NGD: 2009 PRS Ted McCarty P90 SC245 10-Top Tobacco Burst

[John F]

Beautiful…

 

[neil godbole]

I love my P90’s, but every set sounds different in every guitar. Lindy Fralin is always my first go-to. He had P-90’s in his personal guitar for a few years. If you use him, talk to him and ask for his recommendation. His tend to be the clearest.

Fralin seems to be the way to go a lot of the time for me. I use his P92's in another guitar, and one of his pickups in my thinline tele. In general I've always loved the sound signature of his pups. However, the fact that beyond the one vintage/traditional P90 offering the rest are humless/noiseless... it makes me wonder if I'll be getting the true P90 sound... raw, warts and all. Most of my other guitars do clean tones very well, and tend to be articulate and 'sophisticated' sounding. I want good clean tones no doubt - especially rounded piano like tones that I know P90's can be good at -- and I do tend to play mostly clean or cleanish. However, to set this guitar apart, I also wanted something that could be a bit more raw characterful and explosive. Potentially... it may be that after I experience this it may not be my cup of tea.

I've held off on calling Lindy simply because I know he'll likely say the humless P90's sound every bit as P90 as the vintage ones, but with no hum. And it might be true... I guess nothing beats trying it out.

 

[SuperFly53]

Are these the noiseless/humless or vintage original?

Original, but hum cancelling in middle position.

 

[JasonE]

Congratulations! Teds are fantastic guitars. I have one that is a non 10 top with 57/08 pickups in it. There is something magical about the one that I have. This guitar just went together right. Every once in a while you pickup a guitar and play it and it just feels and sounds better than many others you have picked up. This is one of those.

 

[jkornel]

Beautiful guitar!

 

[neil godbole]

So after a few more days with this guitar, I can say I absolutely love it. It took me a second to get used to 24.5, but after a couple days, suddenly it felt like a glove. Tonally, the pickups/guitar is startlingly sensitive to both volume and tone knob changes. This might be fairly normal for P90's, and I'm not sure what cap values are installed in the tone path. But after getting used to the way these pickups operate and interact, I can say that I'm totally in deep like with them.

The distortion and clean characteristics are very different from my other guitars, yet very complimentary. I think distortion-wise, it may be my best guitar for how pedals interact with it. Since hands on experience with P90's has alluded me in the past for some reason, I'm in totally new territory here, and so far, don't feel the need to change out these pups just yet.

There is definitely something magical about the comfort and playability of these late 2009 Ted's.

 

[John K]

That sure is pretty!