eclecticsynergy
PRS user since '87
'06 McCarty, upgraded with a set of 57/08s. The seller's pics are better than I could manage with my phone. Like my venerable PRS Standard, it's fairly plain to look at. But it has juice where it counts. And depth of character that isn't apparent at first glance.
It arrived a few days ago, but the weekend was my first chance to really put it through its paces. Already it's made a big impression- nearly as much as the Standard that's been my number one since '87. After thousands of hours with the old PRS, this one feels comfortingly familiar and at the same time quite a bit different. I noticed right away that the balance is shifted slightly further down from the headstock- this is my first McCarty, and I hadn't known they have a thicker body. Only an eighth of an inch, still it's enough to feel. Enough to make the guitar act slightly different in my arms, and to bring the feel & tone a step towards Les Paul territory. Which I guess was the point.
All mahogany, no maple- on my Standard, that lends extra body and character to the T&B pickups which might sound a bit bright otherwise. On this guitar I think it adds a certain measure of complexity to the mids of the 57/08s. more vowely than nasal. The same lively quiver that I've come to love in the other guitar is present in this one when I tap the the headstock lightly: that nearly supernatural synergy of highly musical wood, one-piece body and long tenon neck. The fundamental notes are strong in this guitar, perfectly augmented by the pickups which I'll get to in awhile. It has the wide-fat neck profile although this one doesn't really seem much wider to me than a pattern regular. I have large hands, and do like the extra bit of thickness. Same moon inlays as my Standard, only the rosewood on this guitar is not so beautifully figured, and is a bit less shiny. Of course it hasn't been soaking up sweat and oil for nearly thirty years like the old one.
Now to the way it plays... Ahh, heady indeed. I'm smitten, intoxicated even. This guitar absolutely sings and its tone is just plain luscious. Big and snappy on clean amp settings, full and throaty through the moderate gain ranges, and at higher gain it rips open and screams, somehow staying sweet the whole time. Tried it with several of my Boogie amps: 70s Mk II head with a Marshall cab, an SOB amp with an EVM, and the eight various preamps in my Triaxis (which tends to make anything sound great). Still, I've played dozens of guitars through the Tri over the years and am very aware of how it reacts to different instruments. This one is special.
[Got to go play it for awhile now...]
NOTE: Like I said, I'm smitten- in four decades of playing, few guitars have had such a powerful effect on me. If you don't want to listen to me gushing, just skip over the next two paragraphs, ok?
The 57/08s are super responsive, rich & full and still astonishingly crisp, yet without any hard edge to their high end. Strikingly different from the glassy brightness and sharp attack the T&Bs give me; here the attack is gentler yet remarkably sensitive to slight variations. They're articulate and very detailed, yet somehow more forgiving in a soft-focus sort of way that's hard to describe. Like comparing an airbrushed centerfold to a high contrast black & white print: both convey the image, but in entirely different ways. These are warm vintagey-sounding pickups but there's some nice bite there when you dig in- harmonics pop out beautifully, effortlessly. And there's a fascinating, addictive, almost three-dimensional quality to them. It almost feels as if you're tweaking the Presence knob just by picking a bit softly. I commented to the seller that the 57/08s share a certain vocal quality with some of my favorite vintage pickups. In fact they are not merely voicelike, they're downright lyrical. I begin to understand what all the fuss is about, and why they bring such a high price on the open market. They are worth it.
This is my first experience with a resistor-padded tap circuit, where not all of the affected coil's signal gets shunted to ground. And I feel it's genius. Cleaner than full humbucking mode, yes, but not thin or underpowered even though these certainly are not high-output coils, and they're set fairly low to the body. Vintage levels, with all the breathy nuance I could've hoped for. They have an airy, singing sustain that isn't compressed at all. It's a real wood-and-string-sounding sustain, not a magnet-and-wire-sounding sustain. And while you couldn't describe their tapped tone as Fenderish, it has some modest sparkle and even hints of chime when treated gracefully. These sounds are entirely usable, far more substantial than the wimpy conventional coil-tapped sounds I've never had any use for. As for switching, I expected to miss the flexibility of the five-position on my Standard, and imagined I might want to change to that configuration. But having played it, the straight up switching is perfect. Middle position with both full pickups on is just spellbinding. I wouldn't change a thing.
[Time to play again.]
This guitar has surprised me. Plain black, no birds, no tremolo, no 5-way, I bought it used with a sort of no-frills sensibility, anticipating a simple blues machine, something pretty basic. Instead, as I play it more the vibe is unexpectedly refined, elegant in its simplicity. An odd and beautiful juxtaposition of delicate and powerful, vintage and modern, precisely controllable and very much untamed. Sophisticated yet wild at heart. A study in contrasts. Just an amazingly responsive instrument.
It challenges my preconceptions in another area too- I've always felt that lightweight guitars which have a strong sound unamplified tend to be the ones that really light up and take to the sky when you plug 'em in. My thinking on this is twofold: first, louder acoustically generally indicates good transfer of vibration from strings to guitar which means more body tone for the pickups to pick up, (plus the fact that IMO a pickup acts quite differently in the way it senses the strings if it's vibrating with them). Second, wood that's naturally more prone to musical vibration requires less amp volume to make it resonate and give me the sweet sustain & harmonic feedback I crave. However this guitar weighs in at 8.17 lbs (nearly a pound heavier than my '87), sounds somewhat dark acoustically, and isn't particularly loud unplugged. But man, does it ever sing through an amp! I wish everybody I know could hear this thing.
Have I mentioned that I really, really like this axe? I could go on and on. Oh, wait- I already have. As Firesign Theater would say, my couplet runneth over. I sat down just to dash off a few quick lines, and now it's bedtime.
So, that's a first impression of my new baby. It's a perfect foil for my old one and I'm very, very happy. I don't know that it will ever replace the '87 as my number one. But I think it's going to be giving her a run for her money.
It arrived a few days ago, but the weekend was my first chance to really put it through its paces. Already it's made a big impression- nearly as much as the Standard that's been my number one since '87. After thousands of hours with the old PRS, this one feels comfortingly familiar and at the same time quite a bit different. I noticed right away that the balance is shifted slightly further down from the headstock- this is my first McCarty, and I hadn't known they have a thicker body. Only an eighth of an inch, still it's enough to feel. Enough to make the guitar act slightly different in my arms, and to bring the feel & tone a step towards Les Paul territory. Which I guess was the point.
All mahogany, no maple- on my Standard, that lends extra body and character to the T&B pickups which might sound a bit bright otherwise. On this guitar I think it adds a certain measure of complexity to the mids of the 57/08s. more vowely than nasal. The same lively quiver that I've come to love in the other guitar is present in this one when I tap the the headstock lightly: that nearly supernatural synergy of highly musical wood, one-piece body and long tenon neck. The fundamental notes are strong in this guitar, perfectly augmented by the pickups which I'll get to in awhile. It has the wide-fat neck profile although this one doesn't really seem much wider to me than a pattern regular. I have large hands, and do like the extra bit of thickness. Same moon inlays as my Standard, only the rosewood on this guitar is not so beautifully figured, and is a bit less shiny. Of course it hasn't been soaking up sweat and oil for nearly thirty years like the old one.
Now to the way it plays... Ahh, heady indeed. I'm smitten, intoxicated even. This guitar absolutely sings and its tone is just plain luscious. Big and snappy on clean amp settings, full and throaty through the moderate gain ranges, and at higher gain it rips open and screams, somehow staying sweet the whole time. Tried it with several of my Boogie amps: 70s Mk II head with a Marshall cab, an SOB amp with an EVM, and the eight various preamps in my Triaxis (which tends to make anything sound great). Still, I've played dozens of guitars through the Tri over the years and am very aware of how it reacts to different instruments. This one is special.
[Got to go play it for awhile now...]
NOTE: Like I said, I'm smitten- in four decades of playing, few guitars have had such a powerful effect on me. If you don't want to listen to me gushing, just skip over the next two paragraphs, ok?
The 57/08s are super responsive, rich & full and still astonishingly crisp, yet without any hard edge to their high end. Strikingly different from the glassy brightness and sharp attack the T&Bs give me; here the attack is gentler yet remarkably sensitive to slight variations. They're articulate and very detailed, yet somehow more forgiving in a soft-focus sort of way that's hard to describe. Like comparing an airbrushed centerfold to a high contrast black & white print: both convey the image, but in entirely different ways. These are warm vintagey-sounding pickups but there's some nice bite there when you dig in- harmonics pop out beautifully, effortlessly. And there's a fascinating, addictive, almost three-dimensional quality to them. It almost feels as if you're tweaking the Presence knob just by picking a bit softly. I commented to the seller that the 57/08s share a certain vocal quality with some of my favorite vintage pickups. In fact they are not merely voicelike, they're downright lyrical. I begin to understand what all the fuss is about, and why they bring such a high price on the open market. They are worth it.
This is my first experience with a resistor-padded tap circuit, where not all of the affected coil's signal gets shunted to ground. And I feel it's genius. Cleaner than full humbucking mode, yes, but not thin or underpowered even though these certainly are not high-output coils, and they're set fairly low to the body. Vintage levels, with all the breathy nuance I could've hoped for. They have an airy, singing sustain that isn't compressed at all. It's a real wood-and-string-sounding sustain, not a magnet-and-wire-sounding sustain. And while you couldn't describe their tapped tone as Fenderish, it has some modest sparkle and even hints of chime when treated gracefully. These sounds are entirely usable, far more substantial than the wimpy conventional coil-tapped sounds I've never had any use for. As for switching, I expected to miss the flexibility of the five-position on my Standard, and imagined I might want to change to that configuration. But having played it, the straight up switching is perfect. Middle position with both full pickups on is just spellbinding. I wouldn't change a thing.
[Time to play again.]
This guitar has surprised me. Plain black, no birds, no tremolo, no 5-way, I bought it used with a sort of no-frills sensibility, anticipating a simple blues machine, something pretty basic. Instead, as I play it more the vibe is unexpectedly refined, elegant in its simplicity. An odd and beautiful juxtaposition of delicate and powerful, vintage and modern, precisely controllable and very much untamed. Sophisticated yet wild at heart. A study in contrasts. Just an amazingly responsive instrument.
It challenges my preconceptions in another area too- I've always felt that lightweight guitars which have a strong sound unamplified tend to be the ones that really light up and take to the sky when you plug 'em in. My thinking on this is twofold: first, louder acoustically generally indicates good transfer of vibration from strings to guitar which means more body tone for the pickups to pick up, (plus the fact that IMO a pickup acts quite differently in the way it senses the strings if it's vibrating with them). Second, wood that's naturally more prone to musical vibration requires less amp volume to make it resonate and give me the sweet sustain & harmonic feedback I crave. However this guitar weighs in at 8.17 lbs (nearly a pound heavier than my '87), sounds somewhat dark acoustically, and isn't particularly loud unplugged. But man, does it ever sing through an amp! I wish everybody I know could hear this thing.
Have I mentioned that I really, really like this axe? I could go on and on. Oh, wait- I already have. As Firesign Theater would say, my couplet runneth over. I sat down just to dash off a few quick lines, and now it's bedtime.
So, that's a first impression of my new baby. It's a perfect foil for my old one and I'm very, very happy. I don't know that it will ever replace the '87 as my number one. But I think it's going to be giving her a run for her money.
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