What's the Deal with Carvin?

[Zerberus]

Re: What's the Deal with Carvin?

.....It's got Quilt Maple wings, at least that's what it says on the tag from Jackson but it's painted solid Purple Pavo. Gonna check out the cavities for some figure

Interesting, figured wood and Purple Pavo? Definitely not everyday work.... But don´t get your hopes up looking in the cavs, Jackson uses shielding paint and they know what they´re doing

.....and perhaps mail Jackson about it. Previous seller did, but I think he said they told him stuff about it being a San Dimas, did they work in Sand Dimas in '98?....

WHich address do you send these to? I´ve never been able to find one out..

BTW: SD @ ´98: No way in hell, the Glendora plant was closed in ´86, definitely an Ontario Jax, Pre-Fender.

In fact, IIRC the Kelly shape wasn´t introduced until after the move to ontario, which would make a San Dimas Kelly impossible

[orbiter]

Re: What's the Deal with Carvin?

most of whats been said here is spot on IMO.

I will add ... I believe more people would play them if they could wander down to the local shop and actually play one before folking over their hard earned cash ..

the "bang for buck" factor on the used market is outstanding ... neckthru usa guitar for $250+ is pretty sweet ... unless you're the one who paid over a grand for it ...

[RiffRaff]

Re: What's the Deal with Carvin?

I'm forutnate enough to actually live near a carvin store, yesterday a buddy and I went to Tone Merchants (a very high end shop), Wild West Guitars (another high end dealer) and then to Carvin (only cause I needed some speaker cables and they have them really cheap). I played Suhr's, James Tylers, a couple of used Bakers and a ton of weird expensive guitars most of which I don't remember - but needless to say all the prices started at $2K and went up - while were at Carvin I played a California Carved top - price was around $1200 - the neck was perfect, the tone was excellent (and I'm playing it through a carvin amp not a $3000 two rock opal) - the workmanship on the guitar was flawless, no bleeding on the binding, no orange peel in the clear coat, the matched flamed maple top was mirror imaged and I could hardly tell where the two pieces were joined, the frets were polished to a mirror finish, the inlays in the neck were perfect - I couldn't see a drop of filler. The action was low and fast (not my exact taste but fun to play), no buzzing, intonation was right on. My only beef on Carvin in the past has been on the electronics and pickups but I've got to say this guitar sounded and played excellent. I think if your not into name brands this particular model offered by Carvin would be an excellent players guitar.

[BluesGuyJ]

Re: What's the Deal with Carvin?

Yeah, def check into the Carvin legacy. I looked them up on ebay and they go dirt cheap, like $400-$500 for the head. On a couple of Vai's CD's he gets crystal clean fender cleans and mesa/marshallish distortion, really nice lead tones.

[Zerberus]

Re: What's the Deal with Carvin?

Yeah, def check into the Carvin legacy. I looked them up on ebay and they go dirt cheap, like $400-$500 for the head. On a couple of Vai's CD's he gets crystal clean fender cleans and mesa/marshallish distortion, really nice lead tones.

Although Vai, like most endorsees of amps, rarely ever uses the endoresed product by itself. Vai for example also uses a lot of Bogner in the studio

[Neeradj]

Re: What's the Deal with Carvin?

Interesting, figured wood and Purple Pavo? Definitely not everyday work.... But don´t get your hopes up looking in the cavs, Jackson uses shielding paint and they know what they´re doing

BTW: SD @ ´98: No way in hell, the Glendora plant was closed in ´86, definitely an Ontario Jax, Pre-Fender.

My bad, it's an Ontario:

i called jackson and asked about manufacturing details. they told me it was made in the Ontario (USA) Custom Shop in 1998

Little piece from one of the first e-mails. That's a wonderful guy by the way, he even gave me shipping discount (I didn't even have to pay shipping and packing, due to the full amount being on my account and me having to run to the bank and deposit more money) for this axe right after he pulled the auction for me . You might've heard something about terrorists with granades shooting here in The Hague, as soon as he heard he mailed me to find out everything was ok

I don't know where to mail yet, I'll go check, maybe I'll just sand a little paint off in the electronics cavity. I am going to get a set of push-push knobs to split the Duncans and perhaps have a piëzo built in. First let me sell my amp, and buy a Soldano though

[FireBros.]

Re: What's the Deal with Carvin?

I think the main thing missing from Carvin stuff is the "coolness" factor, which like it or not, is one of the top reasons people buy guitar gear. Their stuff, especially the guitars, is very well made, and usually sounds good too. I actually see people playing their basses quite often.

[Gearjoneser]

Re: What's the Deal with Carvin?

Carvin takes a lot of crap, since they're a mail order company, but I'll admit to owning several Carvin products. My assessment is that the guitar wood and build quality is quite good, although they use the absolute cheapest electronic components they can get away with. Their speakers are nowhere near the quality of Celestion or even Eminence. Although their amps and PA gear is good, they're more prone to breakdown than higher quality companies. As far as the guitars and basses, I'd probably gut it all and replace it with non-active higher quality electronics and pickups.
Unfortunately, to replace the pickups, you've got to fill the holes left by the Carvin pickup rings, then redrill new ones for the Duncans, since all the holes don't line up.

My first good guitar was a 85 Carvin DC400 Stereo w/Kahler trem.
I also had another Carvin DC400 w/Floyd and flamed blue maple top in 1990.
In my PA system, I have a DCM1500 power amp that's had it's diode bridge replaced twice by Carvin free of charge, minus shipping. Good Customer Service, but ridiculous that I even had to have that amp fixed so many times.
Also, a 12" wedge monitor. In 1986, I made the grave mistake of buying a Carvin 100B tube head = CRAP. It's the only amp that made me mad enough to swing it by it's power cord and bash it into the side of my garage!
I buy all my speaker cables from Carvin, since they're the cheapest place to buy cables and some other small parts. I'll limit my further Carvin purchases to that stuff only.

[Hot _Grits]

Re: What's the Deal with Carvin?

I have played a grand total of one carvin guitar. It was a neck-thru, wilkinson equipped shredder (this was some years ago). It had excellent build quality and tuning stability was spot-on.

The new california carved top (can you say PRS-alike?) looks like a nice guitar. I've mostly lacked interest in Carvins due to their common overuse of maple and aesthetics. The CCT addresses most of those problems, but it's hard to get excited about one when you already own a PRS.