Paul Reed Smith has unveiled a limited edition – as in, they’re just making 200 of them – signature guitar for DragonForce’s Herman Li and it is a PRS electric as you have never seen it before.
It’s called the Chleo. It has an all-new body shape, with deeper carves on the body to aid upper-fret access – i.e. where the shred money is – and it has a pair of Li’s signature Fishman electric guitar pickups at the neck and bridge, a Gotoh-designed double-locking vibrato for Floyd-esque histrionics.
We say you will have never seen this before but the chances are if you keep abreast of Mr Smith and Mr Li’s manoeuvres, you might actually have seen it in action. This tricked-out electric guitar that has been in the works since, well, the actual conversation took place at NAMM 2018.
And perhaps some early iterations of it have made the occasional appearance onstage.
Li was playing it, or a prototype, when Smith joined him to jam on Farming Simulator – just one of the many bizarro sights to expect when catching the all-action power metal institution live in concert.
This limited edition Chleo is PRS but with everything geared towards the speedier end of performance. It has a super-flat 20” radius ebony fingerboard. The body itself is super thin.
“With the PRS Chleo, I wanted to create a guitar that combined effortless playability, precision craftsmanship, and a versatile tonal range,” says Li. “It brings together modern innovation with timeless style, giving players the freedom to explore both classic sounds and new creative possibilities. The Chleo isn’t just a signature model – it’s a guitar built to inspire.”
PRS wiring systems are renowned for giving players an abundance of choice over their core tones. This HSH platform offers you 13 tone combinations, and, thanks to its PCB-based design that eschews copper wire, these pickups promises a noise-free performance no matter how much gain you’ve got going on.
This is something different from PRS. Or at least this is PRS at its most audacious. There is even a new PRS “stabilizer” to make the vibrato as reliable as a hard-tail bridge. You can bet it’ll be super smooth and super stable.
“This guitar represents a new evolution for PRS. We spent more than four years in research and development, working closely with Herman to get everything exactly right,” says Rob Carhart, PRS Guitars’ director of new products engineering. “Partnering with Fishman for yet another project continues to be rewarding as well.”
Chleo is the latest release to mark PRS Guitars’ 40th anniversary celebrations. The brand is releasing a new limited edition model (or models, plural) each month. Early this month, Smith paid tribute to his mentor Ted McCarty with the limited edition McCarty SC56.
In April, PRS brought back the CE22. And it kicked off the year with the return of the Swamp Ash Special and the launch of the Standard 24 Satin. Also, DMO pickups were introduced to the world.
The Herman Li Chleo is out now, priced £7,099/$6,850 street. See PRS Guitars for more details.
