PRS Tremonti: The Singlecut Built From a Free McCarty

Almost every PRS electric traces back to the same double-cutaway silhouette — the Custom 24, the McCarty 594, the CE 24. The PRS Tremonti breaks that pattern entirely. It’s a singlecut, thicker and heavier than PRS’s usual catalog, voiced hotter than anything else the company builds, and it exists because a young guitarist on tour with an unknown Florida rock band once got sent a free guitar and decided it wasn’t quite right for him.

From a Free McCarty to a Signature Deal

In the late 1990s, while Creed toured behind their debut album My Own Prison, PRS reached out to guitarist Mark Tremonti and offered to let him try one of their guitars. “I jumped at the idea to play one of PRS’ guitars,” Tremonti later said. “PRS was one of those guitars that I could never afford in high school or college and had always wanted to play one.” PRS sent him a McCarty model, and he played it almost exclusively for a stretch — but as Creed’s sound got heavier and his rhythm playing leaned harder into palm-muted riffing, he found himself wanting pickups with more aggression and a neck profile better suited to his technique. That conversation with PRS turned into a genuine collaboration, and in 2001 the first Mark Tremonti Signature Model reached the market.

Creed became one of the best-selling rock acts of its era, a founding member of a Grammy-winning band whose single “With Arms Wide Open” remains one of the most inescapable rock radio hits of the 2000s. But mounting tension with singer Scott Stapp led the band to split in 2004, and Tremonti immediately regrouped with bassist Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips to form Alter Bridge, recruiting Myles Kennedy — later also known for fronting Slash’s solo band — as vocalist. The band’s 2004 debut, One Day Remains, earned mixed reviews but went gold, and 2007’s Blackbird produced a title-track guitar solo, traded between Tremonti and Kennedy, that Guitarist magazine named the greatest guitar solo of all time in 2011. Tremonti also launched his own heavier solo band, Tremonti, in 2011, releasing six albums including the John Shirley co-written sci-fi concept record A Dying Machine (2018) and 2021’s Marching In Time. Guitar World named him Guitarist of the Year three years running, and Total Guitar ranked him the fourth-greatest heavy metal guitarist of all time in 2011.

Beyond the Guitar: Tremonti’s Amp Obsession

Tremonti’s gear story doesn’t stop at PRS. Through Creed’s early years he leaned on Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifiers, Bogner Uberschall and Shiva heads, and Diezel Hagans for heavy rhythm tone. But a chance encounter reshaped his lead tone entirely: after playing a Dumble amplifier owned by PRS founder Paul Reed Smith himself, Tremonti became — in his own words — “beyond obsessed,” spending roughly a year tracking down a Dumble that suited him and eventually acquiring several. For live use, where an original Dumble’s rarity and unpredictability make touring risky, he switched to Bludotone amps built in that same boutique tradition, and separately picked up a signature amplifier from Two-Rock, another maker known for Dumble-style circuits. It’s a reminder that even PRS’s longest-tenured signature artist, with his own PRS amp line, still reaches outside the family for the tones that matter most to him.

The Guitar That Kept Evolving

What makes the Tremonti unusual among signature guitars is how openly its 25-year development has been documented. The neck has measurably thinned out over the model’s lifetime as Tremonti’s technique and preferences evolved. Early production years even carried “Mark Tremonti” inlaid across the 12th fret — a detail PRS later removed specifically so the guitar would feel approachable to players who weren’t necessarily Alter Bridge or Creed fans first. In 2021, PRS marked the model’s 20th anniversary with a limited-edition run, and Guitar World described the ongoing collaboration as one of the most successful signature-artist partnerships in modern electric guitar history.

Not every Tremonti/PRS experiment made it to market. Around 2016, Tremonti co-designed a new body shape with PRS reminiscent of a Gibson Explorer, but the design was ultimately shelved as too “quirky” and structurally complex for production — a rare glimpse of a signature collaboration that didn’t pan out, buried in an otherwise unbroken run of releases. On the amp side, the partnership expanded into hardware entirely separate from guitars: the two-channel MT15 head launched in 2018, followed by the three-channel, 100-watt MT100 in 2024, whose clean channel borrows from Fender Twin voicing while the high-gain channel targets metal directly and a 2024 Dumble-esque overdrive channel was added, later ported back into the MT15 as a 2025 update.

Full Specifications (PRS Tremonti, Core Model)

Under the Hood: Built for Rhythm as Much as Lead

The single most distinctive engineering detail on the Tremonti is the “Trem-Up Route” — a modification to PRS’s standard tremolo cavity that allows the bridge to pull up in pitch as well as dive down, giving players the kind of expressive up-bends more associated with a Fender-style synchronized tremolo than PRS’s usual PRS-designed bridge. Players who prefer a completely fixed bridge can order the same body with an adjustable stoptail instead — a genuine either/or choice built into the model rather than a running change.

The pickups reflect Tremonti’s rhythm-first priorities directly. The bridge unit uses custom magnets and measures a notably hot 15.42k DC resistance, giving it a large low-end boost tuned specifically for palm-muted riffing and saturated lead tone without collapsing into mud. The neck pickup, by contrast, uses Alnico 4 magnets for a brighter, more trebly complement — a deliberate contrast pairing rather than a matched set, built to give Tremonti’s chugging rhythm parts full-band weight while keeping lead lines articulate. The singlecut body itself, thicker front-to-back than PRS’s usual doublecut designs, adds both the extra weight players notice immediately and a denser, more Les-Paul-adjacent low-mid response that separates the Tremonti’s voice from the rest of the PRS catalog.

The Story Behind the Guitar’s Details

A handful of details from Tremonti’s own touring history are baked into the model’s mythology even if they’re not literal specifications. His main touring guitar has carried a sticker honoring the late Dimebag Darrell behind the bridge since shortly after the Pantera guitarist’s 2004 death — a fan handed it to him after a show, and he’s kept it on his primary stage guitar ever since. One of his earliest PRS signature guitars, a rare tiger-eye-topped model featuring a flamed maple cap and curly maple neck, was stolen from a Creed rehearsal space; Tremonti eventually recovered it after a friend spotted it for sale at a garage sale for $400. And his very first Creed touring guitar — a 1959 reissue Gibson Les Paul used before the PRS relationship began — was stolen along with the rest of the band’s gear before a 1997 Boston show, only to be tracked down decades later by his manager and gifted back to him on his 50th birthday in 2024.

Tone Recipes

• Palm-muted rhythm chug: Bridge pickup, both volume and tone maxed, high-gain amp channel — the sound the pickup’s hot output was specifically voiced for.
• Singing lead tone: Neck pickup or blended position, moderate-to-high gain, slight midrange push for the Alnico 4 pickup’s brighter character to cut through.
• Clean arpeggios/verses: Neck pickup, tone rolled back, clean amp channel — useful for Alter Bridge-style clean/heavy dynamic shifts within a single song.
• Full rock crunch: Both pickups blended (middle toggle position), moderate gain, into something like an Ibanez TS9 for extra front-end push.

PRS Tremonti vs. the Rest of the PRS Family

The Tremonti’s closest sibling on paper is the Custom 24, and PRS’s own forums are full of players comparing the two directly. The Tremonti carries a thicker, heavier singlecut body against the Custom 24’s slimmer doublecut design, a Wide Fat neck profile against the Custom 24’s thinner Wide Thin carve, 22 frets rather than 24, and independent volume/tone knobs per pickup rather than the Custom 24’s master-volume-and-tone-with-coil-tap layout. The tonal result tracks the spec sheet: owners who’ve played both consistently describe the Tremonti as thicker and more aggressive, particularly on the neck pickup, while the Custom 24 stays smoother and more versatile across genres. Against instruments outside the PRS family, like a Gibson Les Paul Standard or Fender Stratocaster, the Tremonti sits closer to Les Paul territory in body mass and output, but keeps PRS’s 25″ scale and tremolo-equipped versatility that neither of those instruments offers in stock form.

Buying Guide

The Core USA Tremonti runs roughly $3,800–4,500 depending on finish and bridge configuration (tremolo versus stoptail), available in classic PRS colorways including Antique White and Metallic Black. For players who want the Tremonti experience at a fraction of the price, PRS’s SE line offers two distinct versions: the SE Mark Tremonti Standard, an all-mahogany build (body and neck) with a rosewood fretboard, Tremonti “S” pickups, and the PRS tremolo with Trem-Up Route, running around $780–940; and the SE Mark Tremonti Custom, which swaps in a figured maple top and maple neck for a brighter, more resonant character at a similar price point. Both share the singlecut shape, Wide Thin neck carve, and independent per-pickup volume/tone layout that defines the Core model, though PRS forum consensus notes the SE Tremonti’s neck actually runs slightly thicker than the Custom 24 SE’s — a detail worth trying in person if neck feel is a priority. Players building a complete Tremonti-style rig can also look at PRS’s own MT15 or MT100 amplifiers, developed directly with Tremonti and voiced to match the guitar’s rhythm-forward design brief, even though Tremonti’s own live rig increasingly leans on Bludotone and Two-Rock for lead tone rather than his namesake PRS amp line.

Practical Ownership Notes

• The Tremonti’s singlecut body is noticeably heavier than most PRS doublecuts — players prone to shoulder or back strain on long gigs should factor this in before buying, especially the Core maple-top versions.
• Owners running drop tunings (a common choice given Tremonti’s own rhythm style) should budget for a proper trem-spring and neck relief adjustment; several forum threads note sloppy trem behavior at low tunings without this step.
• The Trem-Up Route tremolo needs more careful setup than a standard fixed bridge — expect a proper professional setup after any string-gauge change.
• Some players find the “Tremonti” truss rod cover a cosmetic distraction if they’re buying the guitar purely for its tone rather than the artist association; it’s a simple swap or cover-up if that matters.

Frequently Asked Questions