NAMM 2025: PRS has kicked off its 40th anniversary year strong unveiling two new electric guitar pickups for its Core series, expanding its electronics and hardware options, and by launching a pair of electric guitars – one referencing the very beginning of the PRS story, the other an old favourite making a return.
The old favourite is the Swamp Ash Special, which makes its comeback in the Bolt-on series, refreshed with a pair of 58/15 LT humbuckers at the neck and bridge positions, and a PRS Narrowfield single-coil in the middle.
The newbie is the Standard 24 Satin, a “powerful, road-worthy workhorse” that remixes the original “pre-factory” PRS that founder Paul Reed Smith toured with when clocking up the road miles, introducing his designs to dealers. Or, PRS calls it, the “pre-factory” era.
Both are quintessentially PRS Guitars: high-end, with top-quality hardware, and super versatile. You can even put a number on that versatility. With the Swamp Ash Special, that number is 12: from the three pickups, the five-way blade selector, and the dual mini-toggle coil-tap switches that make their debut on the model, players have a dozen core tones to play with before touching their tone and volume controls.
As for the Standard 24 Satin, well, that’s no slouch either, though the drive is a little more straightforward, with a humbucker pairing, volume and tone controls, and a five-way blade selector switch.
The big ticket item on the Standard 24 Satin, however, is the introduction. of the DMO humbucker pickups. DMO (dynamic, musical, open), are one of two new pickups for 2025, the other being the McCarty III.
Paul Reed Smith was hands on in the development of the pickups with his R&D team, and the DMO is described by as having a “‘wide open’ sound with vocal character, meaning they deliver clear, pleasant-sounding tones across a wide range of frequencies”. Vintage-voiced, you will find the McCarty III on – surprise, surprise – the McCarty lineup.
The Standard 24 has a “sinky” satin nitro finish that shows off some of the wood grain. Like the pre-factory 1985 PRS that inspired it, this too is an all-mahogany build, with a 25” scale length, a Pattern Thin neck, 24 frets (as the name suggests), and a 10” radius rosewood fingerboard inlaid with brand signature birds.
Other key features include the PRS Patented Tremolo, and PRS Phase III tuners with unplated brass shafts. The finish options are all solid colours and they’re pretty sweet: choose from Frost Blue Metallic (our favourite), Pearl Black, Pearl White and Red Apple Metallic.
Smith says we should expect much more to come from the company throughout 2025.
“Our mission hasn’t changed since day one in my first Garrett workshop – we want to build the best tools for musicians to do their jobs,” he said. “But, as the saying goes, ‘windshields are larger than rearview mirrors for a reason.’ We do not want to spend our anniversary only looking back. We want to keep advancing our craft and adding value to our instruments by focusing on details we believe matter to musicians.”
As for the Swamp Ash Special, it similarly has a 25” scale length and 10” fingerboard radius, but here we have a choice of maple or rosewood fingerboards, and it comes equipped with the PRS Gen III patented tremolo and Phase III locking tuners as standard.
The Swamp Ash Special has a bolt-on maple neck in a Pattern Regular shape, and is recognisable for that plain maple headstock. The body is of course solid swamp ash, with that violin carve to the top giving those finish options a nice three dimensional quality. Choose from Black Doghair Smokeburst, Jasper Smokeburst, McCarty Tobacco Sunburst, Scarlet Smokeburst, Vintage Natural, and White Doghair Smokeburst.
Last but by no means least, PRS has also announced that the EQ switch from John McLaughlin’s signature guitar is coming to the Custom 24-08, Modern Eagle V and S2 Custom 24-08. The EQ Switch replace the mini-toggle coil-taps and act as tuned high-pass filters when engaged. And we’ve also got Phase III locking tuners coming to all S2 series models and select Bolt-ons, which is a welcome upgrade by anyone’s book.
The Standard Satin 24 is priced £3,499/$3,500 street while the Swamp Ash Special should set you back £3,149/$2,899, with those prices including a hardshell guitar case.
For more details, head over to PRS Guitars.
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