Hello all,
I have a troublesome Carvin DC727 7 string. I've had it for thirteen years and I've never been able to get it to sound right whatsoever
. It's all alder, including the neck. It's Neck through contruction with an ebony fingerboard, 24 frets, locking tuners... I also want to preface that I am aware that alder is not a normal wood choice for the neck. This is an old option from Carvin to add 'warmth' to a guitar (their words at the time) and the neck is reinforced with more rods, titanium, if I remember correctly. I was young and didn't know enough then. I took advice from multiple people there at Carvin...needless to say it's the first and last Carvin I've ever owned. It was rife with mistakes, most of them minor....anyways. It had the wrong pickups put in it from the factory, but that wasn't discovered until recently...that became a moot point. It also had bad pots put in it, as my guitar tech had a couple break when he was working on it. He replaced them. Here's the real issues...
I can't get it to sound good at all...I've gone through dimarzio and bare knuckle pickups. THe bare knuckles sounded the best. I've had a Blaze bridge, a Crunch Lab 7 bridge and a PAF 7 neck from direct dimarzio recommendations. I have a set of Holy Diver 7's too. Even the BKP's didn't help this guitar. THe bridge sounds fizzy and harsh, the neck position is just...DEAD sounding...i can't get any clarity or midrange punch from it no matter what I do. It's harsh sounding, but very resonant and loud acoustically. This one has a string-through hard tail bridge on it. It's gone from sounding 'eh' to just ok, but it's really fizzy and muddy...I just don't get it. I have a CL 7/PAF 7 in it right now, as I don't want to waste the BKP's on it...I'm sad because I love 7 strings, but this one sucks and I don't have the budget to get another... the Tone pot is now crackling and I know it's a new one...UGH...:eek2:
My amp is a Mesa F-50, which I'm happy with... I wish I could warm up the bridge position and get a smoother distortion out of it, not so harsh. I wish I could get the mids open and stratty from the neck position. I'm thinking it's more than a pickup problem. According to a few friends in higher places, Carvins have a reputation, in some circles at least, of being poorly and quickly built. Even my guitar tech feels that this instrument is just a bad sounding one...
Any thoughts? I'd consider putting the BKP's back into it, but that's about all my small budget can handle besides new pickups. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome...I've had many pickup recommendations over the years, but I'm looking at that too. I can elaborate on that in the pickup section. Any perspectives on any instrument related issues are most helpful. Thanks guys! I'm not sure it's even worth it.
I have a troublesome Carvin DC727 7 string. I've had it for thirteen years and I've never been able to get it to sound right whatsoever
. It's all alder, including the neck. It's Neck through contruction with an ebony fingerboard, 24 frets, locking tuners... I also want to preface that I am aware that alder is not a normal wood choice for the neck. This is an old option from Carvin to add 'warmth' to a guitar (their words at the time) and the neck is reinforced with more rods, titanium, if I remember correctly. I was young and didn't know enough then. I took advice from multiple people there at Carvin...needless to say it's the first and last Carvin I've ever owned. It was rife with mistakes, most of them minor....anyways. It had the wrong pickups put in it from the factory, but that wasn't discovered until recently...that became a moot point. It also had bad pots put in it, as my guitar tech had a couple break when he was working on it. He replaced them. Here's the real issues...I can't get it to sound good at all...I've gone through dimarzio and bare knuckle pickups. THe bare knuckles sounded the best. I've had a Blaze bridge, a Crunch Lab 7 bridge and a PAF 7 neck from direct dimarzio recommendations. I have a set of Holy Diver 7's too. Even the BKP's didn't help this guitar. THe bridge sounds fizzy and harsh, the neck position is just...DEAD sounding...i can't get any clarity or midrange punch from it no matter what I do. It's harsh sounding, but very resonant and loud acoustically. This one has a string-through hard tail bridge on it. It's gone from sounding 'eh' to just ok, but it's really fizzy and muddy...I just don't get it. I have a CL 7/PAF 7 in it right now, as I don't want to waste the BKP's on it...I'm sad because I love 7 strings, but this one sucks and I don't have the budget to get another... the Tone pot is now crackling and I know it's a new one...UGH...:eek2:
My amp is a Mesa F-50, which I'm happy with... I wish I could warm up the bridge position and get a smoother distortion out of it, not so harsh. I wish I could get the mids open and stratty from the neck position. I'm thinking it's more than a pickup problem. According to a few friends in higher places, Carvins have a reputation, in some circles at least, of being poorly and quickly built. Even my guitar tech feels that this instrument is just a bad sounding one...
Any thoughts? I'd consider putting the BKP's back into it, but that's about all my small budget can handle besides new pickups. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome...I've had many pickup recommendations over the years, but I'm looking at that too. I can elaborate on that in the pickup section. Any perspectives on any instrument related issues are most helpful. Thanks guys! I'm not sure it's even worth it.
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