Had a used McRosie as my main guitar for more than 10 years. As the original McCarty Pups were damaged by the previous owner I had to change them over time and tried out pretty much everything from BKP to EMG to Fishman. Liked the EMG 57/66 set best in there, but if you are one of those guys that always puts a Tube Screamer (or similar) in front you'll be perfectly fine with the original pups as well.
Guitar inbound! PRS McCarthy, now what pups for metal?
- Thread starter nightlight
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Chokey Chicken
mouth breather
The switch tip might be in the case somewhere. Some people take them off when they ship them because they can break off.
That said, this guitar makes me jealous. So beautiful.
That said, this guitar makes me jealous. So beautiful.
nightlight
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That would be a relief. I'm sure that's the case. Really smooth deal with the seller.
I have a McCarty, and tried to like the McCarty pickups. I didn't.... What really changed the entire guitar and made it a keeper was to drop BK Nailbombs in it. And then, Booyah!
Full disclosure -- have several PRS guitars, never really liked their pickups, and the only one that's been untouched is the Holcomb SE with the SD pickups. Go figure.
Full disclosure -- have several PRS guitars, never really liked their pickups, and the only one that's been untouched is the Holcomb SE with the SD pickups. Go figure.
littlebadboy
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That is a great looking guitar! Congratulations!
I am loving the DiMarzio D-Activator X set in my PRS S2!
I am loving the DiMarzio D-Activator X set in my PRS S2!
This is just a case of liking high output pickups, which mccarty's are not.
The Mirror
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If Opeth can make it work with stock PRS PUs then so can you.
nightlight
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To flip that around, "If Opeth can, does that mean I should?"
I'm usually a high output passive pickup fan. The pickups in this guitar are vintage-voiced.
I would like to sound like me after all.
protest
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Pretty sure Opeth put Full Shreds in their guitars, but I'm not an Opeth expert.
nightlight
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I read that they have Seymour Duncans in one of Mikael's PRS guitars, but the others all have stock pickups.
Thing is, I'm pretty sure they're not vintage-voiced pickups. PRS makes a whole range of pups.
darkinners
my fingers are lame
What pickups this came with? If they are the McCarty pickups, they are pretty bad, very muddy, and loose sounding. if they are the more modern type PRS pickups like 57/08, 59/09, 85/15, 58/15. Despite they are low output type pickups but surprisingly great for metal, they are not "tight" tight but very usable for all sorts of metal given you have the right amp/setting.
If you want really tight sounding metal ready passive pickups, I personally like BKP Painkiller, DiMarzio D-Activator, SD Pegasus, and Blackwinter a lot (in that order in terms of tightness),
I know many people like Juggs/Raganork and Alpha/Omega for modern metal but personally, I feel the former are too compressed and brittle and the latter has too much mid to a point they sound really honky to me.
If you want really tight sounding metal ready passive pickups, I personally like BKP Painkiller, DiMarzio D-Activator, SD Pegasus, and Blackwinter a lot (in that order in terms of tightness),
I know many people like Juggs/Raganork and Alpha/Omega for modern metal but personally, I feel the former are too compressed and brittle and the latter has too much mid to a point they sound really honky to me.
darkinners
my fingers are lame
I think his Blue Custom 24 has SD Full Shred on the bridge pickup and the rest are stock PRS pickups.
nightlight
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These are the 57/08s, so I probably just need to get used to them.
In that regard, I was wondering: would anyone trade this guitar for an Aristides 060? I was actually quite intrigued by the guitar and was wondering whether it made any sense at all. I have a propensity for bad trades, so hoping someone who has experience with this kind of stuff could give me a perspective on what I might gain and what I might lose.
This is the guitar I was considering a trade for.
Looks gorgeous in my opinion.
I was just thinking that I could probably order an Aristides in any year without any worry that it would somehow differ from the one in the picture.
The PRS, on the other hand, I was deliberating over whether I could replace it.
And I just got this thing, bah... Sometimes I think my brain is trying to kill me.
Every pickup you just listed is a PAF style pickup
. Yes they get better as time goes on, but they are all the same ballpark of output and general tonality.OP, you've got a much wider net selling or trading a PRS than an Aristides.
darkinners
my fingers are lame
If your McCarty has 57/08 on it I would leave them as it is, even if you want to swap them and trade the 57/08, they are very valuable. in most cases, they are even more expensive than BKP pickups and they are very sought after and with a great demand on the used market.
I have 10+ PRSi and 4 Aristides at the moment, so I guess I can chime in a bit on this subject.
They are a very different guitar, I personally feel PRS are a more versatile guitar, Aristides being a better playing guitar and in most cases sound better for metal music, they are just sound more open and with great clarity even with a very high gain setting, the difference is not subtle, however, Aristides guitars, in my opinion, fell short on more traditional clean/edge of break up sound, they have that "scratchy", "ping" sound in them, once you hear it, you can't unheard it, it's not a definitive "bad" thing. Some people actually prefer that type of sound, especially for modern metal, like that Milton Cleans, you can recreate that type of clean easier on Aristides than in PRS.
I think you made a very good point, you can always put a custom order with Aristides with the exact build you saw on the internal and it will be exactly the same, can't do the same with PRS or any other guitar manufacture that use wood.
darkinners
my fingers are lame
Every pickup you just listed is a PAF style pickup
OP, you've got a much wider net selling or trading a PRS than an Aristides.
Yes they are all PAF style pickups but at least not as muddy as the older PRS pickups, like the Dragon 2 and McCarty, #7, RP..etc
they still have that loose low end like most PAF style pickups with A2, A3, A4 magnet compare to A8, Ceramic pickups but in my experience, still very usable for chugga chugga when paired with a right amp/cab.
I agree with you that, the Aristides resell value is pretty bad, PRS's resell value is not great but Aristides is way worse.
Dragon II's sound and feel like duncan 59s. I know because I did the swap and didnt hear a difference
. nightlight
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Thanks for the advice. I think I'll just drop the idea of trading.
Hoss632
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Despite the guitar being very "vintage" in design. These do metal quite well. Especially based on the tone you described. Miles Kennedy of Alter Bridge uses factory stock McCarty models through a diesel vh-4. And we all know that they have some nice heavy tones. That said if you wanted to swap out the pups anyways. A Dimarzio Fortitude Bridge/ 36th Anniversary PAf neck would be one of the best passive combos going right now. Also PRS have their own "M" metal pick ups which sound badass as well. Those would be the 2 suggestions that I would give.
