From The Archives: The First McCarty Prototype

In the early 90's, Paul Reed Smith decided to explore new sonic territory with an instrument that deviated from his popular Custom 24 design. The end result became the vintage-inspired McCarty, a popular PRS model today, and an instrument that laid the groundwork for a whole new family of guitars: the McCarty, McCarty 594, McCarty Singlecut 594, and McCarty 594 Hollowbody II.

Many PRS fans know the story of Ted McCarty, Paul's late-mentor and President of Gibson during a true golden era of guitar building (1950-1966). Ted was a pioneer of the electric guitar and musical instrument industry. However, it wasn't only Ted who inspired this new PRS-design. David Grissom played a huge role in bringing this design idea to Paul and turning a dream into reality.

Our new YouTube series "From The Archives" explores the instruments, documents, and other goodies that are historically significant to our company. Below, we explore the story of the first McCarty prototype and how it came to be.

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Explore the McCarty family of instruments on our product page.