Three’s No Crowd

The 509 might be the only current three-pickup guitar in the PRS range, but there have been plenty more in its past. Here are six by three!

Studio

Originally introduced in 1988, the Studio was the first production PRS guitar to feature true single coils, based on the all-mahogany Standard. A maple-top version was added the following year and lasted until 1990 (although the pickup configuration was offered until 1996). It returned, as pictured, in 2011 with a 57/08 full-size humbucker at the bridge and two 57/08 Narrowfield humbuckers in the neck and middle positions.

Swamp aSh Special

The Swamp Ash Special debuted in 1996 with a bolton maple neck, ash body, covered McCarty Treble and Bass humbuckers and one Seymour Duncan Vintage Rails single-coil-size humbucker. The 25th Anniversary Swamp Ash Narrowfield (pictured, with three Narrowfield mini-humbuckers) appeared in 2010. In 2013, the Swamp Ash Custom 24 Limited appeared – a dual-pickup Custom 24 with swamp ash body and five-way lever switch.

eG ii maple top

Affordability was offered with the original EG series bolt-ons (’90 to ’91), with SSS and HSS versions, followed by the EG II series (’91 to ’95) that had three Fralin Zero Noise ‘domino’ hum-cancelling single coils with one HFS ’bucker and two ‘domino’ single coils and, a third variant, with two HFS ’buckers and a single coil. The ‘EG’ was revisited with the SE EG (2004 to ’07) with three single coils before swapping to an HSS configuration in 2005.

513

The forerunner to the 509, the 513 Rosewood appeared in 2004 featuring a Brazilian rosewood neck and fingerboard. In 2007 it was replaced with a mahogany-neck/Indian rosewood-’board version that lasted until 2009. The guitar reappeared as the 513 Maple Top in 2011, until it was replaced by this year’s 509. A 25th Anniversary 513 appeared in 2010, as well as the 513 Swamp Ash, which utilised a more Fender-like light ash body.

25th anniverSary 305

An offshoot of the 513, the 305 surfaced in 2010 in standard format and a 25th Anniversary version. It is one of the very few PRSes to use the full 648mm (25.5-inch) ‘Fender’ scale length. It employed three of the 513-style single coils on an alder body with glued-in maple neck and either rosewood or maple fingerboards. Until the DC3 arrived in 2011, it was the most ‘Strat-like’ PRS, although it had dropped off the radar by 2013.

Brent maSon SiGnature

Based on the NF3 (2011–13), this slab-bodied signature model appeared in 2013 and retained the NF3’s Korina body with bolt-on maple neck but with a 408 Treble humbucker, 305 Middle single coil and 408 Bass humbucker, plus a control setup that included a five-way lever pickup selector with two coil-split mini-switches. It was still listed in 2016, along with an £8k Private Stock version; it didn’t make this year’s line-up.