Carvin CS6C

As a player and collector of guitars for over 20 years, I felt compelled to write a review of this product beyond anything else I have ever owned! I currently own several Gibson Les Pauls, PRS, Fender srats,U.S.A. Jacksons, Ibanez, and more. I have always been partial to Les Pauls, but have often found tuning stability to be troublesome, and there are always very limited options with any model. Custom shop?? sure, if you want to pay $4,000.00 to $6,000.00 (and up), and wait 2 years to get it!
After receiving a Carvin catalog in Jan.,'08, I saw what appeared to be the answer to my prayers in a guitar. A Les Paul style, with the option of a Floyd Rose trem. bridge. While I'm not a "dive bomber", I DO use, and like the option of having tremolo on any guitar, and the Floyd's are the ONLY ones that I can depend on for staying in tune period. Besides the bridge option, I was also allowed to pick various woods, finishes, inlays, pickups, etc... to suit my taste. After a lot of careful consideration and research, I placed my order on Feb. 27, '08. I was told that it would take 8 to 10 weeks to build and ship, and I received it on May 5, '08.
All I can say is WOW!!! This is an INCREDIBLE instrument at any price. Having had time to play it in various applications, it has become my main go to guitar for everything, and now I can't wait to get my next one of several more to come. Outstanding does not even begin to describe my favorable opinion of this guitar.

I must admit that I was somewhat skeptical about the tone would be on this instrument. Although I had never heard any Carvin's, or their pickups before, it was my primary "wait and see" concern. One of the first things I began to do was A.B.C. comparisons between this guitar, and my favorite custom shop Les Paul, and PRS artist. My findings were that the Les Paul had that signature tone that only they have, but the Carvin had a better balance and versatility. When compared to my PRS, I like the Carvin as well, if not BETTER! especially for chunkier heavy tones. The PRS has a few more variations, but overall the classic model humbuckers in this guitar are quite impressive. They are a little dark, but rich with sustain and harmonics, quiet, and the push/pull coil tap is fantastic for clean and bluesy "strat" tones! I have played this through my main Marshall modern hi gain rig, as well as my Mesa and Fender amps. I have also done some recording (both miked through amps, and direct through a POD 2.0) with very consistent results across the board. I must confess that as pleasantly surprised as I have been with the tone of this guitar, I can't help but wonder sometimes if it couldn't sound a bit better with some good Duncan pickups?

The Quality of the woods selected on this model are truly mind blowing! Maybe I just got lucky, but the quilt top is as good as ANY, better than most, as is the mahogony body and neck. Unlike PRS, I can get ebony fingerbords (which I prefer personally), and the overall fit and finish top to bottom is every bit as flawless as my PRS W/artist pkg., and that is saying A LOT!! I did find it a little redundant that they used Sperzel locking tuners in addition to the Floyd's locking nut, but I won't hold that against them. I found extremely clean cuts and routing, inlay work,and finishing throughout, and I'm particularly pleased with the no laquer tung oil finish on the neck. The action was VERY good, but It did require a minor tweak on the truss rod to get the neck as straight as I like them, and even with the action set extremely low, I've got absolutely NO buzz or dead spots anywhere to be found. The fretwork is obviously painstakingly well done, leaving no surprizes to be found when using a low, speed action set up. Are you listening Gibson?? I have almost ALWAYS had to pay for a professional fret dressing after the purchase to clean up after them once I set them up to my liking. Totally unacceptable in a $3,000.00+ guitar... from anybody! I did request a .009-.042 set of strings at time of order, but it came with .010-.046's. No big deal, I changed them out, and the tension relief on the bridge was easily adjusted out quickly and smoothly.

Reliability and durability remains to be seen, I guess I'll know more in about 20 years, but given the initial quality and rock solid feel of this thing, I'll be surprized if it doesn't get better with age, and I have no concerns about it whatsoever. It will undoubtedly see it's fair share of normal wear and tear, especially as much as I'm playing it, but I tend to baby my gear more than most would see as reasonable anyway. Would I use it at a gig without a back-up? NO, not with ANY one guitar! Even new strings CAN break, and things do happen occasionally. I would never gig anywhere without at least 2 guitars, I'm just looking forward to my back-up's being more of these Carvin's. This thing is SO good that I'm still considering selling off a PRS or Gibson to get a couple more, and when you can get one of these "maxed out" loaded for under $2,000.00 in a tweed case, that's about a 2 for 1 deal.

My customer support experience has been fairly limited aside from the initial order. I was a little bit disappointed that they would not allow me to send them to factory install the pickup mounting rings I wanted to matched the rest of the hardware (I know, that sounds really vain, but if you could see the before/after difference it has made, you would understand). I really did not get a satisfactory reason for that request denial, I guess it's just too complicated to bother with from a mass production standpoint, so I just let it go, and did it myself upon arrival (What the hell, I had to change the strings anyway). The only other time I talked to them was about 3 weeks into the order, I decided that I wanted a different color finish. Knowing that it couldn't possibly be at the finishing stage yet, I didn't think it should be a big deal, but they wanted to charge me $50.00 to "re-write" the whole order! I guess some policy needs to be in place to prevent people from calling in every 5 days to change their orders, but I'm not sure that is the way to do it. Other than that, I can't say any more about their customer service. It seems that this is one area within the company that may need some improvement due to the large number of complaints I've seen and heard about them. If they ever truly plan to break out into the forefront of mainstream manufacturers, this is going to be a big part of their success or failure

As you might have guessed by now, I absolutely LOVE this guitar! It exceeded my expectations in every way, and answered the most important question of all to me; Is Carvin a valid, true player in the world of pro gear? I say without any doubt YES! I am so excited with this guitar every time I pick it up, and I definitely plan to get a couple more of them. The price was beyond a bargain when compared to the quality standards that I've found only in instruments costing 2 to 3 times as much. The only negatives I can think of when it comes to their products is A). No autorized service centers for warranty or general repairs, everything has to go back to them in California. This is not helpful to those of us on the east coast, (or further). B). Anything you buy, make sure you plan to keep it, because re-sale value is WAY below average!! This is solely due to the fact that the way the company is structured (factory direct only) keeps their products out of the hands of the masses, this leads to unfamiliarity, which equates to the unfounded lack of respect for the brand as a whole among a lot of potential buyers, in a very competitive market. Too bad!