Paul Reed Smith PRS Private Stock Hollowbody II Piezo Guitar, Cocobolo and Brazilian Rosewood

Music Store Live is proud to offer up another unique and beautiful creation from our friends over at the Paul Reed Smith Private Stock department. Paul Miles and his crew redefine what a "custom shop" guitar should be with every Private Stock build they make. They're some of the best in the world at what they do, no doubt about it.

We usually build bright, colorful, and flashy guitars when we go through the Private Stock department. And while this one still has plenty of flash and pizazz to it, it's more of an au naturale look and anything that could be made out of wood on it, we chose to do so. Everything down to the pickup rings, bindings, knobs, and tuner buttons show off the beauty of the natural woods to go along with the gorgeous cocobolo we picked for the top, back, sides, and neck of this angelic creation.

This is basically the closest thing we could conceptualize to something that would sound like an all-Brazilian rosewood hollowbody guitar. We think cocobolo has a lot of very similar tonal properties to Brazilian rosewood, not to mention the absolutely gorgeous aesthetics. It has the warmth you expect from rosewood but also a beautiful bell-like chime in the top end that is part of what makes Brazilian so special and different from other rosewoods. Cocobolo shares a lot of those characteristics and this one also does have a Brazilian rosewood fretboard, as well. So the result is a hollowbody guitar with full, warm, round, but tight bass response as well as a beautifully open and vocal-like top end that rings out like the heavens opened up and a choir of angels descended upon you.

Of course, with so much focus on the tonewoods going into this build, we had to have PRS add a piezo to this guitar to tap into the incredible acoustic qualities of this design as well. Use the magnetic pickups on their own, use the piezo on its own, or mix them together for a huge array of musical tonal options. Blending the piezo in with some of the magnetic pickups provides some of our favorite tones. It's a common trick used in studios to layer and thicken up guitar parts (for example, recording an acoustic guitar that doubles the electric guitar but it's usually really low in the mix, almost unnoticeable). You can do that right on your guitar with this one by blending the piezo with the 58/15 pickups.

This guitar is definitely not all just for show. We picked tonewoods that look beautiful, but most importantly we picked a combination of tonewoods that would sound absolutely phenomenal and magical. Mission accomplished! Simply put, what an absolutely stunning work of playable art!

Private Stock represents the highest quality of materials, the most personally crafted instruments, and the greatest level of customization available from PRS. Whether you choose one of our Private Stock models or spec a Built to Order instrument, every Private Stock is carefully conceived and built with a “one-off” mentality. Through this program, we strive to deliver heirloom-quality, musical instruments. All woods for this guitar were hand-selected by the dealer during a trip to our Private Stock vault in Maryland.

"I have never seen anyone playing guitar in a bad mood. There’s something magic about guitars because they are simultaneously art, musical instruments, treasured possessions, and tools to joyfully spend time with. If you get an extraordinary instrument from Private Stock that is equally as good as a family heirloom and a musician’s tool to make a living on, we have done our job." - Paul Reed Smith

Unique features to this PRS Private Stock guitar are:

- The dealer selected all of the woods used
- Vibrant cocobolo top and back pieces
- Satin cocobolo Neck
- Brazilian rosewood fretboard w/cocobolo bird inlays
- Brazilian rosewood tuner buttons and control knobs
- Flame maple body binding, f-hole binding, fretboard and headstock binding, and pickup rings

Pattern Neck Shapes

Neck shapes have always been a high priority for PRS and a hallmark of our quality. A guitar should feel comfortable, like "home," as soon as you pick it up, and the neck is paramount to that connection. These new neck shapes reflect modern tooling and programming that allows us to even more preciously shape and consistently reproduce our necks. The Pattern Vintage neck has the same width measurements as PRS's Pattern neck but is slightly thicker front to back and features an asymmetrical carve with a little less meat on the bass side of the neck toward the nut end and a little less meat on the treble side of the neck from the twelfth fret to the heel.