Last week I received a phone call from the Carvin store in Hollywood, CA and was notified that my custom DC727 was completed and had arrived two weeks earlier than expected. Yet, I couldn’t pick it up right away because I was waiting for these to arrive in the mail:
I ordered a Nailbomb 7 neck and Ceramic Warpig 7 bridge from Bare Knuckle Pickups. Tim at BKP was a lot of help in choosing the pickups and I received the order within 2 weeks. The packaging was nicely done and I even got a pack of strings (only 6, need 7 for my new guitar) and a BKP pick.
Well, I received the BKPs on Monday
And arranged to go to Hollywood to get them installed in my new Carvin guitar. I woke up this morning in my dorm room at USC
And headed to the library to work on a financial valuation project
Yet, before going to work on my project I stopped by the coffee shop and picked up a bottle of water and some skittles.
So after working for about 1 ¾ hours, I borrowed my friend’s car and headed to Sunset Blvd to the infamous “Guitar Row” as I call it. There are so many guitar stores located in one area. There is a Guitar Center
A Mesa Boogie store (where I bought my Mesa Mark IV)
A bunch of smaller stores and a Sam Ash and of course Carvin.
I was in the Carvin store waiting to get my guitar setup with the new pickups so I decided to try out some other guitars. I really loved the CT6Ms and figured that if serious GAS kicks in, I will be buying one of those in Deep Blue w/ Quilt Top. Anyhow, after some routing (aka using sandpaper to widen the pickup slots) and some drilling, the pickups finally fit and my dc727 was ready to go.
The guitar came in a really nice SKB form fitted case with the Carvin name on front:
Inside was my precious Carvin DC727. Here are some specs:
Alder body, tung oiled maple neck, ebony board, floyd rose, gold hardware, locking tuners and nut, black headstock, and strap locks.
The neck is actually very comfortable, unlike most 7 stringers I’ve tried out. It’s thin but very sturdy and fits my hands well .The action is very low and the stainless steel jumbo frets are great. Since it’s a neck thru, upper fret access is super easy.
There are also a lot of tonal options on the guitar. It has a volume and tone knob, 3 way pickup selector, and 2 coil tap switches.
Even though I’ve never had a guitar with a floyd before, this wasn’t too difficult to deal with, given that Moshe at Carvin did a lot of work to get this thing ready. The locking nut does its job and the locking tuners makes string changes a bit faster. Plus, the gold hardware looks sexy.
First impression of the pickups was HOLY cr@p THEY ARE LOUD! The bridge pickup has insane output, 20.5 according to Tim. The neck was at 11 or so. The CWP bridge is very heavy, beefy, and actually quite clear. You can hear every note in a chord well and it doesn’t muddy up in part to the brightness of the guitar. The neck is mellower but can still pack a punch. It’s very organic sounding (being alcino V and not a ceramic magnet), pretty good for lead work, cleans up extremely well, and even sounds good tapped.
I’ve been working on EQing my Mark IV and so far it’s been going well expect that it’s late and I can’t make too much noise so I will wait until tomorrow or the day after to crank the amp and get the tone settings I want. Anyways, I am still getting some great sounds out of my amp. One of the guys on my floor was walking past my room (I had the door closed) and he knocked. I opened the door and he asked me, “Is that a 7 string guitar?” I pointed at this:
And he went right for it. He loved playing it as he has been playing guitar for quite some time and loves metal. I was surprised he could tell it was a 7 stringer from outside my room but then he told me that I was playing quite loudly (even tho my amp was on the lowest power setting and at 3 and 3 on the master and channel volume). I guess he has good ears
I highly recommend ordering a guitar from Carvin. It’s probably the best value guitar you can get that is excellent quality. The customer service was fantastic at the Hollywood store (thanks Moshe). For those in the US, the Bare Knuckle pickups are expensive (I paid $350 total for both pickups, shipping, and credit card currency exchange fee) but it’s completely worth it. The money you save buying direct from Carvin should allow you to throw a few extra bucks towards pickups.
As a note, I can’t record clips as I do not have recording gear and NO, I will not go buy a POD and record clips just for you guys haha. Maybe one day I will make clips but for now I recommend buying yourself a dc727 and some BKPs and hearing it in person.
Anyways, hope you guys liked my story. I had a good day and now I must sleep.
Cheers. -K
