Charvel Model 1

ok i havent had my charvel for long. i got it from my dad about 2 years ago. by the way i'm 13. i do know that it's got a kahler bridge, 22 frets, a v-shaped neck, and it's probably made in the late '80s. it's solid black and has a great sound. i love to play ozzy and AC/DC songs on it. it has been a great guitar for me since i am still a beginner.

i like to play heavy metal and it fits that style pretty well. i usually like to play with tons of distortion and which makes it pretty loud. i really love its tone. it has a real cool sound to it.

i like the way the pick ups are set up. i have another guitar with 3 single coil PUs and the middle one usually gets in the way of where i like to strum. it doesnt seem to hav ne flaws but im just a kid and i havent owned many guitars

well i have really banged it up a lot since i got it and it hasnt gotten any thing done to it except the few scratches that were already there when it was given to me.i would use it in gigs without backups because it is a good guitar and i love it.

i have been playing now ever since i got it ( 2 years) and it has always been easy to rock out with. it is really good compared to other guitars ive played, including some SG's and rhoads models. the only thing i really hate about it is that the whammy bar wont bottom out. it really pisses me off sometimes but its bearable.

I bought my Charvel Model 1 new in 1988. It has the Ft Worth Tx plate and after some research I have learned that all Charvels after 1986 until 2002 (When Fender bought Charvel/Jackson) were made in Japan. The model 1 was the basic Strat style body, 24 fret, 1 Humbucker, 1 knob guitar. It had a stock Humbucker and Tremblo. Mine is black with a maple neck. Then the guitar rocked... About 6 yrs ago, I had the stock trem removed and a Kahler installed. Just 2 yrs ago I installed a Seymour Duncan Screaming Demon pick-up. Now it destroys....over 20 years old and still looks new and screams.

I play mostly rock and metal and that is what this thing does. I have a Crate Blue Voodoo and the way this thing performs is off the chart. I use minimal effects, the rest is the instrument.

The guitar was set up perfect and the stock pick-up served its purpose. It did go out of tune but that was expected with a standard trem.

This is the AK47 of guitars. You can toss a hand grenade on it then pick it up and play it. Over 20 yrs and never a problem.

Never had to deal with them, except for the history.

I have owned everything from a Jackson V to a Gibson, from a B.C Rich to a Peavy Wolfgang. This is hands down my favorite Guitar.

OK so the Charvel model 1 i own is an 1987 according to some research i did, i got it in '92 and have been playing it most of this time with the exception of a few peroids where i just played my les paul. Strat type body, painted fire engine red which came with a fender strat style bridge (has since been replaced with multiple licensed floyd rose bridges and finally now i have a real floyd on it) and a single passive jackson humbucker controled by a single volume knob. kind of basic but i used to call it the Van Halen special cause it looked like something eddie would play and it was built to shred on for sure. Jackson tuners (grovers?) non locking but decent. 22 fat shredable frets and maple neck and finger board.

Even though there is only one tone that you can get on these badboys they sound great with everything they came with, although there is still quite a bit that can be improved on. The original pickup is decent, very good for rock, hard rock, and metal, though IMO seemed to be kind of lacking in the highs and over all output. The guitar was never noisy, never buzzy, never hummed. The factory bridge of course left plenty of opportunity to get out of tune especially when using the vibrato. Very basic though, but a great playing guitar to start adding to and improving on.

Didn't buy it new so i cant say about the factory setup, although i suspect that it wasn't played much for the 5 years the original owner had it, and im pretty sure that the factory setup was still on it when i got it. And that is the first thing you notice about these guitars the action and the frets and neck radius all make for a very easily playable and very fast playing guitar, perfect for shredding leads. I have seen many over the years and they have all seemed to be very free of any flaws in workmanship and function.

I've found these guitar to be very reliable and durable, bolt on neck built pretty much like a fender except with a two piece angled head stock. Good quality parts and hardware on these guitars, seem to be as good as any. Good finish, nice and durable. only about half as thick as some mexican fenders i've seen though. Very dependable, can't say i would go with out back up but if i did i would rather have the charvel than my les paul (nothing against les pauls, but with the floyd and everything there is a lot smaller chance of string breakage and tuning issues, oh and the two piece neck\headstock will probably survive falling over, like off a stand or something, with out breaking like a les paul)

never used it or needed it.

I've been playing for almost 17 years, right now i just have the charvel and a les paul as far as guitars but i have owned so much and many different pieces of gear i can't list them all or let alone remember each one. I would certainly have to find another one of these if i lost this one. I love the action, playability, and speed of the neck. I don't like the original trem setup. These guitars would compare very simialr to an ibanez or jackson of course. I choose this one though because i got it for $200 bucks with a marshall practice amp (reverb 12) and a very bad soundiing digitech two channel distortion pedal (sold it right after that though)

One Humbucker pup, and one tone knob. Pretty simple setup, but it's amazing how such a simple setup can sound so good. The pickup is extremely hot, but it's not the active EMG type of hot. It doesn't have that "bright" sound to it. It's a true chunk pickup. You can play screaming solos or groovy rythms; this baby handles everything.

Because of the hot pickup, you can pretty much only play rock and bluesy overdrive sounds, but once you find out how good this guitar sounds on rock, you won't want to play clean. The sound is just perfect. I play Hendrix, EVH, and Ted Nugent mostly and this thing handles everything. This guitar actually plays Hendrix well. I don't play very loud, so the humbucker takes care of distortion that the Marshall plexi head created on 10.

Would be a 10 if the guitar stayed in tune better. I greased the nut a bit, and it stays in tune perfectly. Also, DR strings help this thing stay in tune. Those D'addario's just slide right out of tune.

Action is perfect.

She's a rock

Been playing for 5 years now, and I've spent thousands of dollars, and this guitar, which I got for $200, beats everything. Just a high-quality guitar.

My Charvel Model 1 was made in Texas. The body is solid (Ibelieve it to be basswood) The finish is red though an artists has painted this body to look like a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal. The neck is maple, the fingerboard is also maple with 22 jumbo frets. It has a very flat radious as most charvel/jackson's do. Plays liike a dream. The body style is strat shaped. The only thing stock about this guitar is the body, neck and the standard strat style trem bridge. I installed black Sperzal locking tuners. The electronics have all been replaced down to the wiring and output jack. The pickup is a single Duncan Invader wired to a Torres Engineering 2 meg ohm potentiometer and then straight to the output jack, which is made by Switchcraft. All wiring is shielded wire.
Basically I got a deal on this guitar from SaM Ash back in 1988 who had over purchased this model. I never played it. As soon as it arrived I took it completely apart and built my own guitar out of it. To call this guitar a Charvel model 1 is a bit of an injustice.
The guitar has Shaller strap locks which were installed in an ingenious way by my roadie becausase I was ripping the screws out of the guitar body! I've never heard another Charvel model 1 that could hold a candle to this instrument. This guitar has survived the road and it's still cranking out nasty tone!

This guitar is strictly a heavy metal instrument,
My main amp is a Marshall JCM2000 TSL and my clean amp is a Roland JC120 AB/Y'D It is not in the least noisy.
It has tremendous low end and a crisp top end.
The tone is Rich. It stays in Dropped Double D tuning.
For what this guitar is used for good luck finding another that sounds like this one sounds! I adore this guitar.

Umm the factory had little to do with how this guitar plays or sounds.
The frets were re finished, crowned and polished. I threw all of the stock electronics and parts into the garbage.

See above, I built this guitar, Charvel had really nothing to do with it. I merely used their wood. It's been up and down the road and it still screams. I'd never play live without a back up. In my opinion, this would be very stupid.

I own besides this guitar, a '72 Fender strat (ash body-natural)
A Fender Tom Delonge model which is now almost exactly the same as the model 1. A Fender Fat Strat, A Taylor model 310 acoustic. A beater acoustic strung up for Nashville tuning to use as ear candy when recording. The model 1 is the perfect guitar for metal but then, I built the damn thing myself and I'd suggest the above mods to anyone who wants a metal guitar. I wouldn't sell this guitar for 2 grand.

This was manufactured in Japan in the late 1980s. It has a bolt-on maple neck and rosewood fretboard.......22 jumbo frets.........Kahler locking tremolo........Jackson hardware.....a single Jackson humbucker........and I believe the body is basswood. Basically a stripped-down shredding machine.

I mostly play classic rock and metal. This has long been one of my favorite guitars. Plug it into a good tube amp and it will scream. Great for lead playing. It just begs you to crank out some old Kiss and Poison riffs. It gives you that great chunky high-gain sound but little else. Not real versatile but what it does.....it does well.

I bought this one used and it was setup fine.......very low action. The neck is thin and very fast. Neck joint was tight. The fretwork is well done and the finish a beautiful fire engine red. No noticeable flaws. Seems pretty well built for having been manufactured overseas.

I own several old Charvels and I love them all. They've held up real well over the years and can take a real beating. These things are real road warriors. You can pick these up used real cheap these days and they are a bargain.

N/A

I've been playing for over 20 years and own many guitars but there is just something cool about these Charvels. They play like a dream and can shred with the best. For you beginning metal players out there.......before you drop a lot of money on a more current instrument, consider one of these. You can get them cheap in pawn shops or right off ebay. They are real screamers. You won't be disappointed.

This is a 1981 with 22 frets, maple neck, one pickup and volume model. I got it from the manager of a guitar center who took it in on trade from an abusive kid. He took it home and gave it a full work over and sold it to me for $75. Red finish has some dings, but other than that, it's flawless. The maple neck has one of the best actions I've ever seen. That's personal taste, but I like it. It also has an EPS (Floyd Rose Like) tremolo. It's a very good one, but I prefer no tremolo.

Sounds nice. Standard rock sound. Electronics could use a clean up, but its not a fault of the design.

Don't know. When I got it, it was perfect.

This guitar is a tank. Very indestructable.

Been playing 28 years. I have a 96 Alvarz Yairi DY-74C, 2003 Taylor 355 12 string, 81 Ovation Legend (when they were still good), 03 mexican Strat, 2001 Ovation Custom Elite (when they sucked. I wouldn't replace. It's a great guitar but I bought for my son to take lessons with, and its served its purpose. Bought it because the price was right and I'm cheap.

Mine's a Japanese model, strat body, probably made around 1987.I found it in a music shop, and it had been there untouched in it's factory case for about six years. All that was done was an inventory inspection, and back to the stockroom it went. They had three, and I picked a red one. I paid about $180 for it!

It's got 22 medium-jumbo frets, and the standard Charvel flat/wide/thin neck profile. Mine's a maple neck (as they all are) w/ a maple fretboard, bolt-on...nice satin finish on the neck...not sticky at all. Pointy headstock, "Jackson" tuners which seem pretty nice to me...It's got a solid basswood body, w/ one humbucker, one volume, and output jack. The small amount of wood that's been routed out of the body for the PU and volume pot came painted w/ conductive paint to shield noise. This guitar came w/ a graphite nut and Fender-style trem bridge.

Like my previous Charvel (a model 4), the playability was great, except for the usual minor tuning problems due to the trem. The Jackson (passive) PU was a high-output model w/ a ceramic magnet. It sounded ok, but a little harsh to my ears.

I made a few changes to the guitar. I replaced the stock trem w/ a Schaller floyd rose and locking nut. The guitar tech did a nice job and countersunk the bridge, maintaining the clean, flat surface of the body as much as possible. I replaced the Jackson PU w/ a Seymour Duncan parallel-axis Trembucker, the distortion model, and replaced the (100k ?) volume pot w/ a 1M pot. I'm not sure the pot makes any difference.

It stays in tune for weeks, almost plays itself, and sounds kick ass!

I give it a "2" for features...it doesn't have any besides the bare necessities, but that's why I sought it out. Beautiful simplicity.

I play mainly 80's type rock and metal...just a hobby, nothing serious or professional. For this, it's perfect. I don't think it could be improved on. It has an almost perfect action, very, very low
and no string buzz anywhere that I can remember. It's a very loud guitar, and probably not suited for everything, but who knows?

I use a Boss Metal Zone to boost my Marshall Jubilee (100W), and a Quadraverb. Played loud, there's some noise, probably due more to the pedal and the amp than the guitar, but a lot quieter than my buddy's Les Paul and SG. I always keep the volume pot full on. It's pretty much a on/off switch, not much tone variation between all the way off and all the way up. It's probably the pot; I'm not sure if it's linear or audio-taper, but it makes no difference to me.

The guitar has a very well-balanced sound. I think the warmth (mushiness?) of the basswood body is nicely complemented by the snap and brightness of the maple neck and fretboard, and the Duncan PU seems to be well-suited to the light body. (I think it sounds a little better than my Model 4, which was the same except for it's rosewood fretboard and more extensive body routing.) I use a good amount of gain, and I have plenty of sustain, controlled feedback at will, nice harmonics all over. It has punch yet is very articulated.
Unplugged, I notice that the guitar really resonates on Db, which is cool since I tune it down a half-step...but I'm not sure if it matters plugged in. What else can I say? I've played it for years and I love it. I give it a 10 for sound, but it deserves even higher.

The factory set-up was flawless. It had a very low, easy action w/ no string buzz. The stock PU seemed adjusted fine but didn't last long, as I replaced it soon after purchase. As I mentioned before, Charvel/Jackson's "satin" neck finish is totally "transparent"...you never notice it's there. The neck fits square and solid in it's slot, no movement. The frets and fret ends were filed nice and smooth (no binding). I have never seen any separation between the fretboard and the neck, and never had a problem w/ the pointy headstock...but I baby this guitar. The only thing I have ever encountered was that the nut on the output jack comes loose once in a while. If I can remember to, I'll loc-tite the thing.

The body was painted red, and I've never noticed any flaws in either the body or the paint. I sweat on it a lot, and have never seen it affect the paint. The trem cover on the back still fits flush after I had the countersunk floyd installed. I give Charvel a "10" for this one...great job!

I have never played this guitar live, though I may be doing so in the next year or so. It seems like it would handle it just fine...it's simple and solid. It looks like new once cleaned up...there's hardly any pick scratches on the top. The finish seems to be durable. The strap buttons are those big Charvel ones...hard to get the strap on, but I've never had it come off. Again, I've babied this guitar, and never played it in a live setting, so I may not have much to add on this, but it is my only guitar and would be confident to play it live w/o a backup...except I'd worry about broken strings (floyd) but then again I have never once had one just break on me. And I do play the shit out of it. For this, I'd give it a cautious but optimistic "10" anyway. For what it's worth.

I've never dealt w/ Charvel. I'm not sure it even exists anymore. I've owned this guitar for over 10 years, and the only thing I've ever had to do (besides have the floyd installed) was have it set up.

I can't rate on Customer Support.

I've been playing for about 22 years, and like anyone else, searched for the right equipment and sound for myself. With this guitar, and the Marshall gear, I have had absolutely no need or interest in any other gear. I'm 110% happy w/ it, and it just seems to get better as I get better. I love it! The guys at Altel Sound were always great w/ me, and cut me a nice deal on this. This guitar was meant to be mibe...if it were stolen or lost, I don't know what I would do. Don't even want to think about that. But I suppose I would stick w/ the same basic design if I ever were to buy another guitar.

In the years since I bought this, I think I've played two other guitars, a Les Paul and an SG...both thru my amp. The old LP sounds and plays great even though it's been put through a speaker cabinet and crudely repaired...the SG plays nicely but the JB in it doesn't seem quite right for it. I like the clean "playing surface" on the top of this guitar, and it has all the features I need or want. I'd recommend it enthusiastically to anyone who wants a simple, great sounding and great playing guitar. Value? Hell yeah. For the $180 I paid for it (new), $200 for the floyd, another $200 for the installation, and about $100 for the PU, I've got possibly the perfect guitar. For me.

I believe '89 this was made in Japan no doubt, 22 frets, bass woood w/gloss black finish. One vol. knob and one pickup SD-JB. The neck is a burly maple (nice) w/rosewood fret board. Only one prolem, the headstock had a crack in it through the low E peg. It has a Floyd Rose which was the main thing I looked for. It came w/original case but only 2 latches. Jumbo frets an a nice low action. Simple, flat out in your face guitar...

This is a METAL born guitar and nothing can ever match it. I have 2 Les Pauls, but You will always need a CHARVEL. '83 Marshall JCM800 rodded full stack vintage '60's set up w/Egnater mods (gain, density and 2 effects loops), Roctron Intelliflex, Morley little alligater and bad horsey, and a MXR flanger. Don't need distortin pedal or overdrive, the amp has heaven high GAIN that no pedal can touch. This guitar is made for this set up, just as my Les Pauls. This guitar will do all the metal I need and then some. It is a METAL made guitar PERIOD...

The action and set-up is unbelievable. Everthing is in order, who ever set it up knew what they were doing, I don't have to do a thing. The headstock is the only thing that has a problem, but it looks to be well repaired.

This guitar will outlast anything if taken care of. It is a tank and you dont't have to worry about it. Les Pauls are different thing, worry, worry , anfd worry.

Don't need it

I have been playing for over 3 years, but I have been researching and know a good sound and guitar when i see one. I learned quick, don't buy cheap shit, research and buy the best. The only thing that bothers me was the crack in the headstock, but if the owner would of told me I would have not bought it. I am glad I did, the neck is premiun grade and I don't foresee a problem w/it. One guitar w/one pickup to do one thing...PLAY METAL

My Model 1 was made in Ft. Worth, Texas I have no idea when it
was made. Late 80's is my guess.
The neck is maple and has 22 jumbo frets.
The body is strat shaped and constructed oof basswood.
The guitar came with one Jackson humbucker, which was quickly replaced with a Seymour Duncan Invader. The controls are simple
one volume pot. I replaced this with a 2meg pot which further boosted the output level. All stock wiring was replaced using
shielded wire.
The bridge is standard strat style but, I replaced the bridge
saddles with Graph Tech units which greatly aid in tuning
stability. The nut is also Graph Tech Graphite.
Tuning keys were replaced with Sperzel locking tuning keys.
Though the "features" are few; one p/u, one volume pot, this
suits my use perfectly!
wire.

For Metal/heavy Rock I have not played a better guitar.
I rarely use effects prefering the sheer "Crunchiness of
My Marshall rig. The guitar is not noisy at all.
The Duncan Invader and 2 meg pot give this guitar an explosive
crunchiness. Single notes just scream and sustain forever.
Harmonic feedback is easily coaxed from a mere vibrato. The guitar
is not very good for anything but heavy type music now.
Love every minute of playing this guitar, it is my favorite!

The factory set-up was o.k. but my roadie made a few adjustment
and wow!
I never played the stock pickups once, it was replaced quickly!
Standard Fender style bridge plate and routing was perfect for me.
No flaws in finish. All fittong are in black and still look great!
My Model 1 is Red and the face of Cap'n Crunch was painted
between the heel of the neck and the bridge. The words
"Cap's Crunch are painted where my right forearm rests. The finish
work was done by hand by a dear friend of mine.

This guitar is road-worthy and has been used numerous times
live, too many to count. Finish is quite durable.
The stock strap buttons were replaced with modified Schaller locking
units. My roadie made them bullet-proof. I kept ripping the screws
out of the body!
I depend on this guitar, it is guitar number one!
I have backup, but rarely use it.

never called once.

Too much gear to list. My amp is a Marshall JCM 2000 TSL
Find me another Model !!!
I give it an 11!

Black basswood body, Strat style, 22 fret maple neck and board, pointy Jackson head with white guitar shape Charvel logo, Fender " go out of tune " bridge, one double coil pickup, one volume control and all hardware is black. The neck is like a flact Fender C crossed with a thin Fender U shape. Very nice feel. Nothing compares.

Stock it was good enough for me. Later on I put a Dimarzio Super Distortion in it and it improved the sound way beyond what I was expecting. When i first got it I was playing through my uncles old Marshall 50 watt half stack and using my BOSS DS-1 distortion, BOSS Chorus, BOSS Flanger and BOSS Delay. I ended up with a Marshall 65 watt Valvestate and it sounded just as cool. I added a 4X12 CRATE cab and it expanded the sound nicely.

As close to perfect as you can get without commiting harasy. It was and still is in damn good shape. No flaws and I still rip it up on this guitar. It will never leave me.

It withstood me and 5 brothers playing when I wasn't home. There were alot of bloody noses and black eyes. My mom almost made me get rid of it. She forbid my brothers to touch it. Now we all joke around about it and I let them see it, but not touch. It the princaple of the thing. HA HA HA.

Never talked to them.

I was and still am a huge RATT, Dokken fan. Every Meatl Mag had shots of Warren Dimartini with a charvel and George Lynce even had a few Charvels back in the day. I saw this guitar hanging behind the counter next to a red one. I liked the black one and have always planned to have the Skull and blood drips airbrushed on it. I procrastinate to much. It'll never happen. That was a special Christmas for me. My uncle came by with his half stack the night before and taught me a couple pieces of "Lay It Down" and "Back For More". He asked if I would take care of it for him. I went down stairs the next morning to find a large rectangular present that turned out to be my Charvel. I own a few Charvels and Jacksons as well as some other big name stuff. I have my own half stack now. I have kept every guitar I have ever owned as well as amps. Above them all, my Model 1 is the closest to my heart.

I was told that mine was from one of the last years that Charvels were made in Texas. Don't know if that's true or not--it's from about the early to mid 80s. This one has the small guitar-shaped Charvel logo, not the later Asian-made Jackson-style cursive logo.

22 jumbo frets on a wide-radius maple fretboard, neck fairly shallow with matte finish (though that polished rapidly with use). Pointed Charvel/Jackson style tilt-back headstock, six on one side tuners (Jackson tuners).

Standard strat-style tremolo/bridge.

Solid full-size strat shape body (quite heavy) no pickguard, single Jackson humbucker in the bridge position, volume and tone controls. Gloss black finish.

Very hot pickup--fairly bright, but with lots of body. Good sustain and dead quiet. This guitar doesn't do a lot of different things, but 90% of what people want a humbucker in the bridge position for, this guitar will do nicely.

I'd recommend it for rock or metal, no question, and you could probably use it for a lot of other things.

The action and intonation needed a little improvement, but nothing 45 minutes with a set of allen keys didn't fix. Needed no truss rod adjustments.

Pickup was way too low, easily adjusted.

Was a factory second, though the only flaw I've ever found after 9 years is where the music store sanded off the "2" stamped between the 20th and 21st frets under the E string.

This guitar is a rock. I've gigged with it for years, and it looks like the day I got it, except that I added a Jackson single coil in the neck position, and the neck is polished on the back from use.

Like all standard-tremolo guitars, I think it benefits from having the trem locked down and never used.

Used it without backup on paying gigs.

I've been playing for 20 years, and this is the best bargain I've ever gotten. Still have it, still play it. I've owned a lot of guitars, and this one is right up there.

I don't know if I'd buy another if it were stolen--the sentimental value of it makes it irreplaceable. I do know two guys that went out and bought the same guitar because of mine, though. One was a beginner, and one an experienced player with a ton of very expensive guitars.

As purchased, it's not all that versatile with only one pickup, but the quality can't be beat.

-strat style body guards red color
-1 solid black humbucker says jackson on pickup 1 vol knob standard black tremolo w/ bar
-all maple neck 22 x jumbo frets jackson black tuners sealed reverse headstock

-sound is EXCELLENT great sustain play thru vox ac-15 use johnson j-station

Great action easy bends fast neck no buzzing great finish since it was made in 1987

-will last if it has lasted this long i am 2nd owner

-been playing off and on for about 15 years bought his guitar from a friend he bought new in 87 so it is all correct have case also.
-this has to be the best guitar i have bought it sounds so good and plays excellent and it is very basic that is what i wanted to play my shred music.

I believe this Charvel was made around 1988-89 in Japan. The body is heavier than average (basswood, I think), with a solid "Ferrari red" finish. The fretboard is rosewood and the headstock painted black on the face. It has 22 medium-jumbo frets with white dot markers "Charvel spaced". The tremolo is one of the Kahler "lawsuit" models which is very much like a Floyd Rose except for the roller mechanism and lack of string locks. The tremolo is a very clever design and seems to work quite well, as long as it is well set up and lubricated (same rules apply with any mechanism). It had one Jackson model 2 pickup in it, which is a meat and potatoes metal shredder, but I swapped it for a Dimarzio X2N to be experimental. The neck contour on this guitar is very flat on the back which does not make it easy to wrap your hand around it, but it does encourage proper classical technique by making it very easy to back up your fingers with the pad of your thumb when soloing, which is this guitar's designated use. It has sealed "Shaller style" tuners (black) and only one volume knob. No switches, tone controls etc. This is the guitar version of the Soldano "beef it up and strip it down" mentality. Designed to do one thing: Shred!

I love this guitar. It is like scream therapy to play it. It is outrageous and loud and just makes you want to play old judas priest and slayer tunes. Take no prisoners sound and attitude. It is a one-trick pony, but it does this trick better than any other guitar. My current setups include a Mesa Boogie DC-5 combo with a Boss GT-5 processor or just a Metal Zone pedal, a short rack with Digitech Valve FX processor, BBE sonic maximizer and a Mesa Boogie 50/50 power amp and a Line6 AX2 amp. The Charvel works fabulously on all three setups when I select the meanest chunkiest settings. It is a raging bull. Please don't try to make it do what it is not supposed to do! I have read other reviews where this guitar gets thrashed for not being able to do nice clean sounds, jazz, country etc. If you try to tame this mustang you will ruin it's spirit. It is made to do one thing: Shred. If you want versatile, buy a PRS. Try getting this kind of meat out of a PRS and you will be disappointed. This guitar lives at a far end of the spectrum and does not play well with others! Not much variety, but totally kick ass!

When I got the guitar from e-bay, the action was horrible and it looked like it had spent a lot of time in a kids room. I cleaned it up and rebuilt it from the ground up (except the neck, I never took it off because it was on straight and tight). The wiring in it was twisted together like lamp cord, as if it had been worked on by a teenager, so I do not believe that the Jackson model 2 pickup is original for this guitar, but it is a very nice JB/Super distortion hybrid which I intend to keep in my pickup collection. The construction is very solid, reminiscent of the 80's Japan Fender strats which were giving the domestically made ones a run for their money. It is tight and beautiful and heavy. The wood on this one is a few grades more dense than other Charvels I have played, which is quite lucky for me since I did not play it before I bought it. It is a sex machine from a lost era of articulated penis-rock. I named it "Pussy Galore".

This thing seems pretty bullet proof. The hardware is all good. The only concern with Charvel/Jackson type guitars is the pointy headstock. You can hit golf balls with a fender headstock and it will not budge, but if you whack this pointy little thing in a ceiling fan you will be lucky if you only lose the tip. I have seen many of these with the headstocks broken off. Fortunately mine is not one of the early floyd-rose equipped guitars with the drilled-through string clamp. Some of the old Floyd equipped charvels have a pair of screws that can be seen on the back of the neck where the nut is. This drilling makes the critical bend area behind the nut very weak and they tend to crack a lot. I try to avoid these models because I have seen them crack even when they have been babied. My guitar came to me with some of those goofy looking Dimarzio straplock things that look like suspenders from Oktoberfest. I gleefully trashed those things as soon as I blew all of the styrofoam peanuts off of the guitar and installed a set of real "Charvel style" buttons. The pickup and the buttons are the only things I have added to the guitar, and the original pickup and buttons would have been fine if some ninny-poo had not installed the strap insanity. I would never do a gig without a backup, this guitar is no exception.

Never called them. I don't think I'll need them either. This thing is a tank!

I have been playing on and off since about 1983. I own about 15 different flavors of solid body electrics and three unique amp/effects setups to match my mood for the moment. If this guitar were stolen I would miss it very much and would begin my quest for another one. It is a Charvel, although made in Japan, it encompasses everything that Wayne set out to do. It is a very solid and practical rock guitar that will last a long, long time.

Probably made in Japan, althought the neckplate says Fort Worth, Texas. I guess the guitar was made around 1984 or 1985. Basswood Strat body, maple neck & fretboard, medium jumbo frets, standard tremolo bridge, Jackson tuning machines. Red mirrorlike finish.
This model seemed to be one of the first known as the EvH setup, that is one loud pickup and one volume control, that's all. The original pickup however was missing so I mounted a DiMarzio X2N with a coil split pot, the world's biggest loudmouth when it comes to pickups.

I own quite a few guitars and the benefit is that my style somewhat changes with each instrument. This one is made for lead guitar and powerful rhythm guitar, the well known 'brown sound' is easy to achieve. Clean it sounds nice, very funky indeed but using it with a tube amp going insane it's unbelievable. A lot of variety can be achieved by playing on different positions, different ways of striking the strings. It's not just a loudmouth, it can do a lot of sounds.

I adjusted the guitar myself after rebuilding it and the action is unbelievable. This neck is one of the best I have ever played, very smooth and silky. No fret buzz, no flaws at all.
Finish is great too, the guitar is already quite old and has been the #1 stage guitar of the previous owner but he could have fooled me, the guitar still looks as if it has been hardly used at all.

Very well built professional instrument, I do not expect any problems to occur in the future. I would definitively gig without a backup if I weren't such an asshole that would like to show off with all the other beautiful guitars I own.

I did ask Jackson a question and they answered within 24 hours, unfortunately they could not be of any help since this model is out of production for over 10 years. Well, I guess I won't need them anyway with this guitar.

I play 23 years, own quite a few other guitars, I would definitvely try to find another if it were stolen. I love this guitar for it's very basic setup and the fact that it still gives you a lot of different sounds if you know how to play it.