PRS Paul Reed Smith Custom 22 Piezo Guitar, Black Gold Wrap, Flame Maple, Rosewood, Pattern Neck

PRS's Custom 22 Piezo is a musical chameleon. It's decked out with great magnetic pickups, but it also sports a piezo in the bridge for lush acoustic sound. Metal heads, classic rockers, fusion players - musicians from just about every genre prize this axe's versatility.

This tremolo-equipped version of the Custom 22 Piezo expands its possibilities even more. You can get away with just about anything on the trem arm, and the axe snaps right back to tune. The strings have that slinky, effortless feel that PRS has dialed in over the years. Big bends are easy, fast runs have a way of playing themselves and chords all over the neck won't give you trouble. The neck pickup, being a bit farther from the bridge than on a Custom 24 model, has a richness to it that is simply amazing. In the Custom 22's, the neck pickup sits under the 3rd order natural harmonic of your strings. That's fancy talk for: there will be more harmonic content in your notes. The difference between the Custom 24 and Custom 22 models is much more than simply 2 extra frets. The neck pickup really does have a different vibe to it when it's in this position and we're huge fans of what the 22 fret build does for the sound of the neck pickup on PRS guitars.

The piezo produces a wonderfully passable acoustic guitar tone and can be used on its own or in conjunction with the magnetic pickups. An age-old recording studio strategy for fattening up a guitar tone is by layering an acoustic guitar under the electric guitar track. On this, you can blend in part of the piezo pickup along with your magnetic ones to accomplish the same thing. It's a thing of beauty when you're rocking out on the magnetic pickups and then slowly start to roll in some of the piezo tone along with it. It can be very subtle or extremely noticeable depending on how much piezo you add in along with the magnetic pickups. But this is one of our favorite ways to utilize the PRS Custom 22 and Custom 24 Piezo models.

The construction is immaculate: The intonation is set perfectly, the bridge and nut design keep everything in tune, the locking tuners work wonderfully. This guitar is for anyone who's looking for that unmatched PRS-level quality on a versatile, dynamic electric guitar.