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. I put in our whole tuning-peg/bridge system and a new electronic system with an Alembic Stratoblaster pre-amp.
'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. 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. The company's first outing was for the 1985 NAMM Show where they debuted the PRS Custom. Paul Reed Smith set up a partnership to create a factory in Annapolis, Maryland.
