New Member with a New (to me) McCarty

[madryan]

This is my first PRS despite having played for roughly 25 years. I just never jived with them but then I was talking with my local Luthier about trading one of my Mountain bikes for a custom guitar (Can't ride anymore) and he pulls this out of his collection and is like "Dude, I've been working on your stuff for years and I'm thinking this would be perfect for you"

So I played around with it and was pleasantly surprised that it didn't feel at all like previous PRS guitars. Big chunky neck almost like my Les Pauls and a nice flat fretboard like my custom strats. It was also super resonant.

My Luthier tossed straplocks and some Tonepros Kluson replacements on it while I waited and I walked out the door.

So I know nothing about it other than it's a 2005 McCarty in all Mahogany with a nice bright trans red finish.

Is there anywhere I can look up info on the pickups and whatnot? I usually just see what a particular guitar needs and then toss an appropriate set of Bare Knuckles in it but I know nothing about these.

 

[vox801]

not sure what pick ups are in your mccarty, but you should give them a try before switching them out... i have 2 and am very happy with the tones you can get out of them... just my opinion

 

[CoreyT]

Welcome to the forum, and beautiful guitar.
Call up PRS customer service with the serial number, they should be able to give you info.

 

[Danerada]

Welcome!!

Nice guitar! I love a McCarty!

 

[CantankerousCarl]

Ride her like you stole her! Congrats!

 

[mjreardon]

Simple, elegant, & beautiful. Nice choice!!

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Bangin'! Welcome aboard... Should be McCarty pups in there...

 

[Egads]

Congrats and welcome. Awesome guitar.

 

[ken2esq]

Nice, I got my first PRS, a McCarty, a couple months ago, love the build quality, the wide fat neck & am enjoying the tones from the McCarty pickups.

I'm not at all tech-savvy for electric guitars, as I learned for years on classical and am just now making a switch over to playing electric, so excuse my ignorance...but I find with the three way selector pushed bridge-ways (away from neck), I guess that would be the bridge pick up? I like the humbucking tone especially. I think it's a cleaner growliness than I get with the neck pick up or trying to use both pick ups. If I want a thicker growl, more of a grunge / wall of tone, I go to both or the neck. The split coil mode is thinner, maybe a touch piercing, and different in the three settings, though I lack the vocab to really describe it. I use those for some soloing, cleaner stuff, to "pierce" through a backing track with distorted rhythm guitar. Basically, all the tones have their place, and it's great to have the variety to choose from, I find I like to use different settings in different parts of my songs, though I'm still learning how to switch fluidly mid-song.

Since I'm not tech-savvy or all that experienced with electrics versus classical, I'm not sure what switching out the pick ups would do, though ultimately I'd like the learn more about that and play around with different options just to experiment and learn. I was just reading something about sustainer pickups like Fernandes or Sustainiac, and that was intriguing, though maybe I'm getting a head of myself. I don't think either could be put into a PRS without some routing / mods to body, which I'm not about to undertake, so I may need to get another model guitar to play with that (unless some one knows a sustainer pick up that could go into McCarty without routing/changing body and that works well?)

Anyway, enough about me, congrats on the guitar, she's a beaut,

Ken

 

[Chuck P.]

Gorgeous McCarty! I think you made out in that trade man.

 

[László]

Nice one!

 

[AP515]

Under the bridge pup you should find a MODCAT. It is a code that has all the stuff that came on the guitar when it left the factory. There is a MODCAT decoder here.

http://prsguitars.com/forum/showthread.php?6650-2013-MODCAT-Decoders

 

[Bowtiefanatc]

I love McCarty's , that is a beautiful example that you have

 

[madryan]

Thanks all...

We're both happy with the deal. I got a great guitar and my Luthier got a really nice bike (Stumpjumper FSR with full XO and a brand new DT-Swiss 240 wheelset)

So really, he got the better part of the deal probably but the resale on bikes kinda sucks anyway so I'm totally happy. Plus the dude does amazing work on guitars and he's always doing me favors.

 

[watelessness]

unless you're buying it new, the only way to know which pickups are in that guitar is to remove the strings, pull out the pickups, then flip them over to read the sticker.

great looking guitar!