The McCarty departed from the typical PRS design in multiple ways, featuring a slightly deeper body, thinner headstock, and a three-way toggle for pickup selection.

Although other brands producing Les Paul-inspired guitars was not uncommon, PRS's success and reputation for quality made the Singlecut uniquely a threat to Gibson.

The case was of significant interest to the guitar-making industry, as it potentially had serious ramifications for any brand making single-cutaway, solidbody guitar models.

The Silver Sky's basic design combines a Fender Stratocaster-style body with PRS's headstock and signature birds-in-flight fretboard inlays.