NGD - Charvel DiMartini Goodness

[lepard]

After owning several USA Charvel San Dimas guitars, I got an opportunity to get a new DeMartini at a smoking price and jumped on it. I've been curious for a long time to see if a DiMartini guitar was better built than a production San Dimas. Long story short, I am extremely impressed with the DeMartini and yes, there is a quality difference.

The production USA San Dimas guitars I have owned and played have all been fairly good but inconsistant. I had a candy apple red that was beautiful but the neck/fretwork were very mediocre. I've played a few others that were decent but nothing that made me do cartwheels. I do own a very nice "Flame Up" model that is very, very good. It's one of the best USA Pro-Mods I've seen and has a nice flamey neck.

Now, onto the DeMartini. This thing is total quality and it shows everywhere. The neck is obviously the same wood, same woodgrain as a production USA Pro Mod but you can tell it has more time and love spent on it. The fretwork is better, the fretends better, the nutshelf height to 1st fret setup better and the way they rounded the fretboard edges is done better and more pronounced. The neck appears to have a light satin clearcoat which feels nice. The tuners are better(Schaller). The neckplate is a real 4-digit "custom" instead of the 6 digits used on the Pro Mods. The paint is better and the graphic is awesome. I'm assuming it's a Dan Lawrence done graphic since that's what's listed on the Charvel website. He didn't put his initials or signature anywhere on the guitar though which is something I was hoping for. It came in a nice G&G case which of course, the USA Pro Mods didn't come with.

I'm about as picky as they come and this one really excedes my expectations. I can't fault this guitar in any way. In fact, this thing is so good, I'm going to have to go find a Crossed Swords.

[bonghits]

Nice!

[xenophobe]

Grats! Yeah, I'd have to say my CS Charvel smokes all of the US/MIJ Pro Mods I've ever played.

[lepard]

Maybe you guys already knew this but I had never heard the story. Enjoy if it's new info to you:

Asked what led him to Charvel back in the '80s, DeMartini answered, "Van Halen, specifically the yellow-and-black guitar on the back cover of 'Van Halen II.' By then I'd started to play a lot, and that guitar put Charvel on my radar. Some friends of ours in the musical community in San Diego got jobs at Charvel as sanders, and if a neck had the slightest little knot or flaw, Grover (Jackson) would make them toss it, because it wasn't to his high standards. So they'd throw them away, and after the place closed down for the day, they'd drive back, get the necks out of the dumpster and sell them to kids like me for 50 bucks. That's how I built my first Charvel."

[Johnnyryche]

Congrats on the blood drip! The WDM Charvels are great guitars. How do you like the RTM pickup?

[lepard]

Congrats on the blood drip! The WDM Charvels are great guitars. How do you like the RTM pickup?

Hard for me to say. My amp setup is so hot, it makes crappy pickups sound good. From best I can tell, it's JB-ish if that makes any sense. It's not super high output. It's OK but not special enough to justify the $179 price Seymour Duncan sells these things for.

[Frigo89]

Hard for me to say. My amp setup is so hot, it makes crappy pickups sound good. From best I can tell, it's JB-ish if that makes any sense. It's not super high output. It's OK but not special enough to justify the $179 price Seymour Duncan sells these things for.

I'm curious as to what you play through. I have heard nothing but good things about these pickups.

Nice axe!

[Hellbat]

Nice, that one is my favorite WDM graphic.

[lepard]

I'm curious as to what you play through. I have heard nothing but good things about these pickups.

Nice axe!

I've gotten to where I use only a bunch of hot-rodded 5150's. I've sold off most everything else.

I got to spend some more time with the DeMartini today. Great guitar but that DeMartini Duncan is seriously nothing special. Sitting right here next to the DeMartini Charvel was a basswood Ibanez RG with a Ibanez V2 and a mahagony Ibanez RG with a Duncan Parallel Axis Distortion pickup. I did a quick comparison. The Ibanez V2 pickup is fairly decent pickup, kind of hot, fairly well balanced. It is definitely hotter than the DeMartini Duncan and has better low end crunch. In fact, that's where the DeMartini Duncan really falls short. It is not a hot pickup and lacks low end. The Duncan Parallel Axis pickup is one of the best out there(to my tastes). It destroys the DeMartini pickup hard. It has a much hotter output, better balance and serious metallic "crunch".

I'm not sure what Warren was going for with this pickup. It doesn't suit my style but if you like a medium-output pickup lacking low end but with enhanced mids, it might be to your liking. I'm going to take the DeMartini Charvel home tonight. I'm curious to compare it to my Charvel "Flame Up" Pro-Mod with the factory JB in it. I'll let you know.

[kmanick]

Congrats ! I love the Demartini graphics ( I wish someone would do the ying/yang face one that is my favorite)
I used to have a GMW "bomber" graphic strat that looked really cool but it had a 1 5/8" nut on it so I tradd it to Johnyryche for my blue one.
the RTM pick up is not supposed to have a lot of bottom end. Listen to Warrens guitar work on any of the earlier Ratt albums
where he was using these guitars. it's very trebly high mids. Not a good mordern metal sounding pick up at all (IMO) but if you like the old Ratt tone it
should nail it pretty easily thru a Slo 100 or any other similar style amp.

[Frigo89]

Congrats ! I love the Demartini graphics ( I wish someone would do the ying/yang face one that is my favorite)
I used to have a GMW "bomber" graphic strat that looked really cool but it had a 1 5/8" nut on it so I tradd it to Johnyryche for my blue one.
the RTM pick up is not supposed to have a lot of bottom end. Listen to Warrens guitar work on any of the earlier Ratt albums
where he was using these guitars. it's very trebly high mids. Not a good mordern metal sounding pick up at all (IMO) but if you like the old Ratt tone it
should nail it pretty easily thru a Slo 100 or any other similar style amp.

Thats pretty much what I had heard about the pickups, High-mid cut. good for soloing

[Jacksonkv2akis]

Awesome Charvel! I'm sure you'll enjoy it!! Congrats!!

[lepard]

Now at home, I can A/B the USA Charvel Flame Up vs. the USA Charvel DeMartini. Big difference in sound. First let me start off by saying that I've never been a big Duncan JB fan. I don't hate them, just don't think there is anything special about them. The JB's from 80's were hotter and sounded better. I've never thought a JB was very good for heavy low end crunch. Compared to the DeMartini pickup, the JB is a low end crunch monster. Outputwise, I'd guess that the JB has just a tiny bit more output than the DeMartini. It's the voicing that's wildly different. The DeMartini pickup has no low end balls whatsoever. It's all mids - mid/highs. It's going to be tough resisting the urge to yank the DeMartini pickup out and replace it with something else. I just hate to modify a special guitar like this. I will most likely leave it alone and just turn the gain up on the amp and add more bass when I play this one.

[jmsaxon69]

That's kind of funny about the DeMartini pickup, I have one that is older and just called the "Warren DeMartini Signature" not the RTM and I think it sounds almost strat'ish in my USA Pro Mod. Your description is right on as far as I'm concerned. I love it though! I called Seymour Duncan to see if there was a difference in the RTM vs. what I have and they said no, but the output on mine is fairly low compared to what the RTM is supposed to be, mine says it's 16.7 k others say 17.6 unless mine is just miss-labeled

[lepard]

Had a little more time today to mess with the DeMartini. Maybe I was a little harsh on the Duncan DeMartini pickup. Through my music room setup(pictured above) I can make just about anything sound good. I took the DeMartini, the Flame Up Pro-Mod, a White Bengal DK2 w/EMG's and a vintage mahogany bodied Dean with DiMarzio Super Distortions and did a little A/B/C/D'ing. Tonewise, nothing touches the vintage mahogany guitar with Super Distortions, hands down beats the others for tone. The EMG'd DK2 sounds a lot like the mahogany/Super D setup, just not quite as much output(which may be a good thing, the Super D's feedback quite a bit), a good balance of lows/mids/highs.

Duncan JB's are either the most inconsistent pickup ever made or just sound completely different in different guitars. I have JB'd guitars that sound thin and high-end'ish, some that sound well balanced, and some that sound overly low end'ish. In this comparison, the JB in the Flame Up Charvel sounded low end'ish with the typical JB poor balance of low/mids/highs and less output than the EMG's in the DK2. The Duncan DeMartini was just the opposite of the JB. Output-wise, I would say it is very similar to the JB but EQ-wise, it's just the opposite of the JB, very mid-rangeish with sparkling highs and great harmonics. Neither Duncan gets a very well balanced tone. This just confirmed why I generally do not like Seymour Duncan pickups. They just aren't balanced or have too low of output. The one exception to that is the Duncan Parallel Axis Distortion which is a GREAT pickup, really great pickup, nice hot output with a great balance of low/mid/highs.

Luckily with a souped up 5150 and a BBE 362 Sonic Maximizer, I can compensate pretty easily for the poor lows of the DeMartini. It's hard to compensate for the JB in the Flame Up though. I really do not like JB's. They have a terrible balance of low/mid/highs that I just can't seem to make work and sound as good as an EMG81. For some reason, old JB's in 80's Kramers sound hotter and better balanced.

The test subjects: