’Cut To The Chase

We take a look at PRS’s original (and controversial) Singlecut model and compare it with the new SC 594. What’s changed? An awful lot…

There was never a doubt that PRS’s original Singlecut was intended to compete with the Gibson Les Paul. But suggest to Paul Reed Smith that it’s his ‘Les Paul’ and prepare for a verbal onslaught on the differences. Rant over, he pauses, then offers: “I’m allowed to make violins, cellos, violas… Don’t stop me from doing it.

“To get a good one [original late 50s Les Paul],” he continues, “it’s going to cost $100k. The SC 594 doesn’t cost that. I’ve got an old Les Paul and I think that one [pointing to the SC 594] sounds as good, if not better. I’m not just in competition with guitars made today, I’m in competition with stuff made in the 50s. If we were to make a three-single-coil guitar, it’s going to be compared to a real Fender ’63 Strat.”

So is the SC 594 the ultimate PRS Singlecut? Is he done? “I’m done when I’m done! When are you going to be done writing articles, doing interviews. C’mon!”

Go back 15 years, however, and the appearance of the original Singlecut in January 2000 resulted in a swift ‘cease and desist’ letter from Gibson. It all went legal and on 2 July 2004 an injunction was issued to stop PRS “manufacturing, selling, or distributing… the PRS Singlecut”. Eventually, on 12 September 2005, the United States Court Of Appeals revoked the earlier court decision preventing PRS from making its Singlecut guitar.

Ironically, that original Singlecut didn’t make the same impact sales-wise as it did in the legal world. One PRS insider suggested that the four-control Singlecut would have been dropped from the line leaving just the Singlecut Trem (introduced in 2003) – which, with its vibrato and conventional PRS control layout, would have been unlikely to evoke the legal battle that followed the launch of the original model.

old & new

Either way, looking back at an original 2001 Singlecut, you do wonder what all the fuss was about. If anyone thought they were buying a Gibson Les Paul when they handed over their cash for a Singlecut, then they should have got their eyes checked.

As per its name, it was a single-cutaway PRS – much more so than the new SC 594 – with its hallway-between-Gibson-andFender scale length of 635mm (25 inches), its distinctive headstock, unbound dot- or bird-inlaid fingerboard, a one-piece bridge, and a different shape with PRS’s scooped treble cutaway. Yes, it had four controls – the first on a PRS production guitar at that point – but they were laid out in a different diamond shape. And yes, it had a shoulderplaced toggle switch and two humbucking pickups, but, as Paul would say, c’mon!

Comparing the two guitars today, the original Singlecut reminds us of that Rory Gallagher song, what was it… “brute force and ignorance, yes, that’s the name”. It is a cracking single-cut guitar, but lacking the detail in build and sound that we know today. It’s yet more proof of how PRS has upped its game in terms of how it builds guitars: the finish, the two-piece bridge, its pickups and, as with the double-cut 594, that classic four-control layout. Yes, that latter feature is more ‘Gibson’, but if you believe, as Paul Reed Smith does, that his competition is the old designs, then to feel familiar to experienced players there’s only so much that can be reinvented.