The Official "McCarty 594" Love Thread!!

WOW! Your 594 is pure perfection! That flame is multidimensional and superb! and Brazilian too? Absolutely stunning!

Alright. I've helped drag this thread off topic enough! Back to the show. I wanted a more classic and typical 594 to go with my more wild PS594 I posted previously. I was able to snag one of Willcutt's WL brazilian board run, and I could not be happier. VERY vintage looking and sounding. These 594s are special, but in a different way than the McCarty SC PS run. I love both, and I'm NOT considering getting rid of my McCarty SCs. I am still enamored with the 24.5 scale.

Kevin

20161010_174036.jpg
20161010_173955.jpg
20161010_174127.jpg
 
Alright. I've helped drag this thread off topic enough! Back to the show. I wanted a more classic and typical 594 to go with my more wild PS594 I posted previously. I was able to snag one of Willcutt's WL brazilian board run, and I could not be happier. VERY vintage looking and sounding. These 594s are special, but in a different way than the McCarty SC PS run. I love both, and I'm NOT considering getting rid of my McCarty SCs. I am still enamored with the 24.5 scale.

Kevin

20161010_174036.jpg
20161010_173955.jpg
20161010_174127.jpg

Nice Kevin! Love the looks of this one. The Vintage look is causing an itch I may have to scratch!
 
Here's something I haven't seen yet. For all the geeks like me who want to know how things work. Wiring is functionally very close to the SC 245, except here we have 0.022uf capacitors (vs. 0.033uf on SC 245).

The typical 2.2k and 1.1k resistors for the neck and bridge splits, respectively.
Caps are 400V 0.022uf +/-10%

WO number hand written on the wood. MODCAT sticker on the cavity wall. Interesting.

No shielding, clearly.

I haven't taken off the other cover to look at the switch, but I expect to see a Switchcraft straight toggle there.






 
Alright. I've helped drag this thread off topic enough! Back to the show. I wanted a more classic and typical 594 to go with my more wild PS594 I posted previously. I was able to snag one of Willcutt's WL brazilian board run, and I could not be happier. VERY vintage looking and sounding. These 594s are special, but in a different way than the McCarty SC PS run. I love both, and I'm NOT considering getting rid of my McCarty SCs. I am still enamored with the 24.5 scale.

Kevin

20161010_174036.jpg
20161010_173955.jpg
20161010_174127.jpg

Kevin:

Awesome guitar!! Thanks for posting additional pics.

IMO Eric C at Willcutt Guitars did an awesome job on their Wood Library Run, as usual. Really, all of the dealers have done great jobs, a lot of diversity across the board from the various dealers, and having choices is a great thing. I like the vintage simplicity of Eric's run, Brazilian Boards with MOP Old Birds, and classic vintage finishes and tops. I particularly like the MOP Old Birds, a very classic look, versus the 2-Piece "J-Birds" many of the other dealers went with on theirs, which to me is a more modern look, more fitting to my Brian's WL 594 in Violet Blue Burst, for instance.

Also the MOP material for the Old Birds is identical to the material in the 2009 PRS Ted McCarty Run, and all 3 of the Willcutt Ted WL runs, so to me it really connects it with the lineage of my 7 years of fondness of the short scale PRS McCarty! :)

I adore my Vintage Sunburst Willcutt's 594, it is my favorite Non Private Stock PRS I have ever owned! Yours looks just as great.


Here's something I haven't seen yet. For all the geeks like me who want to know how things work. Wiring is functionally very close to the SC 245, except here we have 0.022uf capacitors (vs. 0.033uf on SC 245).

The typical 2.2k and 1.1k resistors for the neck and bridge splits, respectively.
Caps are 400V 0.022uf +/-10%

WO number hand written on the wood. MODCAT sticker on the cavity wall. Interesting.

No shielding, clearly.

I haven't taken off the other cover to look at the switch, but I expect to see a Switchcraft straight toggle there.







Garrett:

Interesting, thanks for sharing that! I am not good with the electronics side of things, but someone posted very early on in this thread about there being no ground or something like that, so there is a buzz when you are not touching the strings. I have noticed that. Apparently it was because Paul thought it sounded better that way or something like that. Works for me, they do sound GREAT!!

Also of note, the 5815 LT pickups are NOT 4 wire pickups, they are 3 wires, or really 2 wires with a ground. I found this out when I tried to have my Tech put in ThroBak Peter-Green pickups in my Willcutt Vintage Burst 594, and tried to have him wire 4 conductor wired pickups to do the out-of-phase thing electronically with a push-pull. I ended up not doing the out-of-phase thing at all, which for now I am okay with, as the middle position with those pickups is great, and for what I was proposing, I would have lost the ability to do individual tone controls on the two pickups while blending them, which I didn't want to do. I may try that again with another set (and another 594, thankfully I have several) with the magnet actually mechanically flipped.

Again for the record, the 5815 LT's are to die for, great pickups, but my goal is to keep the stock ones in a couple of guitars and explore a wider variety of tones with other pickups in other guitars, which I have done and I am REALLY enjoying!

-Pete
 
These 594s are special, but in a different way than the McCarty SC PS run. I love both, and I'm NOT considering getting rid of my McCarty SCs. I am still enamored with the 24.5 scale.

BTW, I am very glad to hear you say that about the Singlecut McCarty, and the 24.5" scale!

I have actually felt pretty guilty about declaring my love for the 24.594" to the extreme that I declare that I fell out of love with the 24.5" scale guitars and sold all of those, in the context that I certainly don't want to contribute to anyone else feeling like their 24.5" scale is the "old version" and is any way lacking.

FWIW, I am VERY sensitive to scale length. In a blindfolded test, I could determine the difference between a 24.594" guitar and a 24.625" guitar, which is 1/32 of an inch difference. I would put money on that! ;)

I have a hard time switching back and forth between scale lengths, which is why with my many years of playing PRS, I have been either 25" or 24.5", but never really both at the same time, and now 100% 594 scale. I often have 25.5" guitars in the collection, but they never get played, which is why right now I have none. Right now going between a 24.594" 594, a 24.625" b3 SL, and a 24.75" Knaggs Kenai is about all I can handle. :)

I am convinced that it has to do with muscle memory on bends and vibrato, both the semi-tone blues bends, and 1, 2 and 3 step bends with vibrato, that once I am dialed into a scale length, another feels TOTALLY foreign. Actually, a recent thread from Kingsley on another forum indirectly convinced me that is what it was. (If you are reading this, thank you Kingsley!)

So anyway, glad others are still enjoying their awesome 24.5" scale guitars, you guys should be, they are great guitars and were my absolute favorites for many years!
 
Garrett:

Interesting, thanks for sharing that! I am not good with the electronics side of things, but someone posted very early on in this thread about there being no ground or something like that, so there is a buzz when you are not touching the strings. I have noticed that. Apparently it was because Paul thought it sounded better that way or something like that. Works for me, they do sound GREAT!!

Also of note, the 5815 LT pickups are NOT 4 wire pickups, they are 3 wires, or really 2 wires with a ground. I found this out when I tried to have my Tech put in ThroBak Peter-Green pickups in my Willcutt Vintage Burst 594, and tried to have him wire 4 conductor wired pickups to do the out-of-phase thing electronically with a push-pull. I ended up not doing the out-of-phase thing at all, which for now I am okay with, as the middle position with those pickups is great, and for what I was proposing, I would have lost the ability to do individual tone controls on the two pickups while blending them, which I didn't want to do. I may try that again with another set (and another 594, thankfully I have several) with the magnet actually mechanically flipped.

Again for the record, the 5815 LT's are to die for, great pickups, but my goal is to keep the stock ones in a couple of guitars and explore a wider variety of tones with other pickups in other guitars, which I have done and I am REALLY enjoying!

Buzz when not touching the strings is very typical. Good shielding can help reduce this, but most guitars make at least some noise. The bridge on the 594 is definitely grounded, because that's why it doesn't hum when you are touching the string path. I don't immediately notice that connection in the control cavity, so I'm either just overlooking it, or the bridge may be grounded to the baseplate of the bridge pickup. A lot going on in that cavity.

I have read claims that shielding can reduce some high-end response, so it's plausible that Paul could hear the difference with his superhuman ears and chose to go without. Which for me begs the question of why he continues to use brass baseplates on his pickups (unless the 58/15 LT differs).

Right about the pickup wiring. They are three conductor, which is pretty typical of PRS, and means you can split the coils, but can't put them in parallel.
 
Alright. I've helped drag this thread off topic enough! Back to the show. I wanted a more classic and typical 594 to go with my more wild PS594 I posted previously. I was able to snag one of Willcutt's WL brazilian board run, and I could not be happier. VERY vintage looking and sounding. These 594s are special, but in a different way than the McCarty SC PS run. I love both, and I'm NOT considering getting rid of my McCarty SCs. I am still enamored with the 24.5 scale.

Kevin

20161010_174036.jpg
20161010_173955.jpg
20161010_174127.jpg
It's the cousin of my Livingston lemondrop WL from wilcutt. This run really is great.
Congrats!
 
Another new addition to the 594 club! I didn't think I'd like this model, but when I plugged this one in it was love at first play!

Not quite your standard McCarty 594, it is a Righteous Guitars wood library build with Korina back and neck, BRW fretboard, and a 57/08 in place of the 58/15lt at the bridge, with the normal 58/15lt neck pickup.
See my NGD thread for a few more pictures and the story.

IMG_6853-XL.jpg
 
Last edited:
Another new addition to the 594 club! I didn't think I'd like this model, but when I plugged this one in it was love at first play!

Not quite your standard McCarty 594, it is a Righteous Guitars wood library build with Korina back and neck, BRW fretboard, and a 57/08 in place of the 58/15lt at the bridge, with the normal 58/15lt neck pickup.
See my NGD thread for a few more pictures and the story.

IMG_6853_zpsg3ren1qv.jpg

Awesome!!

Yes, that is a very cool and unique WL run that Righteous did, with the Korina bodies and Necks. I dig Korina, tonally. I have been having a hard time resisting those!! ;)

I was wondering when they would start showing up here. :)

Congrats, that is a KILLER example! Love that "Micro-Quilt" and that finish!
 
That is a very cool, and unique finish. And I love the coloring. Very interesting wood combo as well. I am betting that is extremely resonant. Enjoy it!

Kevin

Another new addition to the 594 club! I didn't think I'd like this model, but when I plugged this one in it was love at first play!

Not quite your standard McCarty 594, it is a Righteous Guitars wood library build with Korina back and neck, BRW fretboard, and a 57/08 in place of the 58/15lt at the bridge, with the normal 58/15lt neck pickup.
See my NGD thread for a few more pictures and the story.

IMG_6853_zpsg3ren1qv.jpg
 
Guys, I am 100% happy with my Violet beauty, but there are some super cool off-the-menu colors available on Reverb right now.

LOL, I know!! I am trying not to look, but I can't help it! ;)

It's killing me to resist some of those, but I have a few guitars committed to over the next several months and into next year, that I need to hold out.

Luckily, I am more happy with my guitar collection than ever before, and I am really enjoying the amazing 594's that I have! I ended up selling the amazing Violet Blue Burst Brian's WL 594. That was a great guitar, but I am just not a Rosewood Neck kind of guy these days.

While I am waiting for some of my future guitars, I have been focusing on amps, cabs and effects. I traded my beloved Bogner Helios 50W head towards that guitar, and missed it immensely. Luckily, Brian's did not sell it, so I bought it back! Got a matching Bogner 4x12 Cab, wow, it sounds amazing with the 594's, Greenbacks in the top and V30's in the bottom, great combination, and a great match with the head and the 594's! Such a great open organic hot-rodded Marshall Amp. Also traded for a Friedman SS-100, which is my favorite of the Friedmans (I owned before, a couple of years back), along with the Wildwood Smallbox (which Yankeebulldog has, great amp as well!).

Fun times with the 594's!!

IMG_0101_zpsftf2mpqq.jpg
 
The local crack dealer got a non-10 top in tricolor sunburst, so I had to try it out. I LOVE the new pattern vintage asymmetrical neck carve! I'd gotten so used to the PRS four knob layout that going back to the classic Gibson layout through me off for a second, but only a second.
 
The local crack dealer got a non-10 top in tricolor sunburst, so I had to try it out. I LOVE the new pattern vintage asymmetrical neck carve! I'd gotten so used to the PRS four knob layout that going back to the classic Gibson layout through me off for a second, but only a second.

My whole prior four-knob experience was with a Tremonti SE and S2 Singlecut Standard. I adapted quickly and find I now much prefer the classic "G" layout. Intuitive, ergonomic, can still easily do volume swells on neck pickup. No wonder this arrangement has stood the test of time.

I'm on the mend from thumb surgery and can play somewhat competently now. It has been frustrating to only play for a short time each day, but on the flip side, it has made the process of discovering my new instrument's capabilities sweeter.

I started experimenting with string gauge last night. The 10's feel pretty good, but my HBII feels more fluid with 9-46 on its 25" scale. I swapped to 9.5 and 11.5 for the E and B, respectively, on the 594 and I'm liking that so far. Thinking of putting the bottom half of a set of 11's on it tonight. I'm very new to this short scale thing, so I'm searching for a Goldilocks set of gauges. I am usually a light top / heavy bottom guy, so may end up with something custom like 9.5, 12, 17, 28, 38, 48.

Gotta say I LOVE stringing up this two-piece bridge with locking tuners. Definitely the easiest to string of any guitar I've owned.
 
Back
Top