“It’s been a dream of mine for years to design a guitar that includes some of my favorite vintage specifications but with a modern spirit and aesthetic. After two years of study and refinement, the Silver Sky is my vision of what a reboot of the electric guitar should look and feel like.”– John Mayer
ThePRS Silver Skyis the result of a close collaboration between Grammy Award-winning musicianJohn MayerandPaul Reed Smith. More than two and half years in the making, the Silver Sky is a vintage-inspired instrument that is at once familiar but also newly PRS through and through. This model was based off of Mayer and Smith’s favorite elements from 1963 and 1964 vintage instruments, resulting in an idealized version of a vintage single-coil guitar. The attention that was paid to every detail sets this guitar apart.
Some of the more distinctive specifications include, the headstock shape, tuners, neck and fretboard, bridge, and pickups and electronics. The headstock shape is based on PRS’s trademark design, but inverted to both accommodate Mayer’s playing style and also to keep a consistent length of string behind the nut, which makes staying in tune easier. The tuners are a traditional vintage-style, closed-back tuner, but with PRS’s locking design. The neck shape was modeled after 1963/1964 vintage instruments, and the fretboard has a 7.25” radius. The moment your hand grabs this neck, it just feels right. Like the tuners, the steel tremolo takes a classic design and incorporates PRS’s trem arm and Gen III knife-edge screws. The bridge on the Silver Sky is setup flush to the body in the neutral position so that the tremolo bridge only goes down in pitch. By keeping the bridge in contact with the body, the guitar itself is acoustically louder, which improves the signal to noise ratio of the single-coil pickups. The 635JM single-coil pickups are very round and full, with a musical high end that is never “ice-picky” or brash.
Other high-quality specifications include a bone nut, a molded metal jack plate that is curved and makes plugging and unplugging a guitar cable hassle-free, retooled knobs, fretwire that is slightly smaller than what you’d find on most PRS electric guitars, and PRS’s double action truss rod (accessible from the front of the headstock for ease of use).
Specifications
Body
Body Wood
Alder
Neck
Number of Frets
22
Scale Length
25.5"
Neck Wood
Maple
Neck Shape
635JM
Neck Depth At The Nut
53/64”
Width of Fretboard at the Body
2 7/32”
Width of Fretboard at the Nut
1 21/32”
Fretboard Wood
Rosewood
Fretboard Inlay
Small Birds
Fretboard Radius
7.25”
Nut
Bone
Hardware
Bridge
Steel Tremolo
Tuners
Vintage Style, Locking
Hardware Type
Nickel
Electronics
Treble Pickup
635JM
Middle Pickup
635JM
Bass Pickup
635JM
Controls
One Volume & Two Tones with a 5-Way Blade Pickup Switch