This is gonna be a short, "initial reaction" kind of thing on the Northeast Music (Jack Gretz) Wood Library McCarty. But first, the pic! I posted this earlier today while I was waiting for the guitar to be delivered, but if you missed that thread, here 'tis on the flip side!
I'm gonna start with this:
In my experience, only good things happen when Jack Gretz and Paul Reed Smith get together and pick tone woods for guitars. Unlike a lot of very fine dealers, Jack has built several hundred guitars himself, and he's trained by the PTC to do the work himself to update PRS guitars. Jack and Paul got together and picked the woods for my maple Tonare Grand, and the guitar is utterly phenomenal. I know that Jack picks wood for its tone quality as well as looks, same with Paul Smith.
So I knew this WL guitar would be a good one. I've had Jack hand-select a lot of guitars for me that were already built by PRS, too, and I've yet to be disappointed.
Jack insisted on dead quartersawn curly maple for the neck of the maple models, and East Coast maple for the tops (most PRSes use Big Leaf or West Coast maple, Red maple is a maple common in the Eastern US, and it's because the leaves are red, not the wood. I have no idea if there's a difference in tone, however this is what the original '94 McCarty was spec'd with.). The fingerboards are Brazilian Rosewood, and the guitars' one piece bridges have the brass inserts that only the Private Stock version will come with. Do these details matter? The proof is in the pudding, so to speak, and the results speak for themselves, which I'll get to in a moment.
The inlays are gold lip mother of pearl surrounding green lip abalone. There's the nice neck binding, and everything as you can see from the pic is very lovely. This particular guitar is also very light weight, and for me that's a plus.
So what's it sound like?
It sounds really different from any McCarty I've owned before! Even unplugged, the thing rings out like crazy, it's loud in the room! The whole guitar resonates and vibrates in my hands. You know you have a good one when you have that going on.
To those who insist that you can't tell the difference between a maple neck and a mahogany neck or rosewood neck: Ha! I laugh in your face!
There is a HUGE difference. I've had two RW neck McCartys, and two 'hog neck McCartys, and from the moment I strummed this one unplugged I could hear that maple neck ringing out with tremendous clarity and snap.
And this shows with the guitar plugged in, the guitar has that maple neck tone - I call it the "flute tone" because it's so resonant - for days. There is crispness and clarity that I've never had on another McCarty, and by the way, my last McCarty was a RW NAMM show model that sounded very resonant indeed. Didn't hold a candle to this one, even though it was a really nice guitar!
Did I mention that it's deliciously light weight? Yes? It is.
OK, on to the pickups. I have the 85/15s on my 30th Anniversary CU24. Mine's one of the small-run PS models, so instead of a coil split, it has a sweet switch when you pull up the tone knob. So I can't 100% compare that part of the pickups. What I can say is that you can tell that the 85/15s and the 58/15s are brother and sister pickups. Both sets of pickups have incredible clarity for humbuckers. And the split coils on the McCarty are absolutely, hands down, the nicest sounding traditional humbucker split coils I've ever heard. I'll exclude the 408s for the moment, because they're different, I'm talking traditional 'buckers here.
So what's the difference between the two pickups in 'bucker mode? Honestly, my two guitars with them are so different that a real comparison is very hard to make this early in the game. The maple neck makes the McCarty a very crisp, open sounding guitar, and I mean this in a good way., but it's a different kind of open than the CU24. Since the difference between the pickups is the covers on the 58/15s, the covers should make the 58/15s a little warmer, however, the maple neck on the McCarty and the 'hog neck on the CU24 are so different sounding that it's just too soon for me to make the comparison. The bottom line is that the McCarty pickups as currently configured are incredibly good pickups. They are very open, very clear-sounding, and the coil splits really sound like single coils. Good ones, mind you.
Anyway, this is about as far as I can take it. Initial reaction. As the days pass, I'm sure I'll be able to notice the more subtle stuff about the guitar, and get into more detail. All I've done here is scratch the surface and tell you what hit me over the head at first play.
There'll be more to come.
I'm gonna start with this:
In my experience, only good things happen when Jack Gretz and Paul Reed Smith get together and pick tone woods for guitars. Unlike a lot of very fine dealers, Jack has built several hundred guitars himself, and he's trained by the PTC to do the work himself to update PRS guitars. Jack and Paul got together and picked the woods for my maple Tonare Grand, and the guitar is utterly phenomenal. I know that Jack picks wood for its tone quality as well as looks, same with Paul Smith.
So I knew this WL guitar would be a good one. I've had Jack hand-select a lot of guitars for me that were already built by PRS, too, and I've yet to be disappointed.
Jack insisted on dead quartersawn curly maple for the neck of the maple models, and East Coast maple for the tops (most PRSes use Big Leaf or West Coast maple, Red maple is a maple common in the Eastern US, and it's because the leaves are red, not the wood. I have no idea if there's a difference in tone, however this is what the original '94 McCarty was spec'd with.). The fingerboards are Brazilian Rosewood, and the guitars' one piece bridges have the brass inserts that only the Private Stock version will come with. Do these details matter? The proof is in the pudding, so to speak, and the results speak for themselves, which I'll get to in a moment.
The inlays are gold lip mother of pearl surrounding green lip abalone. There's the nice neck binding, and everything as you can see from the pic is very lovely. This particular guitar is also very light weight, and for me that's a plus.
So what's it sound like?
It sounds really different from any McCarty I've owned before! Even unplugged, the thing rings out like crazy, it's loud in the room! The whole guitar resonates and vibrates in my hands. You know you have a good one when you have that going on.
To those who insist that you can't tell the difference between a maple neck and a mahogany neck or rosewood neck: Ha! I laugh in your face!
There is a HUGE difference. I've had two RW neck McCartys, and two 'hog neck McCartys, and from the moment I strummed this one unplugged I could hear that maple neck ringing out with tremendous clarity and snap.
And this shows with the guitar plugged in, the guitar has that maple neck tone - I call it the "flute tone" because it's so resonant - for days. There is crispness and clarity that I've never had on another McCarty, and by the way, my last McCarty was a RW NAMM show model that sounded very resonant indeed. Didn't hold a candle to this one, even though it was a really nice guitar!
Did I mention that it's deliciously light weight? Yes? It is.
OK, on to the pickups. I have the 85/15s on my 30th Anniversary CU24. Mine's one of the small-run PS models, so instead of a coil split, it has a sweet switch when you pull up the tone knob. So I can't 100% compare that part of the pickups. What I can say is that you can tell that the 85/15s and the 58/15s are brother and sister pickups. Both sets of pickups have incredible clarity for humbuckers. And the split coils on the McCarty are absolutely, hands down, the nicest sounding traditional humbucker split coils I've ever heard. I'll exclude the 408s for the moment, because they're different, I'm talking traditional 'buckers here.
So what's the difference between the two pickups in 'bucker mode? Honestly, my two guitars with them are so different that a real comparison is very hard to make this early in the game. The maple neck makes the McCarty a very crisp, open sounding guitar, and I mean this in a good way., but it's a different kind of open than the CU24. Since the difference between the pickups is the covers on the 58/15s, the covers should make the 58/15s a little warmer, however, the maple neck on the McCarty and the 'hog neck on the CU24 are so different sounding that it's just too soon for me to make the comparison. The bottom line is that the McCarty pickups as currently configured are incredibly good pickups. They are very open, very clear-sounding, and the coil splits really sound like single coils. Good ones, mind you.
Anyway, this is about as far as I can take it. Initial reaction. As the days pass, I'm sure I'll be able to notice the more subtle stuff about the guitar, and get into more detail. All I've done here is scratch the surface and tell you what hit me over the head at first play.
There'll be more to come.
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