PRS Paul Reed Smith Mayer Silver Sky Single Coil Guitar, Onyx (Black), Rosewood Fretboard

Player's Perspective

Music Store Live is truly excited and proud to offer up this PRS Silver Sky guitar in a classic all-black Onyx finish. 

This is an absolutely wonderful instrument. It truly is! Subtle refinements such as the lower heel contour for upper fret access, the tuners, the tremolo system, the pickups, and the overall fit and finish of the instrument makes this the strat that so many of us have been waiting for. The 7.25" radius on this will blow your mind because it doesn't feel restricting in the slightest. You can bend away, with full confidence, regardless of where you are on the neck. It just goes to prove that, if the instrument is built correctly, there's nothing wrong with the vintage radius. The overall feel of the neck, a hybrid between John Mayer's 2 favorite strats (a '63 and a '64), is one of sheer perfection. The neck is effortless to play and the shape is incredibly comfortable.

The pickups definitely aim for a vintage tone and hit the mark right on the bullseye. But in that way that Paul Smith is never happy with settling for just recreating something from the past, these have a bit of refinement to them. Almost as though you took a (nice and quiet) '63 strat, recorded it, put it through an incredibly high-end mixing board and mastering process, then bottled up the result into the pickups on the Silver Sky. They have an incredible vocal-like quality to them and they're extremely rich harmonically. The dynamics of the guitar and the pickups help to really give you everything from mellow, warm, and sweet, to snappy, spanky, and bright just based on how you play it.

At the end of the day, the concept behind this guitar is a simple one - It's Paul Smith and John Mayer collaborating on their take on what the perfect strat should be. Far be it for us to say that this is the most perfect strat ever... But boy, it's hard to argue with the results. They speak for themselves. This has got to be considered by anybody that needs a pro-level strat that is going to be built with finesse and refinements where needed, but still feels like a great strat should.

Manufacturer's Description

The PRS Silver Sky is the result of a close collaboration between Grammy Award-winning musician John Mayer and Paul Reed Smith. More than two and half years in the making, the Silver Sky is a vintage-inspired instrument that is both familiar and uniquely PRS.

This model, which has been a highly-anticipated announcement since Mayer was first seen with one back in the spring of 2017, was inspired by Mayer and Smith’s favorite elements of 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.

“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,” said John Mayer.

Some of the more distinctive specifications include a “reverse” PRS trademark headstock shape, vintage-style tuners with PRS’s locking design, a 25.5” scale length bolt-on maple neck with Mayer’s signature 635JM carve, 7.25” fretboard radius, a steel PRS tremolo bridge with PRS trem arm, saddles, and Gen-III knife-edge screws, a trio of special PRS 635JM single-coil pickups, and precision-tuned electronics.

When Mayer’s longtime-tech René Martinez (former tech for Stevie Ray Vaughan, Carlos Santana, and Prince) was asked what he thought of the new guitar, he said, “the first thing I thought about was how it felt, especially the neck, and it just feels good. Playing all the way up and down the neck, bending the strings, everything works and feels right. As far as the pickups and the sound goes, it’s unique while sounding familiar, and there are five distinct tones – as a single-coil guitar should have…It’s a fun guitar to play.”

Other high-quality specifications include a bone nut, a curved molded metal jack plate that 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 (but larger than most vintage frets), and PRS’s double action truss rod (accessible from the front of the headstock for ease of use). The Silver Sky comes in four colors with distinctive accents on PRS’s trademark lower horn scoop.

“Everything about this guitar has to work. It has to play in tune, stay in tune, not buzz, sound beautiful, have very good signal to noise ratio, and feel familiar and comfortable. By paying attention to all the details, we were able to create an instrument that John is very pleased with and that we are very proud of,” Paul Reed Smith, PRS Guitars Founder.

Specifications

BODY

• Model: Silver Sky
• Color: Onyx
• Body Wood: Alder
• Pickguard: White

NECK

• Construction: Bolt-On
• 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 Tone Controls with a 5-Way Blade Switch

MISCELLANEOUS

• Case: Deluxe Gig Bag
• Instrument Weight: 7.2 - 7.4 lbs.

Overall Condition

Music Store Live is proud to be an authorized dealer for PRS. This Mayer Silver Sky Single Coil is 100% brand new and is being sold with a full manufacturer's warranty.

note: The photos above may not be of the exact guitar you'll receive. The serial number may differ but specs will all be the same. Please feel free to get in touch with us for an in-hand description.

Our in-house guitar tech will inspect, test, set up, and clean all of our instruments on site prior to shipping. All of our instruments are guaranteed to be fully functional upon arrival.