PRS’s advance on the SE front continues with a pair of Singlecuts, with or without a maple top, and plenty of vintage references. We take ’em for a spin
PRS SE MCCARTY 594 SINGLECUT & SE MCCARTY 594 SINGLECUT STANDARD
£1,049 & £899
CONTACT PRS Europe PHONE 01223 874301 WEB www.prsguitars.com
It’s just over two decades since PRS introduced its Singlecut, the first of its style for the then 15-year-old guitar company. The release achieved notoriety when Gibson objected. The Singlecut was suspended from production until the lengthy legal wranglings resulted in a clean sheet for PRS; it didn’t infringe any legally protected aspects of the Les Paul. However, compared with the now-classic double-cut Custom, the Singlecut has never achieved the popularity of its double-cut predecessor in terms of sales. But one consequence of this is that the original Singlecut recipe has seen a considerable amount of evolution over these past decades.
The double-cut McCarty 594 first appeared in PRS’s Core range in 2016, the Singlecut version in 2017, while a trio of well-received S2 594s followed in 2020, PRS’s 35th Anniversary year. Three years on and a pandemic in between, we now have three McCarty 594s in the SE line-up: a double-cut and the two Singlecuts you see here. So, what’s the fuss about?
Originally, the Singlecut used the PRS ‘halfway’ scale length of 635mm – midway between the Fender and Gibson standards – which then dropped to 622mm (24.5 inches), as preferred by Carlos Santan
