Seriously impressed with Charvel...

unix-guy said:
I've never seen that color. Nice!

I'd prefer roasted neck and chrome or black hardware... I'm not a fan of gold hardware.
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Yeah, the roasted necks didn't start being a big thing til just after I picked it up.

I for some reason love gold hardware. But, it has to fit the guitar. I have a 3 color sunburst Strat that I'm converting to all gold hardware. But, my Jackson and my tobacco San Dimas both have black chrome. Which I really like as well. Either of those guitars would look really cheap with gold.
 
MK-9 said:
Yeah, the roasted necks didn't start being a big thing til just after I picked it up.

I for some reason love gold hardware. But, it has to fit the guitar. I have a 3 color sunburst Strat that I'm converting to all gold hardware. But, my Jackson and my tobacco San Dimas both have black chrome. Which I really like as well. Either of those guitars would look really cheap with gold.
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They don't do the roasted on any of Floyd Rose models that I've seen...I wish they did.
 
unix-guy said:
It's the MIM... I swapped a Thornbucker+ into the bridge position a couple weeks ago. I couldn't see the foam with the pickup in place.

Haven't touched the USA. Still trying to decide if I like the Thornbucker better or not.

By itself I like it better than the Full Shred, but both the positions where it's combined with the single coils I kind of prefer the Full Shred...
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Is the pickup split when combining with the single-coils? If so, maybe try replacing the ground wire doing the splitting with a 2.2k resistor for a partial split?
 
Regarding the foam, both my MIM HSH (I said HH earlier, but it was actually HSH) and my MIK HSS have foam and came that way on the humbuckers. I think my single coils had a spring on the screw for this function, but I ended up putting foam in there anyway. As I recall, all of my "direct mount" guitars have foam, I've never had one any other way, at least for the humbuckers. One of my Schecters had too little foam so the pickup was too low, but it was still there.
 
Love most things about most current MIM models. There's a few caveats for me though.

The necks usually have bigger shoulders than I'd like -- can tire my hand. And then the upper fret access (at least for MIM so cal, San Dimas 1) models could have easily been better. It's fairly traditional.

But my currently best strat style guitar is a charvel that I've worked on quite a bit!

First off, reshaped neck to do away with shoulders to some extend. More of a C shape now and works way better for me. Then scalloped last fret to compensate for the upper fret access (very minor improvement but did make a difference).

And of course I've refretted with stainless 58118 jescar frets, but that's customary for me.

Guitar feels somehow extremely "solid". Hard to explain. But it feels more like a viking axe than anything else I've had.
 
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Joe Bfstplk said:
Is the pickup split when combining with the single-coils? If so, maybe try replacing the ground wire doing the splitting with a 2.2k resistor for a partial split?
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Yeah... The interesting thing is that the Charvel DK-24 switching shows this on the website:

953FF919-3BA1-4FC7-8C4B-2DDA22E26358.jpeg

But, the wiring that was there (and which I duplicated with the Thornbucker that uses the exact same wire colors as SD) has the red and white wires tied together, which is the coil tap... But that diagram indicates that different coils of the pickup are used in different switch positions.

Unless I'm missing something (entirely possible), I can't see how they are getting alternate coils from that wiring.
 
Dimi84 said:
Love most things about most current MIM models. There's a few caveats for me though.

The necks usually have bigger shoulders than I'd like -- can tire my hand. And then the upper fret access (at least for MIM so cal, San Dimas 1) models could have easily been better. It's fairly traditional.

But my currently best strat style guitar is a charvel that I've worked on quite a bit!

First off, reshaped neck to do away with shoulders to some extend. More of a C shape now and works way better for me. Then scalloped last fret to compensate for the upper fret access (very minor improvement but did make a difference).

And of course I've refretted with stainless 58118 jescar frets, but that's customary for me.

Guitar feels somehow extremely "solid". Hard to explain. But it feels more like a viking axe than anything else I've had.
Click to expand...
I honestly can't imagine a better neck than the one on the DK-24.

Don't know if the San Dimas is the same... I know it's a 22-fret.
 
unix-guy said:
Yeah... The interesting thing is that the Charvel DK-24 switching shows this on the website:

View attachment 95474

But, the wiring that was there (and which I duplicated with the Thornbucker that uses the exact same wire colors as SD) has the red and white wires tied together, which is the coil tap... But that diagram indicates that different coils of the pickup are used in different switch positions.

Unless I'm missing something (entirely possible), I can't see how they are getting alternate coils from that wiring.
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Looks like it does hum-cancelling combinations in all but the neck spot, provided the two singles are rw/rp.

This is easy enough to achieve with a 4p5t super switch.

How is yours wired?

FwWIW, this is almost exactly my 3 pickup Tele 5-way config, but in reverse order (neck HB, two singles). The diff is I do OOP split HB and bridge in the transposed place where this does split HB and middle (i.e. if you flip the switch order around). It flips the coils of the neck HB to remain hum-cancelling with the bridge SC in both regular and OOP spots, which, if your two singles are rw/rp, should work the same way for the two HB coils and the SCs they are paired with....
 
unix-guy said:
I honestly can't imagine a better neck than the one on the DK-24.

Don't know if the San Dimas is the same... I know it's a 22-fret.
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Dk has the modern cutaway, heel... And I'm told by a guy who owns both DK and recent San Dimas that the neck on the Dk has more of a C shape. But can't say first hand. They aren't listed as different.. but it's like Charvel describes anything they ever make as a "speed neck"... So dunno :D

Though many absolutely adore the necks on the San Dimas/so cal also. It's just that my hands are tiny and I like playing with thumb over the neck more so than behind it. Pronounced shoulders usually not a good thing for that. They get in the way if too pronounced.

I do know that a Govan charvel I played did have a different neck contour to what my charvel originally had though. More of a C shape than a D. Considerable difference.
 
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Joe Bfstplk said:
Looks like it does hum-cancelling combinations in all but the neck spot, provided the two singles are rw/rp.

This is easy enough to achieve with a 4p5t super switch.

How is yours wired?

FwWIW, this is almost exactly my 3 pickup Tele 5-way config, but in reverse order (neck HB, two singles). The diff is I do OOP split HB and bridge in the transposed place where this does split HB and middle (i.e. if you flip the switch order around). It flips the coils of the neck HB to remain hum-cancelling with the bridge SC in both regular and OOP spots, which, if your two singles are rw/rp, should work the same way for the two HB coils and the SCs they are paired with....
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Yes, the middle is rw/rp...

I suck at wiring and switching, but I'll try and map it out and send you a DM.

So was your earlier suggestion with the resistor to go in line with the coil tap or somewhere else?
 
unix-guy said:
Yes, the middle is rw/rp...

I suck at wiring and switching, but I'll try and map it out and send you a DM.
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Cool. A good hi-res photo of the switch would help if you are not sure you have traced it out correctly. I am guessing it is not far removed from my Tele's wiring, just flipped end-for-end and one position different in mine to get the OOP going....

unix-guy said:
So was your earlier suggestion with the resistor to go in line with the coil tap or somewhere else?
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Somehow, the coil junction goes to ground or hot. If it shorts out a coil instead of switching the individual coils on/off to get the split, then partially shorting the unused coil leaves it a little in circuit, so you don't lose as much oomph. If it switches the coils individually, a little bit of thought may still let it do the partial split thing....
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
Cool. A good hi-res photo of the switch would help if you are not sure you have traced it out correctly. I am guessing it is not far removed from my Tele's wiring, just flipped end-for-end and one position different in mine to get the OOP going....



Somehow, the coil junction goes to ground or hot. If it shorts out a coil instead of switching the individual coils on/off to get the split, then partially shorting the unused coil leaves it a little in circuit, so you don't lose as much oomph. If it switches the coils individually, a little bit of thought may still let it do the partial split thing....
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Or, if we can't figure a way to improve your split tones, get a PRS 59/08 Treble pickup. They sound as good split as they do in full HB mode. Ask me how I know....
IMG_20210804_004801.jpg


My Tele:
IMG_20220203_233727.jpg
 
Dimi84 said:
They aren't listed as different.. but it's like Charvel describes anything they ever make as a "speed neck"... So dunno :D
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unix-guy said:
Exactly!

I think our local shop has a couple San Dimas... I should check one out and see!
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I played a San Dimas on Saturday as well as a DK-22.

Both are different than the DK-24.

I would agree that the San Dimas neck seems more D shaped than the DK-24. And in fact, the DK-22 felt a little chunkier at the shoulders, too... Although closer to the DK-24.

The SD was an HSH with rosewood fretboard and a pearl blue finish. I actually liked it a lot!

Played all through a Deluxe Reverb that my buddy had dialed in to try a Silver Sky.

After I finished playing the SD another guy in the shop came over and said, "that sounded really nice! Thanks for playing for me!"

That made my day! :D
 
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