All user reviews of 4/5 for the Carvin DC135

I bought this beaut at a pawn shop for $200!

I couldn't resist the sweet price on this fabulous piece!

I love the construction of the thing.
It's heavy, but that's all right with me.
The pickups smoke!


The finish was redone.

Quality is simply outstanding!

This guitar is perfect for hard rock.
My only complaint is that it doesn't work as well for jazz or country.

For that I play my trusty Strat or Les Paul.

Anyway, I highly recommend Carvin guitars!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Carvin DC135 is the HSS (or SSS) version of the neck-thru DC series. These are very affordable, made in the USA guitars that are semi-customizable to your tastes. The one I played had the following specs:

Neck-thru
25'' scale length
Alder body
Maple neck with ebony fretboard
12'' radius
Tung-oil finish
HSS configuration
Floyd Rose
Sperzel locking tuners
One volume, one tone, 5 way switch

UTILIZATION

Carvin always does a wonderful job when it comes to building guitars, especially for the price. The fretwork on these models are great. The back of the neck feels awesome thanks to the tung oil finish. It's never sticky like so many other finishes out there. The 12'' radius makes is great for both chording and soloing, and the neck thickness seems to be just about perfect. The upper fret access is a breeze thanks to it being a neck-thru model. On top of that, it's extremely versatile thanks to its pickup configuration.

SOUNDS

This is where they can be a bit hit or miss, and it's mostly due to the stock pickups. The singles aren't too bad. In fact, they're pretty good. You can get a nice chime out of them, and they create a very cool quack sound in the 2 and 4 positions. However, the humbucker can leave a bit to be desired. It's not that it's bad, but there are better pickups out there. Thankfully, its configuration makes this very versatile, so you should be able to play just about any genre with this.

OVERALL OPINION

If you're looking for a good Carvin HSS model, check out one of these. I recommend trying to find a used one on eBay instead of buying new simply due to the massive amount of money you lose if you were to ever sell these guitars. Also, I recommend a pickup swap.