Is anyone not satisfied with their new Charvel?

[Fiesta Red]

To those who have played both the Production models and a USA Custom Shop model -- are the necks of the USA CS models thicker/fatter that the Production models?

-Mark

 

[stratotone]

I bought a black one. I had the entire wiring changed out, put in a CTS pot, replaced the tuners, the vol knob, and the pickup rings, replaced the JB with a 59, and had the cavity shielded. It was too light and didn't sound all that well. My tech wasn't impressed with it either -- he said the quality of the insides and some of the parts was like something he's find in a Squire. Eventually I sold that one. I found another one - this time in red. Much heavier than the first. I had everything upgraded like the first and it sounds much better.

This is a pic of the first one pre upgrades.

Very interesting. I have a Red one and it is heavy. I felt a difference when comparing it to a newer blue version. Mine sounded better too. Like Danny said, it sounds great until I plug in a LP

I don't buy the entire 'weight = tone' argument. One of my EJ strats weighs under 7lbs and rings like a bell. Of the two SoCals I own (an orange and green) the orange one is lighter and sounds better. I do agree about the LP though... I played my burstbucker pro standard faded at a gig on friday, and through my Bogner it was freakin' magic. I know a lot of it is the amp, but I killed the other guitarists' tone - he was running a Les Paul Supreme into a spidervalve. Didn't have the heart to tell him what I paid for my faded...

What did you mean by quality of the insides and the parts? Maybe I'm not real discerning, but what is the problem with the parts? I thought mine was fine, maybe because both are SoCals and everything is mounted to the pickguard instead of a back routed control cavity?

Pete

 

[grimmchaos]

While my So-Cal doesn't match up to the thick tone my PRS or LP have, it is very resonant unplugged and holds up quite well on its own plugged in.
I do think a pickup change would help, mostly because I'm not a Dimarzio fan.

The Floyd Rose stays in tune well too, though I noticed the pot is a tad harder to turn than your normal CTS pots. When I do swap pickups out I'm going to get some splittable pickups and install a coil tap, so that will change then. Are the straplocks Dunlop or some cheap copy?