Hey people...

I was in the market for a good, not-too-pricey 7-string that I could depend on for some serious woodshedding. When I came upon Carvin, and their numerous good reviews here and there, I said "Hey, that doesn't look too bad." I chose all the options I wanted off their website and got all prepped up to get one...

But before I lay down any cash though, I was wondering if any of you guys got any opinions on those Carvins. I was thinking of a DC 747 (the H-S-H one) with a maple neck with alder wings, standard ebony fretboard, jumbo frets, and a tung oiled neck (I don't like painted necks).

What do you guys think of them?

I've tried one a customized Carvin 7 string at the store they have here in Los Angeles. It wasn't too bad. Had 2 switches (one was a phase inverter and another i wasn't too familiar with), H - S - H setup, 5 way switch. It was around $900 list and I thought i wasn't too bad for a customized transparent finish 7 string because you can usually knock off a bundle if ya purchase direct from the store itself. Otherwise, I was planning to get one of these for a 7 string but I love Ibanez too much

Reg

I have a DC 727 (H-H), all mahogany with ebony fingerboard. The guitar it's pretty amazing, light, tight, fast playing. Things that bother me:

I got it from their "in stock" section on their site, and it's rumoured that returned guitars by unsatisfied customers, are displayed there too; my guitar has the frets slightly longer than the fretboard, so they stick out like shark teeth on the sides, luckyly, they're kinda short & polished so i hadn't had any accidents yet :), also it has a slight weird bow in the neck that doesn't seem to be fixable with truss rod adjustment, but doesn't really affect playing. Also unplugged it doesn't sound sweet enough for me & it doesn't sustain that much, maybe it's cuz it's all mahogany (neck too), i can't tell since i haven't really played many guitars in my life to know the woods that good, i got a basswood ibanez that sounds sweeter unplugged , carvin is very clear & defined, but doesn't have the power to cut like the ibanez does (all these unplugged). Now when u plug it in, you can get feroucious power with this beast, especially if you got the active/passive system like i do; one thing though, you might not like the pickups, they are VERY brutal & trebly, ther're really unsubtle, so if you want to play metal i think it'll be just heaven, but if you want to do sensible leads, i think you'll have to swap them, i wanna do that too, but i'm not shure what to get, i think a JB & a Jazz in the end but dunno......

I couldn't send the guitar back, cuz i'm in Romania & an american friend bought it for me, Carvin has a dealer in Romania but this guitar costed me $689 & in Romania it would probably had been $1200-1500.

I can make some quick RA, samples if you want, also there is this other guy that has a Carvin 7 that posted on this site ( i think the multimedia section), it's maple neck + alder sides + maple top, has pics & sounds of the guitar, it sounds pretty much like mine :)

If you have any further questions just ask