PRS Private Stock McCarty 594

Not long ago we received a PRS McCarty 594 Artist Series, one of the only PRS guitars we have had in the shop that was not Private Stock. I liked that guitar very much, and felt it was a finely crafted instrument with a wonderful sonic pallet and very vintage feel. A simple yet elegant guitar that was a tonal monster.

I felt that PRS had really nailed that guitar, and I was planning to order another one, but got to thinking: What if I had the Private Stock team build CR Guitars a McCarty 594? I have been astonished many times by Private Stock instruments, and as much as I loved the Artist Series guitar, I had to admit I was curious what the elite PRS builders could accomplish with the model.

Turns out they had made one before, and it was featured as the Guitar of the Month for February 2016. Well, our McCarty 594 Private Stock arrived, and once again I was astonished!

PRS Private Stock guitars are truly bespoke instruments. The master luthiers who build them have the freedom and time to pay the greatest possible attention to every detail of the guitar, every nuance, and they have access to all the considerable resources of PRS. The Private Stock instruments simply get closer to perfection, that elusive ideal that every guitar maker desires. That’s why Paul Reed Smith personally signs every one.

The Private Stock unit has unfettered access to PRS’s legendary wood stores (over many years the company has built an enormous collection of the best wood they could find in the world). Meaning they have access to the very highest quality and most coveted woods, which allows the them to make some of the most remarkable instruments I have ever played.

Starting with the top of this guitar, the deep and lustrous flame figure seems to move, to flicker as a real flame would. It reminds me of a gorgeous vintage violin back I once saw, and in a similar way the figure jumps off the surface of the wood. The African ribbon mahogany is just as beautiful, if a little more subtle. The most important aspect of the wood, of course, is its sonic signature, the stiffness to weight ratio and its ability to transfer the vibrations of the strings. It is often said that the most beautiful woods are not the best tonal woods, but that is certainly not alway the case.

Fine luthiers will usually choose the best tonal woods unless they are building a visual showpiece, but PRS has so much quality wood that for Private Stock instruments extraordinary tone wood can be found that also look absolutely stunning.

This exceptional guitar is not ostentatious in any way, but rather has a refined aesthetic, and also succeeds in being visually exciting, the kind of guitar that gets your heart racing just looking at it. The now classic bird inlays are sophisticated yet simple, and I love the curly maple binding. Not to mention the vintage pattern carved figured mahogany neck, which looks and feels just wonderful. But descriptions of this guitar bely the feeling of completeness when it is in your hand, which is much more emotional than intellectual.

Tonally the guitar is a chameleon, with the extended dynamic range of the PRS 58/15 LT pickups and fantastic clarity when coil tapped, it can cover any kind of music with ease, from rock to country to blues to jazz. In PRS parlance, the 58/15 means that the pickups are modeled after humbuckers that first came out in 1950, and were recreated in 2015. The 58/15s are pretty special pickups in that they have more clarity in the high mids, are a little rolled off in the low mids and have a strong and rooted bass response. According to PRS (and in my experience true) this technical feat is like the EQ that mastering engineers do to make a guitar sound natural in a mix. It also gives the guitar a full sonic presence live, and a refined, articulate voice.

The scale is slightly shorter than the normal PRS scale of 25". At 24.594" there is a little less tension which makes the strings feel very responsive and smooth, and the tone is warm and full, which is one of the myriad ways the PRS team achieves a real vintage tone and vibe with this model.

This is truly a superb guitar, one that reminds me how fine an instrument can be when built by someone who sweats and cares about every detail of the build process. Bottom line here: I highly recommend this killer Private Stock McCarty 594, it's a real winner!

If you'd like to find out more about this item, just call or e-mail me. It would be my pleasure to talk to you about it.

ABOUT PRS PRIVATE STOCK
Everyone has heard of PRS Guitars; they are one of America's great entrepreneurial success stories. But not everyone has heard of the Paul Reed Smith Private Stock instruments. These are special guitars, in every sense. That's what inspired us here at CR Guitars to seek them out; they conform perfectly to our vision of what "hand selected" really means. The goal behind the PRS Private Stock of instruments is not only to create the most beautiful and best playing guitars money can buy, but the best sounding. PRS works very closely with each order - through hourly discussions, experimentation, meticulous checks of every detail at each step in the process and making final tweaks when the guitar is complete - to make sure they are building the best guitars possible. If you get an extraordinary instrument from Private Stock that is equally as good as a family heirloom and a musician’s tool to make a living on, then the Private Stock goal has come to fruition.

“Whether built to your specification or ours, every Private Stock instrument is carefully guided through the process by highly talented, seasoned guitar makers, and each completed instrument is checked and signed by Paul Miles and me. From all of us on the Private Stock team, thank you for looking at and considering a Private Stock instrument. If you decide on a Private Stock guitar, we will give everything we have to make it the best instrument you’ve ever experienced.” - Paul Reed Smith