PRS Paul Reed Smith McCarty 594 Guitar, Eriza Verde

Player’s Perspective

The McCarty 594 is a vintage-inspired instrument that is at once incredibly familiar and effortlessly playable. Whether you are looking for rich, authentic, vintage humbucking tones or nuanced, sweet single-coil sounds, the McCarty 594 can seamlessly master both sonic territories thanks to the 58/15 LT pickups and push/pull coil taps on the tone controls. The electronics layout, a few key specifications, and PRS craftsmanship combine in the McCarty 594 to create an instrument that plays in tune, is intonated the entire length of the neck, and feels like a guitar that you’ve been playing forever. 

A few key specifications that contribute to the McCarty 594’s tone and feel are:

• A 24.594” scale length, just slightly longer than 24.5” and where the model gets its name.
• 58/15 LT pickups. LT, meaning low turns, which give the guitar a warm, clear tone.
• 2 volume and 2 tone controls positioned so players can roll off both volume knobs at the same time.
• The added versatility of push/pull coil taps for each pickup for more tonal options
• A new Pattern Vintage neck carve, which shares the same width measurements as PRS’s Pattern neck but is slightly thicker front to back and features an asymmetrical carve with a little less meat on the treble side and a little more meat on the bass side of the neck.
• Tweaked Phase III tuners have an added set screw that pulls the tuner’s gear and worm together (while “locking” over the worm to prevent slipping) to promote tone transfer from the string directly into the guitar with as little energy as possible being detracted. (The tuner functions identically to standard Phase III tuners for re-stringing. Set screws must NOT be adjusted outside of the PRS factory. Making any adjustments to this feature may cause the tuner to stop functioning properly.)

“I think a lot of people know PRS as a company that is looking to history, innovating, and improving all at the same time. The McCarty 594 is a great example of that culture. I believe it to be a great musical instrument… quality, playability, and tone. It is also, as the ad says, subtly very different. When we were developing the 594, we examined everything: the scale length, the tuners, the bridge materials, the nut material, the pickups, the neck shape…… every piece of this instrument was designed to be exactly what we thought it needed to be to add up to the best instrument we could make. The final guitar, in my experience, is more than the sum of its parts. My hope is it is a source of joy and real musicality for everyone who picks one up. So far, it seems to be doing its job in that regard” – Paul Reed Smith

The Pattern Vintage neck has the same width measurements as PRS’s Pattern neck but is slightly thicker front to back and features an asymmetrical carve with a little less meat on the bass side of the neck toward the nut end and a little less meat on the treble side of the neck from the twelfth fret to the heel.

Our in-house guitar tech will inspect, test, set up, and clean all of our instruments on site prior to shipping. All of our instruments are guaranteed to be fully functional upon arrival.

Music Store Live is proud to be an authorized Signature Dealer for Paul Reed Smith. If you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, we are more than happy to help you custom order your next instrument. Our PRS experts can help guide you in purchasing a new SE, S2, CORE guitar, Artist Package, or even your very own Private Stock. Message us for details!