![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/morse3.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride6.jpg)
To truss or not to truss
Simon McBride talks shop to the Guitar World:
“I played everything on this record with a prototype from PRS,” McBride tells Guitar World ahead of SPLAT!’s release on July 3.
“The idea is that there’s no truss rod,” he continues. “It goes back to the early days when guitars had no truss rods because I’m a firm believer that if you put a truss rod in a guitar, it sucks the tone and sustain out of it.”
Truss rods, typically made of metal or carbon fiber, run down the length of the neck of a guitar beneath the fretboard and work to reinforce the neck and counter the tension generated by the strings.
They are a necessary feature to prevent and remedy any nasty neck warps. For most, they’re a vital ingredient in guitar building. McBride disagrees.
“This guitar is like an animal,” McBride says of his PRS. “It’s hard to control because there’s so much natural sustain, and I don’t do high-output pickups.
“Acoustically, there’s such a difference without the truss rod,” he adds, alluding to the apparent increased sustain and resonance that comes with removing a chunk of metal from the guitar. “[The neck] must be the strongest piece of wood they could find because it doesn’t bend at all.”
The interview in full appears in the August/2026 issue of the Guitarist magazine that can be ordered via Magazines Direct.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I’m sceptical that this will work and I have adjusted hundreds, if not thousands of truss rods in my lifetime (with basses you have to do that a lot and you have to do it again and again as seasons change) – maybe for a couple years, but what about a PRS guitar without a truss rod in 40 years from now that is transported from Singapore to Iceland? Adjustable truss rod equals longevity and lasting playability.
But what do I know, maybe they have found a super wood that never bends and ignores humidity. But an extremely hard and dense neck wood comes with sonic repercussions too. There is no free lunch. Previous attempts of truss rod-less guitars have failed unless the necks were made of something like aluminum (I have a Kramer XKB-10 alu neck bass that does without a truss rod, but it’s neck-heavy as hell).
During WWII, Martin built truss rod-less acoustic western guitars, but not because they were convinced of their stability – rather, wartime economics and raw material shortage prohibited them from using steel.
July 3rd, 2026 at 01:05I understand that when the band were recording the new album at Keith Urban’s studio, he was so impressed by Simon’s tone, that he got a PRS for himself.
July 3rd, 2026 at 02:44I don’t doubt that it sounds different or even better – I’m worried about the long term structural stability of the design!
July 3rd, 2026 at 12:28I am a ex drummer and even I am aware of the ‘need’ for a truss rod in a decent guitar. How many guitarists have I known who have stated the same over many decades. Anyway, time will tell as Uwe says. Cheers.
July 3rd, 2026 at 22:36