Carvin CS6 California Single Cut Carved Top

Carvin is an independent guitar maker in America. They make all their stuff themselves and sell it directly themselves. Since they sell directly to their customers their prices are a lot lower than other companies for the quality you get. Every guitar is made to order and made to your specs. It is a real custom shop that gives you quality guitars at low prices. This is one of their newer models the California Single Cut. It has a Les Paul like design but is very comfortable to play. You can pick your own woods from a vast selection. I will just go through the options the model I tried out had. This guitar is in the single cut design. The body is made out of Honduras mahogany with a flamed maple top. The set neck is also Honduras mahogany. The flamed maple top is AAAA quality. It has an ebony fretboard with jumbo stainless steel frets. The radius of the fretboard is 14 inches. It has sperzel locking tuners and a tune-o-matic bridge with a string through tailpiece.

UTILIZATION

The playability is perfect on these guitars. Since they are fully custom if your guitar has something you dont like on it that is probably your fault. The stainless steel frets are an option and I think they should be standard on every guitar. They never wear out and are always super smooth. The flatter radius fretboard is also an option and helps get you a lower action with the strings. The locking tuners are great and every guitar should have them. The profile of the neck is not to thick not to thin and the heel of the neck is carved away nicely. The ebony fretboard is nice and smooth and is fast.

SOUNDS

With all the high end custom parts on this guitar the sound from it is pretty generic. Carvin pickups are not that great. They are good all around pickups but you will probably want to throw in a set of pickups made specifically for whatever type of music you are playing. The pickups can get a good jazz or blues tones but outside of that they are not great. The bridge pickup can get a little fizzy when you throw on too much gain and the neck pickup gets muddy if you are running it thick. This is the only downside of doing everything in house. They dont use other brands pickups so you will have to do the swap yourself.

OVERALL OPINION

With the Carvin single cut you can finally get a fully custom single cut guitar made to your specs without spending a fortune. Since you order factory direct there is no middleman to jack up the price. The quality on these guitars is top notch. Everything is spec'd out to what you want. If your guitar doesnt sound or play well it is probably your fault when it comes to Carvin since they only do what you ask. It is a shame the pickups in this guitar are so mediocre. A set of Duncans would set this guitar on fire and make it untouchable. If you are in the market for a custom single cut guitar Carvin should be the first place you look. For the price of a Les Paul Standard you can get a fully custom Carvin with everything you want on it.