Carvin Active Electronics / Axe Fx

sprint

Axe-Master
Howdy:

I'm thinking of purchasing a lefty Carvin DC400, CT6 or DC127 (Carvin is one the few manufacturers that will make leftys in any kind of variety). Anyway, does anyone here have experience with Carvin's active electronics? As I understand - these are not active pickups, but rather, there is a small pre-amp (not sure if it's before or after the pickups) which allows you to boost either hi or low frequency output.

I currently have a Jackson DK2 which has a Duncan Invader in it and sounds unbelievable dark (bad move on my part to install this pickup). To compensate I put an AxeFx EQ at the front of my chain with appropriate settings to subdue the lows and boost the highs coming in from my Jackson. So - I'm thinking of passing on the Carvin active electronics since I've had fairly good success so far in re-eq'ing guitar output using the Axe - unless I find some info somewhere that indicates there's more to Carvin's active electronics that meets the eye (ear).

Any opinions?
 
I had a DC127 with the active electronics and I hardly ever used them. I believe it's just a preamp after the pickups that adds a bass and treble control instead of just a passive tone control. It also has a pot on the inside that you can adjust if you want it to boost the signal a bit. (You have to remove the back plate to get to that pot so it's a set it and forget it boost) I very much preferred the sound without the active electronics enabled and felt that they were a bit noisy.

I think I sold that guitar before I got the Axe-FX, so I didn't have any direct experience with it, but that's how I felt it sounded with an amp. YMMV however. I sold that guitar to a friend and he seemed to like using the active boost sometimes and wasn't bothered by the additional noise it added.

That said, Carvin does make some pretty nice guitars and I'd recommend them as far as build quality, playability and overall sound. I know one guy who has a few and swears by them.
 
FWIW, I LOVE LOVE LOVE my CT4 from Carvin for fit, playability and mojo but didn't bond with the pups either.
A custom Duncan '78 in the bridge and an APII Pro in the neck and I was in nirvana. The Axe and her are rarely apart for long.
My undisputed #1 Axe for 3 years running for everything. Now you can even get them with industry standard pup mounts which was a home mod I had to do 2.5 years ago.

I'm not down on their pups overall, I had a DC127 with a super hot 'bucker and that worked well for that tone, but the EQ curve on the CT pups just wasn't me. I'd try them again in a new guitar though, they've since tweaked the neck pup and SHOCK my own tastes continue to shift a little over time too.

I do use actives, Blackouts, in my #2 guitar, and honestly, I found actives more useful with tube amps. That the Axe has the pre-amp input control in the way my Mesa and Marshall never did. That little knob, and the great compressors in the Axe, has made the actives nice but less critical for the tight metal tone I sometimes want.

-P
 
Gig with DC400 - have active electronics on (C22 hums), but set to default values (mid-point). Not really noticed much different between that and the passive output when set to middle on either. However, active treble/bass has significant effect on patch tone when rolled up or down - so I keep 'em set at defaults and build my patches that way. Still allows me to "tweak" to taste real time - if needed.
 
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