Can you tell which PRS this guitar is?

 

PRS made a design decision that I was not aware of and it confused the hell out of me on Saturday night!

Read on to find out more...

Before I tell you which guitar is in the picture, let me set some context.

The local pub was having a 'Rock Night' and my mate Skelly and his wife, Helen were going and they invited me along.

There were two bands playing, Jonny and The Aces and the local rock band, Long Time Dead.  Both I haven't seen before, so I was intrigued to see how they were.

I got there early deliberately to see what gear everyone was playing and then I spotted the above guitar!

Initially I thought that maybe it was a PRS Paul's Guitar, but then where were the little switches for the coil split on the humbuckers?

I should add that at this point I was staring at the guitar through a closed door so I couldn't actually see the headstock and truss rod cover (which would have told me what the guitar was).

Before I give out the 'Big Reveal', take a listen to the guitar in video below:

When I did get in the room, the lead guitarist, the Jonny, of Jonny and The Aces was kind enough to chat with me about his gear.

The band, Jonny and The Aces, are a Cambridgeshire based Rock n Roll covers band consisting of Jonny on vocals and guitar, Steve on drums and Kenny on bass.

As you can hear from the video, these guys absolutely know how how to get their sound mixed perfectly for the gig and what I really loved was how the mysterious PRS absolutely sang and cut through the mix very clearly.  Of course, with a three piece this is an easier job to mix the sound properly so that you don't get a thunderous mess of sound, but even so, these guys did an awesome job with managing their sound.

Tonally the PRS in question sounded beautiful and Jonny gave a very respectful and honest representation of 50's and 60's music guitar playing.

It was all really enjoyable.

So back to the guitar...

The PRS that he was playing, was a PRS McCarty.  A quick Google Search revealed that these can be purchased second hand for about £1500 to £2000 but new they can cost upwards of £3000.

What confused me was that there are a few types of PRS McCarty guitars available. The PRS McCarty, the PRS McCarty 594 Thinline and the PRS McCarty 594. The guitars differ in that the McCarty uses a one piece bridge with brass inserts versus that of the 594 (including the Thinline)which utilises a two piece bridge. Excluding the Thinline, the McCarty and McCarty 594 consist of Mahogany bodies with figured maple caps and mahogany necks.  The Thinline is the same as the 594 but doesn't have the mahogany cap so making it a lighter guitar.

 Jonny himself said that he preferred the one piece bridge (interestingly this is Paul Reed Smith's preference on his signature guitar.)  The neck scale differs too with the McCarty having a 25 inch neck versus the 24.594 inch neck of the McCarty 594.

Both McCarty's use the 58/15 LT vintage sounding pickups but the controls on the McCarty are simpler with a volume, and tone pot with coil switching, as well as the 5-way blade switch compared to the 594 that uses two volume and two tone pots with a three way selector switch.  The tone pots also being push/pull types controlling the coil switching.

For the most part Jonny was playing in humbucker mode on his McCarty and his tone wasn't too dissimilar to that of a traditional Gretsch vibe.

At the end of the gig there was also another surprise for me.

I noticed that Jonny had a tweed covered amp behind him and so I assumed that this was his amp and that it is probably a Fender of some sort.  Tonally, the sounds he was getting were as clear as a bell.  Upon closer inspection, Jonny's 'Tweed amp' was actually a 250W cab and the amp itself was a DV Mark head (which I hadn't spotted).

Along with his pedals using delay and reverb, Jonny got such a nice 60's sound.

Altogether, Jonny and The Aces delivered a wonderful gig which I really enjoyed and I certainly could have enjoyed them being the main act.

It was lovely to meet Jonny and at the end of the gig he just kept giving me guitars to look at with one of them being a rare Gretsch Jet in Fire Stick red. 

Final comments.

I had a nice evening with my friends listening to wonderful live music, but Jonny and The Aces were my highlight.

If you would like to find out more about them, then check out their Facebook page by clicking here.