All user reviews of 4/5 for the Carvin DC127

Made in USA DC 127
In a dark blue. Alder body, ebony fretboard 24 fret MOP inlays. Gold hardware. Duncan JB pickup set. Hardtail. 1 vol, 1 tone and a 3 way switch. Also schaller locking tuners. neck through construction.

Great guitar, very well made from finish to setup!

The neck is a great neck, very thin and flat. Not super thin however, not like a ibanez wizard, but it has it's own thing going on and may or may not need some time getting used to. It's generally very flat and very wide.




UTILIZATION


It's your basic super strat, very simple and even simple looking too shape-wise. No frills. Just plug in and play type. The neck is amazingly comfortable especially to reach up to the higher frets, it feels smooth and comfortable goin up with no problems whatsoever.

The design of the guitar as previously said is like a super strat, so it has the proper contours on the back and the forearm to be comfortable to play for long periods of time.

I bought this guitar used and so it came with duncan pickups which are trustworthy and almost always have a reliable sound.

The locking tuners are easy to use too, requires less turns and thus helps you string up faster! And would help stay in tune if you had a trem, but this one doesn't, it's more just a piece of mind thing and also to string up faster.

SOUNDS

This one had duncan JBs which I am very familiar with and sound great with this guitar. The DC127 to me has always seemed to be like a shred guitar, and the JB pickups are perfect for that.

I did eventually change this to EMGs for kicks and it also sounded great!

You can't really go wrong with a guitar with these specs as it's basically the same as most strat-like guitars out there and will always sound great given the right circumstances. Even the carvin pickups apparently sound really good and are also hella tweakable as i've seen each of the pole pieces are adjustable to adjust for each string. A little bit overboard in my opinion, but the option's there for the tweaker!



OVERALL OPINION

Great guitar for the money to buy used. I don't really know why their used value is so low compared to the new prices but the guitar itself is amazingly well built. Everything is quality parts and their guitars are solid. I guess maybe there are just so many strat/super strat guitar companies out there and this one just didn't seem to take off completely.

But if you're looking for a super strat, a simple type with good quality parts, good pickups and a great neck and aren't necessarily brand conscience. Look at Carvins!!

Carvin is well known for building affordable neck-thru guitars at great prices. This one is probably their most popular model due to its features and affordability. The one I played had the following specs:

Alder body
25'' scale length
Maple neck-thru with an ebony fretboard, 12'' radius and tung oil finish
Fixed bridge
Sperzel locking tuners
Two humbuckers
One volume, one tone, 3-way pickup selector, 2 dual/single coil switches

UTILIZATION

There are a lot of features packed into this model. First of all, the fit and finish is top notch. The fretwork is good, and the neck feels great. It's not too thick and not too thin. The back of the neck feels great with the tung oil finish, too. The real cool thing about this is that it has switches to select between split coil sounds. This helps make the guitar way more versatile than just a normal two humbucker guitar. The Sperzel locking tuners are the icing on the cake.

SOUNDS

This is where it's a bit hit or miss. I'm not really a huge fan of the Carvin stock pickups. They sound decent, but there are better ones out there on the market. The guitar was a touch bright since it was alder with a maple neck-thru construction and an ebony fretboard, but if you like the bite, you should really enjoy this wood combo. It's the standard of most neck-thru construction guitars, anyway. I'm just more of a mahogany kind of guy. The split sounds were great with clean tones. They helped make this guitar way more versatile than normal.

OVERALL OPINION

If you're looking for one of the best guitars for the money, check out eBay for one of these guitars. You'll get a crazy deal on something that's made in the USA, has great fretwork, is affordable and sounds good. You might want to do a pickup swap, but try them out first. Maybe you'll like them. I know my friend really enjoys these pickups.