PRS Guitars has announced that the high-end electric guitar brand will be releasing one of its most popular US-built models in its more budget-friendly SE line when the David Grissom Trem signature guitar is released in the New Year.
The Maryland-based company made the announcement via the first in a trio of video features that documents the production process of the PRS SE DGT, from concept to release, and it is a story that takes you behind the wheel of the PRS COO Jack Higginbotham’s Toyota.
“I remember in particular one morning when the idea popped into my head – what if we made an SE DGT?” says Higginbotham. “Could we pull it off? It’s a complicated project, involving a lot of people, but a project like this always starts with making sure the artist was onboard.”
Grissom, a Texan guitarist with an extensive CV, has been one of PRS Guitars’ longest-standing artist relationships. His signature DGT is a mainstay of the Core lineup but the connection goes back before that to the launch of one of the most significant electric guitar designs in PRS history.
“He wanted a guitar that sounded like Duane Allman: Live At The Fillmore, and he helped design that guitar, and that guitar became the McCarty,” says Paul Reed Smith.
The McCarty would go on to form the basis of Grissom’s signature model. Besides the tremolo unit that gives it its name – revised in 2021 with the Gen III PRS Patented Tremolo – it came with a newly minted neck profile, taller frets, revised controls and pickups. PRS says it went through over 40 sets of electric guitar pickups, A/Bing between them, before voicing the DGT pickups.
As the video above explains, translating this into an SE model that will be manufactured in Indonesia by Cor-Tek involved a lot of testing. But if recent models such as the SE John Mayer Silver Sky and the superlative SE Custom 24 and SE Custom 24-08 are anything to go by, they’ve got that process down to a tee.
“There was no way I was going to put my name on it if it was an instrument that I had no desire or didn’t feel confident playing,” says Grissom. “I want the guys in the factory to understand that the height of the strings at the nut is not designed so it is easier and you can do it faster; it’s designed so you can play it properly and be in tune at the first fret.”
“I didn’t just rubber stamp this,” added Grissom. “This guitar is something I have been very involved in and am really proud of. The SE Series is lightyears ahead of anything I could get my hands on when I started playing - it’s amazing how far the quality has come – and I am proud to be able to offer this guitar to more people.”
There are no specs revealed as yet. We’ll have to wait until the next video comes out. But we would expect a moulded PRS Patented Tremolo, as you would find on the SE Custom 24, a flame maple veneer and solid mahogany body, and a similar switching configuration to the Core DGT. Definitely one to look out for in what looks to be the biggest guitar release confirmed so far for 2023.
For more details on the current SE line, head over to PRS Guitars.
