Paul Reed Smith built an empire from nothing but high hopes and thin air. He went from legend to legend with an amazing instrument looking to endorse them and, truth is, he was very successful.
In my opinion, Paul’s success story is based on a relentless commitment to the highest levels of excellence. And I mean that to the last bolt of every creation bearing his name or logo.
Is his new pedal line another example of Paul’s mad genius and perfect craftsmanship? Moreover, will they be as disruptive as his guitars were when they first came out?
Read on as I do my best to answer those questions while telling you all about the new PRS pedals.
Table of Contents
Meeting the Effect Line-Up
The effects line up in Paul’s new adventure is a rather minimal attempt. Hey, the man has his modus operandi and he did just fine so far, didn’t he? Well, this is just another example of a genius going all-in on an idea.
First, it was the idea to conquer the world with the perfect mix between a Strat and a Les Paul. Second, the idea to make an amp so good that John Mayer would put his name on it. Now, he’s bringing legendary tones to a saturated pedal market.
But Paul is using his favorite trick again. He’s sparing no expenses and creating the best available in each category. But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let me rewind and tell you all about Paul’s dreams turned into pedals.
Wind Through the Trees
This is, in my opinion, the weirdest addition to such a small lineup of pedals. I mean, would you expect to see a Double Flanger as their third pedal ever released? Well, the moment you open up this pedal’s box, you get a little card which you can open to meet Paul’s face and a lonely caption saying “I hate pedals”.
That answers the question above, doesn’t it? Paul is always one step beyond, pushing the right buttons.
That said, the moment I plugged this pedal I was immediately transported to the beautiful tones of Andy Summers in the early The Police records. Don’t get me wrong, this pedal sweeshis and swooshes like the sound the wind makes through the trees, but it can also be a very-modern-yet-super-retro sophisticated Chorus or Phaser pedal.
In that kind of setting and with a clean amp, you’re instantly into a funky ‘80s mood. All those diminished, 7th and 9th chords sounded perfectly hip.
To soup it up a little, I added some distortion to the mix. I can swear I was walking through the set of Top Gun! It was a superjet airplane living inside my pedalboard. You can fill an entire room by just strumming a big chord. If that’s your kind of vibe, then this pedal is a must-have.
But that’s not all, I also tried to make it go weird coupled with an MXR Carbon Copy. Let me tell you that, by cranking the “Regen” knob and playing around with the “Rate” knob, you can get into some very wild and weird sonic realms.
Speaking of which, I especially loved the blend knob for the LFOs, which allows you to mix them instead of choosing one or the other. You can also blend in as much effect and as much dry guitar as you want as well. This makes it a great pedal to play with the tails of Reverb and Delay.
You can dial in just the right amount of effect and it makes everything 3D without taking the front of the stage.
Perhaps, the only thing I wish it had was a way to store one preset and recall it.
Horsemeat
According to Mr. Paul Reed Smith himself, the idea for this pedal came to him after playing an original Klon Centaur. He was so amazed by the natural and organic sound of the Klon that he thought to himself he had to recreate it somehow.
But Paul is Paul, so he did it his way. He searched for the best pedal engineers in the market and, instead of using a Klon blueprint to guide the design, he used his ears. I mean, having heard and felt the holy grail of overdrive pedals, he went after the sound he remembered.
As you might imagine, this pedal doesn’t sound like a Klon, but to Paul’s idea of it. Thus, the name: it’s not a Klon but it’s made of horsemeat.
Let me tell you that this fellow guitar player is a TS-9 fundamentalist. It has been my always-on pedal for two solid decades.
Now that that’s out of the way, let me tell you that this is a stellar overdrive. It’s a versatile, yet transparent, easy-to-use, and straightforward pedal that accentuates some mid frequencies musically without being harsh or brittle. On the contrary, it feels as if your guitar is about to go into this beautiful feedback all the time.
Perhaps, the only thing I found was that when cranking the gain on the pedal, it lost definition but keeping the gain below three o’clock took me to a complete state of bliss.
A very nice feature I enjoyed a lot was having a treble and bass control so I could roll off some of the high-end from my maple-neck Stratocaster. Also, going at it with my SG Jr, the typical bite of the guitar emerged right through with both knobs at noon.
I did test this pedal along with my Tube Screamer and the result was a cascading overdrive effect that was raunchy, harmonically complex, and with a kick.
I would gig with it any day.
Mary Cries
The entire pedal line put together by Paul Reed Smith makes perfect sense. It’s an ode to the eighties. That’s exactly why he included a Double Flanger pedal; you can’t have enough ‘80s mojo until the turbine of a jet spins inside your distorted tones.
Well, another thing that can never go missing from an ‘80s-inspired pedalboard is a good compressor. If you think of Andy Summers, for example, he used the Dyna Comp probably all his career while touring the world time and again with The Police.
This pedal, the Mary Cries by PRS is a studio-grade optical compressor unit inside the chassis of a guitar stomp box. As Paul said it, he spared no expense in his new pedal lineup, so he went as far as to create a perfect always-on, musical, warm, and big compressor to accentuate those Flanger-filled ‘80s chops.
The compressor that Paul based his designs on was the TELETRONIX LA-2A compressor, a studio superclassic recently turned into a plugin by Universal Audio.
If you’ve ever used that compressor, you’ll know that the results aren’t at all modern or drastic but it’s much more of a subtle effect.
But that’s not all, because, well, because Paul is Paul and he does everything with a twist.
So, he hid a clean boost inside this compressor pedal. You can literally roll off the compression effect. This leaves you with a “Gain” knob that allows you to use this pedal as a clean boost or as a volume jump to go into a solo while playing with a distorted or overdriven amp.
This pedal sounded fabulous with my humbucker-equipped guitars as well as with single-coil guitars. Furthermore, I plugged in the SG Jr. into a pushed tube amp, cranked this boost and I had a full session of pure overdriven fun. The pedal pushed the amp and it became this sort of a distorted beast.
Yet, what struck me the most wasn’t how loud this pedal can make you, but how musical it remains throughout its spectrum.
The PRS Quality Sound and Craftsmanship Ensured
Paul Reed Smith is a man who doesn’t take anything for granted and, as he says “PRS likes making good pieces of gear that people can use.” These pedals aren’t, by any means, the exception to that rule. These are well-crafted, great-sounding, versatile, and powerful pedals you can use on the road and in the studio.
In my point of view, they’re great classic guitar pedals but, if PRS wants to compete with the big names (Strymon, Empress), then they’re going to have to do a lot better than this.
That being said, they’re a superb start for a company that might just be able to excel in all categories.
The Bottom Line
If you’re a PRS player, you know that, especially in the high-end products, flawless and amazing really means flawless and amazing. Well, these guitar pedals are the faithful representation of that motto PRS adopted since its foundation.
The bold innovative spirit that brought PRS and Paul to this successful present might be the ones to guide PRS pedals much further with some clever, unique, and inspiring creations. But that’s futurology, or maybe even an expression of my desires for the future.
Happy (overdriven, compressed, or swooshy) playing!
