PRS Custom 22 vs Custom 24: Which One Should You Actually Buy?

Here's the short version, because you probably came for an answer and not a spec sheet: if you play a lot of clean and neck-pickup lead work and you want a warm, rounded, almost PAF-in-a-Les-Paul voice, get the Custom 22. If you want a brighter, snappier, more modern platform that does convincing spanky in-between sounds and hangs a little better with high-gain, get the Custom 24. The two extra frets are almost beside the point. What you're really choosing is where the neck pickup lives.

I've had a lot of these across the bench over the years, in Core, S2 and SE flavors, and the thing players get wrong is treating "22 vs 24" as a question about fret count. It isn't. Two frets up top is nice to have and most people never miss them either way. The reason the two guitars sound different sitting on the same amp is geometry.

The one difference that actually matters

Both guitars use PRS's 25-inch scale length. The bridge sits in the same spot. The body is the same. What changes is the neck: the Custom 24 has two more frets, so the fingerboard extends further toward the bridge, and the neck pickup gets pushed along with it. On a 24-fret guitar the neck humbucker ends up sitting maybe half an inch closer to the bridge than it does on a 22.

Diagram: same scale length and bridge position on both. The 24-fret neck is longer, so the neck pickup ends up closer to the bridge.

That may not sound like much, but pickup position is one of the few things on an electric guitar that reliably and audibly changes tone. A pickup reads the string's vibration at one specific point. Move it toward the bridge and it "hears" a spot where the string swings less and the overtones are brighter, so the sound gets clearer and tighter. Move it back toward the neck, over the fatter part of the string's swing, and you get more low-end bloom and warmth. This is the same reason a neck pickup sounds darker than a bridge pickup on any guitar — you're just doing it in miniature between two versions of the same model.

What that actually does to the tone

On a Custom 22, the neck pickup sits over a sweeter spot on the string. You get a rounder, fatter, more vocal neck tone — the kind of thing that's great for jazzy chords, blues lead lines, and that classic rolled-back "woman tone" sound. Some players find the 22's neck pickup can get a touch wooly or dark for busy chord work, but for single-note lead playing it's genuinely lovely.

On a Custom 24, that same neck pickup is now closer to the bridge, so it's brighter and more articulate. Chords stay defined, notes have more attack, and — this is the underrated part — the in-between (split or parallel) tones get more of that glassy, Strat-adjacent quality in positions 2 and 4. If you chase clean funk, sparkly arpeggios, or modern rock where clarity matters more than fatness, the 24 is doing you a favor.

A Custom 24 in the shop — notice how the neck pickup is pushed right up against the end of the fingerboard. That's the whole story in one photo. (Photo: our PRS SE Custom 24 listing.)

"But the pickups are different too, right?"

Sometimes, yes — and this is where the internet gets tangled up. Over the decades PRS has paired the Custom 22 and Custom 24 with different pickup sets (HFS and Vintage Bass, later 85/15s, various TCI-voiced sets on the Core line, 85/15 "S" units on the SE line). So two given guitars might have genuinely different pickups on top of the position difference.

My honest take after hearing a lot of them: the position difference is the consistent, repeatable part. Pickups you can swap in an afternoon. You cannot move the neck pickup without a router and a very good reason. So when you're deciding between the two platforms, weight the geometry, not the particular pickup model that happens to be installed — because that can change, and often has.

Fret access and feel

The 24-fret board gives you a full two octaves on every string, which matters if you're a lead player who lives up at the dusty end. The 22 stops two frets short and, to some ears and hands, has a slightly more "vintage" feel where the neck meets the body. It's real, but it's subtle — I wouldn't buy one guitar over the other on upper-fret access alone unless you genuinely spend time up there.

Neck carves are more about the specific year and model than about 22-vs-24. Both have been offered in PRS's wider and thinner profiles over the years, so if neck feel is your priority, judge the individual guitar in your hands rather than assuming the fret count tells you anything about the carve.

So which should you buy?

Break it down by what you actually play:

• Blues, jazz, classic rock, lots of neck-pickup lead: Custom 22. That warmer neck voice is the whole point.
• Modern rock, funk, clean-heavy or cover-band work, you want versatility and clarity: Custom 24. The brighter neck pickup and better split sounds earn their keep.
• You genuinely can't decide: get the Custom 24. It's the more flexible of the two and it's PRS's flagship for a reason — you can always roll the tone back to get most of the way toward the 22's warmth, but you can't add brightness the 22 physically doesn't have.

One thing I'll say plainly: neither one is "better." The Custom 24 outsells the 22 by a mile, but that's partly momentum and partly that it's the more do-everything guitar — not proof the 22 is second-rate. Plenty of seasoned players quietly prefer the 22 and get funny looks for it. They're not wrong.

Buying either one used — what to actually check

These are well-built guitars, but used is used. Sight down the neck for relief and check that the truss rod still has room to move in both directions. On the tremolo models, make sure the vibrato returns to pitch and the knife-edges aren't chewed up. Check the fretwork for wear in the first few positions — a level and crown is cheap, a refret is not. And if it's an SE, confirm it hasn't had a hard life; the finish and hardware tell you a lot about how it was treated.

We usually have a rotating selection of PRS Custom 24s (mostly SE and S2 examples, where the 22-vs-24 logic works exactly the same way) — you can see what's currently on the bench in our guitars in stock collection. If you're still sorting out where the different PRS lines land on price and feel, our breakdown of the PRS S2 vs SE difference is a good next read.

FAQ

Is the Custom 24 harder to play than the Custom 22?
No. Same scale, same general neck options. The only playing difference is those two extra frets and a slightly different feel where the neck meets the body. Most players adapt instantly.

Can I make a Custom 24 sound like a Custom 22?
Mostly. Roll the tone knob back and favor the neck pickup and you'll get close to that warmth. What you can't do is move the pickup, so you'll never quite match the 22's specific fat-node voice. Going the other way — making a 22 as bright as a 24 — is harder.

Do they use the same pickups?
It depends on the year and line. PRS has used several pickup sets across both models. The reliable difference between the two is neck-pickup position, not the specific pickup installed.

Which holds its value better used?
Core Custom 24s tend to move fastest on the used market simply because more people are looking for them, but clean Custom 22s hold up well too, especially the ones players seek out on purpose. Condition and originality matter more than the fret count.