Older McCarties

[Funky Chicken]

I had a really nice 2001. It just didn't have any "zing" to it. It was boomier than I was able to work with at that time. It may be that my frame of reference for PRS tone up to that point was (and still is) a CE24. I'm really curious about the 594.

 

[David B]

I have an excellent 2000 McCarty with rosewood neck, pickups measure 8.7k bridge, and 8k neck, I put Seths in it and it's quite "vintage" sounding, whatever that means.

 

[doublescale1]

I've got an '06 McCarty that I put a set of Railhammer Hyper Vintage pickups in. That guitar now lives in the jumbo Tele world of voicing, more like the vintage late '50's Les Pauls. I also had it wired series/parallel so I can grab a faux-single coil tone and not loose the the humbucking feature of the pickup. I use a TC Spark mini on my board to compensate for the volume loss when I go to parallel mode. I do use the McCarty for songs that would normally call for a LP, the recordings of the band live support my decision. I'm in a two guitar 9 piece horn classic R&B/Motown/Blues Rock band. In that setting my LP Studio w/Jim Wagner American Steel HB set often gets mushy, fighting with the bass guitar and the Bari Sax. The McCarty dips just low enough into the low mids to stay focused and avoids the inherent conflict with the upper range of the bass guitarist. My DC 594 has stronger lower mids than the McCarty, but only just a little and still it avoids a loosing fight with the bass in the band mix - both PRS guitars are a joy to play, and in the context of a live mix in my band, deliver and hit the mark every gig.

 

[Betos]

When they made these, Ted McCarty was an older McCarty!

 

[Cactus Bob]

In 2001 GC had this '99 lefty McCarty hanging on the wall. Everytime I stopped in for strings and sticks I would play it and after nearly a year of it hanging there I worked out a great price. I knew I would never find a lefty in wild ever again and then after a year or so they stopped making lefties. They eventually began to make them again at a higher price. I have no Les Paul to compare it to.

Don't need no stinkin' birds

 

[cutaway]

The scale is the biggest issue for leaving these out of the LP camp. The 594 has the scale, but the neck is a straight pull and the break angle is different. All these minute things don't seem like much, but it's what you have to include to get a LP tone, apparently.

 

[johnh]

When I owned my McCarty, it definitely had a lovely, vintagey, Les Paul type vibe to it. But it didn’t feel like a LP. The bridge pickup in mine ounded fantastic - really vocal sounding. I never felt that the neck pickup or middle position really did the LP thing though.

the 25 inch scale length definitely makes it a slightly different experience too.

In the end, I mainly missed having the 2 vol / 2 tone setup.

 

[LJOHNS]

I have a 2009 Smokeburst. Nitro with 57/08 pickups. It’s a fantastic guitar. It serves my humbucker needs well. Light weight and resonant. No need for a Les Paul for me.

 

[cust22]

I have a 2017, with the only difference being locking tuners and adjustable bridge.
I love mine. Doesn't really sound like a les paul. But I love the way it sounds and plays

 

[vds5000]

I had a 2000 a few years back. I bought it pre-owned (dead mint, all original) for under $1100 from a Guitar Center. My take was that it played nice enough but sounded a bit muddy. The neck pickup sounded decent but the bridge pickup had way too much bass and not enough mids/highs. Physically, it was on the heavy side (over 10lbs).

To be honest, I didn't get a real Gibson-like vibe from it. I have an '01 SC with a solid Brazilian neck that gives off more of a Gibson vibe.