McCarty's Legacy

Always in the shadow of the Custom, the now 26-year-old McCarty was PRS’s first ‘vintage-aimed’ model. We take a look at this ever-evolving guitar in its 2020 guise

- Dave Burrluck

Ted McCarty looms large in the early history of PRS Guitars: he was the Gibson president during its halcyon days who, in the words of Paul Reed Smith, “downloaded the hard disk” on how they made guitars back then. While Ted had no direct involvement in the McCarty Model that launched in 1994, at the time it was the most ‘vintage-style’ PRS, with the changes Paul had already made to his Custom recipe – for example, a 22-fret version, the development of the pre-intonated Stoptail wrapover bridge, plus suggestions that early PRS-user David Grissom had requested. Over the years, the player’s favourite dropped in and out of production, but it returned recently in 2016, and for 2020 it has a subtle refresh that brings it bang up to date.

Back in 1994, although still based on the now-classic PRS double-cut outline, the McCarty Model’s body, specifically the mahogany back, was increased in depth by approximating 3mm (1/8-inch) to just over 52mm, a change that we see on all PRS Core guitars today, with the exception of the 49mm-thick Custom. The 22-fret neck was shorter and therefore stiffer, and these changes to the acoustic voice were enhanced by new, more vintage-aimed McCarty covered humbuckers and a more classic electronics circuit that installed a three-way Gibson-style toggle instead of the polarising five-way rotary switch of the early guitars. A little while later, around 1996, a coil-split switch on the tone controls completed the package.Today’s McCarty follows that blueprint, but obviously includes all the tone-enhancing tweaks we’ve seen in the past couple of decades. The 2020 McCarty adds the machined aluminium Paul’s Guitar Stoptail bridge with its brass inserts under the witness point of each string, which Paul believes creates more of the sound of a brass bridge but without the weight.