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tjon901 « Neck through Carvin with dual Humbuckers »
Published on 06/23/11 at 13:56Carvin has been hand making guitars in the USA for 30 years. Every guitar they make is made to order and sold directly by them. There is no middle man when it comes to Carvin guitars and this allows them to give everyone factory direct prices. They save the cost of selling to suppliers and pass the savings on to the customer. The customer is able to customize any part of their guitar and get any kind of wood or electronics configuration they want. The DC127 was introduced in 1990 and is Carvins most popular model. You can get pretty much any wood you want with this guitar but the standard options are still great. Standard the DC127 comes with an alder body with a maple neck through design. The neck comes standard with a ebony fretboard with the 25 inch Carvin scale. The model I tested had a tune-o-matic string through bridge although you can get a Wilkinson or Fender style hardtail or even a Floyd Rose. I even hear now that you can get a Bigsby. The guitar comes with C22 pickups and they can be split with a push pull pot. The guitar has a master volume and tone knob with a 5 way switcher.
UTILIZATION
The playability on the DC Carvins is great. The neck through construction means that you have no neck joint heel. The cutaways are deep and you can easily reach up into the highest frets. The neck radius and fret size and material are all selected by the user. You can have a fretless wonder Gibson fretboard or a super flat fretboard with extra jumbo stainless steel frets. It is all up to you. One thing that I have noticed with Carvins is that when you select the option for the Floyd Rose the option of a locking nut is not automatically selected. I have seen many useless Carvins for sale second hand because the original purchaser forgot to select a locking nut with their Floyd Rose.
SOUNDS
The Carvin pickups are pretty basic. They are good for light to moderate gain and blues or jazz. They are super clear but do not have much output to them. The pickups seemed to be voiced more for jazz or classic rock than hard rock and metal. You can get nice smooth sounds from the neck position and even jazzy tones. The bridge position is pretty weak. For heavy music I would recommend changing out at least the bridge pickup. For this type of guitar I would probably drop in a Seymour Duncan custom or something similar to that. Just changing out one pickup wouldnt really call for a active EMG to be dropped in.
OVERALL OPINION
Not many people think about Carvin when they think of a high end custom guitar but these guitars are some of the best out there. Carvin is a small American company that does everything in house and cuts out the middle man. Once you get a guitar from the factory through the wholeseller and to the vendor you have added on a few hundred dollars to the price in most cases. This you are buying these guitars staright from Carvin you are saving a lot of money and getting exactly what you want.
UTILIZATION
The playability on the DC Carvins is great. The neck through construction means that you have no neck joint heel. The cutaways are deep and you can easily reach up into the highest frets. The neck radius and fret size and material are all selected by the user. You can have a fretless wonder Gibson fretboard or a super flat fretboard with extra jumbo stainless steel frets. It is all up to you. One thing that I have noticed with Carvins is that when you select the option for the Floyd Rose the option of a locking nut is not automatically selected. I have seen many useless Carvins for sale second hand because the original purchaser forgot to select a locking nut with their Floyd Rose.
SOUNDS
The Carvin pickups are pretty basic. They are good for light to moderate gain and blues or jazz. They are super clear but do not have much output to them. The pickups seemed to be voiced more for jazz or classic rock than hard rock and metal. You can get nice smooth sounds from the neck position and even jazzy tones. The bridge position is pretty weak. For heavy music I would recommend changing out at least the bridge pickup. For this type of guitar I would probably drop in a Seymour Duncan custom or something similar to that. Just changing out one pickup wouldnt really call for a active EMG to be dropped in.
OVERALL OPINION
Not many people think about Carvin when they think of a high end custom guitar but these guitars are some of the best out there. Carvin is a small American company that does everything in house and cuts out the middle man. Once you get a guitar from the factory through the wholeseller and to the vendor you have added on a few hundred dollars to the price in most cases. This you are buying these guitars staright from Carvin you are saving a lot of money and getting exactly what you want.