Wood Library vs Artist Package

[Jacob594]

Can someone explain the difference between current wood library and artist package guitars to me? I thought they were two separate lines, but a lot of the advertising for the wood library guitars mentions "artist grade tops". Are all wood library guitars equivalent of artist package guitars?

 

[flux]

Can someone explain the difference between current wood library and artist package guitars to me? I thought they were two separate lines, but a lot of the advertising for the wood library guitars mentions "artist grade tops". Are all wood library guitars equivalent of artist package guitars?

Hi, jacob, welcome to the forum!

Wood Library is something I like to think of as a process rather than a thing, but it's essentially a set of dealer-selected wood options. It's possible to obtain Wood Library guitars with the Artist Package (my 594, for example), and the following should help explain.

First, take a peek at the PRS Blog for the picture experience to go along with this:

• The Wood Library - What Is It?

Tucked away upstairs in a corner of our 85,000 square foot factory are racks of extraordinary wood. Maple, mahogany, korina, rosewood, swamp ash, you name it. Dozens of species of timber hanging out in this area we call the “Wood Library.”

The Wood Library program is in a way similar to our Private Stock program in that it is an elaborate menu-based program for the PRS Core line of guitars designed to give our dealers the opportunity to build special runs for their store and customer base. The common misconception is that the quality of the wood in the wood library is unique. That’s not the case; the wood library is graded on the same scale in which we grade our other woods: Core, 10-top, Artist Package, Private Stock.

What is unique however, are the combinations of wood dealers can place together when ordering a run of wood library instruments. Let’s give an example, take for instance our Custom 24 model, it comes stock with a mahogany back, maple top, mahogany neck, and rosewood fingerboard. A dealer ordering a Wood Library Custom 24 run now has the option of swapping that mahogany back for korina, or swamp ash, or anything else offered inside the wood library. Or instead of swapping the Custom 24’s standard mahogany back they may choose to swap the mahogany neck for maple, or rosewood.

It may seem complicated, but the Wood Library is simple, it enables dealers to swap some of the materials in our core guitars. It’s designed to encourage the dealer to visit PRS and hand select the woods, options, colors, birds, pickups, electronics, well you get the idea…for their very own special run. Why do dealers come all this way? To give their customers the very best experience with our brand and theirs.

Long story short, dealers commonly work with the factory to design runs of guitars along a theme or specific set of features, or woods. You can find many examples of these in the Authorized Dealers section of the forum.

Once the model and woods for a specific guitar have been selected, it's possible to include additional upgrades via the Artist Package, opening up possibilities for finishes, electronics and such that might not be available otherwise.

Also:

The following options are included on all Artist Package models:

• Artist grade flame maple top
• Select mahogany neck and back
• Artist grade Gaboon ebony fretboard & headstock veneer with inlaid green abalone signature
• Paua outline / green select abalone center Artist bird inlays, gold hardware
• Black Paisley Artist case.

A complete list of AP options is available on page 10 of the 2017 PRS catalog (PDF), and there's a lot to choose from. They're usually model-specific, too, although sometimes one-offs have been known to occur.

Hope this helps! You can also find several videos covering the process on YouTube if you're interested.

 

[garrett]

Great explanation!

 

[bodia]

Flux is right on the money. Great explanation. I'd simply add this; I always thought of the Wood Library as a run of guitars (10) with specific builds, whereas the Artist Package is something I can custom order through a dealer as a one off.