Charvel Model 1A

N/A

This is a follow up of my first review. I have now gotten the Dimarzio Super Distortion installed in the bridge, I left the Jackson J-100 single coil in the middle, and the Dimarzio PAF pro.

As I predicted, this guitar sounds amazing. The Jackson J-100 isnt that bad if you turn down the volume on the guitar, its actually rather nice. I have to turn down the volume on the guitar to get a clean sound out of my JCM 800 anyways.

So now it has the very 80's H-S-H setup. The SD in the bridge gives a full distortion burn and crunch. No problems there. Its not quite as smooth as the PAF pro, but im happy with it. Its an old design. The PAF pro in the neck makes a great SMOOTH singing "lue" vowel sound kinda voice. Great combo, Im absolutely thrilled with this guitar.

Ive had the pickups in there for a month now, so its not just me raving about my new sounds. Ive had plenty of time to look over this guitar, and hear what it sounds like, and it sounds great.


This guitar has now become my main axe. Pretty impressive, for a $200 guitar.

Its got a body pretty close to a Fender strat. Mine is bright Red, has a 3-ply black/white/black pickguard, I think it would take a retrofit strat pickguard if you wanted a new pickguard. Not sure on that. It has a nice, solid steel tremolo, black. Its nice and cold to the touch. Ive seen some crap-metal tremolos in my day, this one isnt. Its very good, feels like a quality device. Vintage Style trems like this certainly have their limitations, but this one does very nicely, It stays in tune very well, even with its stock Jackson (gotoh?) tuners. The stock tuners arent anything special, but they are nice and firm, and dont move if they get bopped, you have to take the effort to turn them. They keep tune very nicely.

Its got the 3 stock Jackson single coils in it now, arranged in the traditional strat ||/ arrangement. It has a 5 way toggle switch, and a master volume, and 2 tone knobs. Stratocaster-;ike.

The neck is maple with a maple fretboard, 22 frets, and the cool Charvel Pointy black headstock with the "San Dimas" style Charvel logo in white letters. The truss rod adjustment is at the headstock, and is coverered by a triangular truss rod cover, also 3 ply like black/white/black like the pickguard.

I rate this 10, because I love the strat setup, its so very versitle, the whole setup can be altered by just getting a new pickguard. That, plus Charvel had the right idea, they used QUALITY hardware, and that makes a HUGE difference. Even the strap button is decent, its larger than your average stock strap button. I replaced these with Jim Dunlop Straplocks anyways (black), im a careful guy, I treat my guitars with love and care, but accidents happen, and it would be a shame to have this thing ruined in some stage accident, just because I was too cheap to buy $12 straplocks.

No Opinion.

Why? simply. . .not really fair. Tone is subjective, everybody knows that. I think it sounds great unplugged. If it sounds great unplugged, it will sound great plugged in, if you have good electronics and a decent amp.

This great guitar is being choked by these single coils. ROBBED. This guitar has the potential to scream, but these single coils wont even let the mouth open.

I peeked under the pickguard, and they have used 500k pots on these single coils. EW! They would probably be decent with 250k pots. I dunno if these were the original pots or not, some dork has messed up all the wiring in this thing. The bridge isn't grounded, still buzzes whether I touch the strings or not. I highly doubt it was manufactured like this, probably some dipstick didnt know what he was doing poked his schnoz where it didnt belong.

No matter, I know how to solder, and I know about guitar-innards. I bought a Dimarzio Super Distortion humbucker today for the Bridge position, and a PAF Pro for the Neck position. Ive borrowed my friend's dremel, and Im going to just carve up the existing pickguard to fit a H-S-H pickup setup. I wanted to get a Dimarzio HS-3 or HS-2, but Guitar Center had neither, and no store that I went to had them, so BAH. I'll have to order one online and wait for my project to be finished.

I play though a 1983 Marshall JCM 800 4010 combo (1x12) and a Peavey Classic 30. I cant WAIT to hear the Super Distortion though the JCM 800. Its going to absolutely smoke, no doubt about it.

This is a Japanese made guitar, made in 1988, according to the neck plate.
T
he paint is applied rather thick, 2 thick layers at least. This effects the tone a little bit, most notibly when the gutiar is unplugged, but we dont play our electrics unplugged, do we?

The frets are fitted properly. There is some fret buzzing on some odd frets. The frets were dirty, the action was high, intonation was off, and some of the hardware is oxidizing a bit. No points off though. This guitar has seen a bit too much neglect. No love. 16 years of not rocking hard, probably because the owner never liked the pickups. Its probably been sitting in a case, in a closet, for a good 5-10 years somewhere during its life. These are things to be expected of a 16 year old guitar.

The Body is Basswood, I understand. It has a shallow pool route, only shallow for single coils. Im going to have to do some drilling to make the humbuckers fit. I think the only problem is going to be the height adjustment screw.

This thing is rock solid. Im sure thats the first sentence of this section in about 70% of these reviews, but its the truth on this one.

The body and neck feel very solid, they have weight to them. Very good hardwoods, not only did Charvel spend a little extra on quality hardware, they also spent a little more coin on finer woods. Its very dependible, I would readily (in the future when its loaded with the DiMarzios) use it without a backup, its rock solid, and I trust my wiring :D

After more than a decade of neglect, all I needed to do was polish the frets, adjust the saddles, and tweak the truss rod a bit and it was rough and ready to fight once again.

Warranty? phhhssstt...long since expired Im sure.

This model is long since discontinued, the parts to these guitars secondhand is scarce, let alone in production.

I dont really need customer service. If its electronic, I got it covered. If I break a neck, well. . . I kick myself in the ass and look on ebay for a replacement or get a Warmoth one. I really doubt this is going to happen though, Im very careful and overly protective of my guitars. Although. . .Shit happens.

I bought it well used for $200. I meant for it to be a fixer upper, I knew what I was getting into. For $200, like all Charvel model series, its a huge value for a truly quality guitar.

The pickups ALONE would take it down to 6, they are that poor, but thats just not fair. Its easy to see that it has great potential to be a GREAT guitar, a trooper, a real player, and a smoker!

I received my model 1A brand new for my birthday in 1987 (to replace a stolen Westone). It is candy-red with thin maple neck, maple fingerboard with 22 fat frets, Jackson sealed tuners, 3 singles, and the pointy headstock. As like strats, it has the 2-tone 1-volume pot setup with the 5-way selector. It came in a grey plastic hard case. In '94, I replaced the strat-styled bridge with a Floyd Rose and locking nut. Did a pretty good job of aligning it up with the neck but didn't know that the body needed routing out in order for it to seat and work properly. Just recently, I replaced a scratchy volume pot and the 5-way selector with new units. I also wired the bridge pickup for tone off of one of the tone pots because it was so damned trebly!

The sound that this guitar can produce is amazing if you spend enough time experimenting with it. From hard rock to some types of accoustic and soft jazz, this guitar will give you what you need. I have never been disapointed with its output. I think it fits a pretty wide range of music, overall.

The guitar came from the factory ready to play. The action is incredible! Even after having altered its original bridge, and now having downtuned it with slightly heavier guage strings, it still plays easy with no buzz or pops. There were no flaws at all when I received it but after 16 years of playing it, it still looks pretty damn good. The finish is wearing at one spot where my arm lays across. The frets are showing their age now and there are a few spots that polishing out won't help anymore but it still tunes and plays pretty well. Not bad for a guitar that easily has 12,000+ hours of play into it. The only fixes are mentioned above with the exception of occasionally taking it to the nearest luthier/repair shop for some polishing and truing out. I love this guitar!

It has only been used live a few times earlier on since I decided to quit playing in bands and concentrate on a career and family. I think it would be a great instrument for the road as it has lasted so well. All of the functions of the various parts have held up but I think that it has alot to do with the care it receives. If I were in some kind of thrash band, this guitar (or probably any other) wouldn't last too long so I think it's kind of a subjective thing. For a regular band that takes care of its equipment, this guitar will be playing every night. I don't think any smart guitarist that is touring is going to only have one instrument. In short, take care of it and it will last!

I have never used their services so I wouldn't know what their about.

I have spent a good deal of time of my experience playing and learning on this guitar. I have been playing for over 20 years and I feel I have learned the most on this instrument. The ease of the action and the versatility of the output tones made it incredibly easy and tremendously entertaining to play. I would recommend it to
anyone who is interested in learning to play, to learn on one of these. Bottom line, though, is care. No matter what type of instrument you have, if you don't take care of it, it will turn to sh#t (ie bad action, noises, poor output). Find a good luthier/repair shop in your area and have them polish it up. It doesn't cost that much and your instrument will stay in great shape for years to come!

Made in Japan from 1986-1988, strat-style Basswood body, 22 medium-jumbo frets, maple neck and fingerboard, Jackson sealed tuners, fender-style tremolo bridge, 3 "J100" single coil pickups, black hardware. 2 tone, 1 volume knob, 5-way selector switch. Headstock is pointy, with white Charvel guitar logo. The neck is thin and feels quite fast.
Mine is red, and it came in a plastic hardshell case.
It gets a 7 because it's a solid, but pretty standard setup.

I play a variety of styles, but mostly classic rock (Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Hendrix), metal (In Flames, Opeth, Black Sabbath), and some space/stoner rock (5ive, Cave In). It's fairly quiet, but that's more likely due to the shielding I put in. The stock pickups are ok, but right now I can't afford to replace them so I'm stuck. It isn't all that versatile, but it was free, so I can't really complain.

I got this guitar from a summer camp I was working at. It had been sitting in the counselor cabin for several years, and I asked the director about it. He said I cauld have it, because they had no idea who it belonged to, and nobody else really wanted it. It looked like hell, so that was not too surprising. The action was super high, the neck was bowed and the intonation was way off. It looked really sad and dirty after many years of disuse. I took it all apart, cleaned it, shielded the body cavity, lowed the action, trued the neck and fixed the intonation. Other than those minor problems, it was in great condition.

The guitar is at least 14 years old, and is still in great condition. There are some scratches on the body, and dents where it looks like it was banged against something, and one spot on the back with a big chip in the paint. The headstock also has a chip taken off the thin, pointy end. The hardware is in fine condition. The finish isn't super thin, but shows no sign of wearing through. Judging by the fret wear, this guitar has seen quite a bit of use, and it's still in excellent condition. I would try to get a backup if I were gigging, but only because I would prefer that piece of mind. Even so, this thing is solid and dependable. I wouldn't worry about it breaking on me during a gig.

No experience, never contacted them.

This is a fine example of a low cost, high quality guitar. I love it to death. Its lack of tonal versatility is easily overlooked after you play it for the first time. It's just got that feel, the one that makes you want to keep playing it, even after your fingers are sore and your forearm is cramping up. If it were lost or stolen, I would get another as soon as possible. If my room were on fire, this is the first thing I would save.