Pagan Gold Charvel Tele

[hippietim]

Mine came yesterday. In addition to the gigbag that comes with the guitar, the dealer included a free SKB style hardshell case- basically a generic Strat/Tele case.

The short summary is: if you are looking for a very nice reasonably priced modern guitar this is a great way to go but if you are looking for an old San Dimas Charvel this will not satisfy you.

I pulled out the guitar and was immediately pleased with how it looked. The finish is pretty nice. The fit and finish around the control and trem cavities was sloppy. The paint itself is on par with guitars in this price range - probably even better. It is not a custom shop quality paint job, it's a production guitar quality paint job. Having said that, this isn't something I care about - it looks good, plain and simple.

The neck is great. It has a smooth satin finish. It has a neck carve similar to an old Charvel but is missing that flat spot that was typical on most of the old Charvels. The edges are rolled nicely. The fret dress is the same as you'd see on a typical production Strat - that is to say the frets are nicely dressed but not custom shop finesse. The feel of the neck and frets definitely exceeded my expectations and need no further work right now as near as I can tell.

The setup was fine. I want to tweak it a bit but there are no significant problems with the way it was setup. The Floyd alignment on mine was fine, string bending was smooth, trussrod adjusted correctly, etc.

The tone. I plugged it into my old band rig: pedal board (tuner, wah, vibe, O/D, chorus, delay, boost) -> Fargen Olde 800 (50 watt Marshall JCM 800 type amp) -> Port City 4x12 w/V30s. It sounded very nice. Great crunch out of the JB. Nice fat tone out of the neck pickup. The neck pickup cleaned up very nice by just rolling back the volume. The inbetween switch was very sweet - I've never had a JB/59 combo before but I like it. Blues, classic rock, metal - no problem. The pickup heights may need to be tweaked a bit for my taste.

In a nutshell, I could have easily gigged with the guitar yesterday right out of the box.

As for the knob, I like it. If any of you are getting rid of yours, let me know - I'll take a few.

[Ralph E.]

In a nutshell, I could have easily gigged with the guitar yesterday right out of the box.

Exactly. And I really feel that was the whole point of these guitars. They are not collector guitars, they are player's guitars. No worries taking them to practice, gigging, modifying, etc.

[hippietim]

Mine will probably get a Roland GK-3 installed this weekend.

I was thinking of getting some pinstriping tips from Newc too

[Newc]

Lemm know what ya need - I got tape and paint

My trem cavity cover was fine, though I always take the covers off anyway. Had to stick a small screwdriver in the hole of the cover to get it out once I removed all the screws

[Robert Hendrix]

Glad you got it Tim, now I can come over and try it out!! <EG>

[shreddermon]

Cool to hear that you're diggin' it, Tim. That's pretty much what I thought of the one I tried, too. Not a custom shop guitar, but they're not meant to be that. Rather, they're a cool, very good quality, reasonably priced guitar. A whole lot of bang for the buck in this line.

Can't wait for the new colors, so I can snag myself one.

[ADR]

I thought that color was nice,the store had one right there hanging up <Sold> tag,the metal flakes in that Gold made it PoP.
Pat,I think you played that one?

[diablomozart]

It has a neck carve similar to an old Charvel but is missing that flat spot that was typical on most of the old Charvels.

glad i'm not the only one that noticed that...but that's what they make sandpaper for i guess...d.m.

[thetroy]

The tele is my favorite of the current color options

[hippietim]

Glad you got it Tim, now I can come over and try it out!! <EG>

anytime brutha!

[charvel750]

Hey all, these new Charvels look really cool. Can they be had for under a grand? Thinking about getting one, that's the best price I found.

[Newc]

Joe, dude, where ya been?

Give Nick at Piney Hills a shout, he's good people. Tell him I sent you

Nick, if you're reading this, me and Joe go way back. He's a good guy. :wink:


Failing that, for some ungodly reason, or if Nick doesn't have the one you're looking for, you can score one for $650 if you've got that Ebay 10% off coupon email, and using Microsoft's Livesearch Cashback deal.

Basically, you go to www.Live.com and search for anything - PS3 is a good choice - you'll get results at the top of the page for PS3s on Ebay. Hit the link to Ebay and you'll see a Livesearch Cashback banner at the top of the screen. Type in Charvel and select Musical Instruments, find one with a BIN (they're all $999), then click the BIN.

On the Commit To Buy page, you'll see your Cashback amount, which should be $249.75. Final price for the guitar (if you get one with free shipping) is $749.25. Add the Ebay 10% Off Coupon (if it will let you) and get it for $650.

You will need a Live account, but it's easy to do. If you've got an Xbox360 and are online with it, it's the same account info. Or you can create another. All you need is a valid email address and a tolerance for M$ spam

Worth it to get a great price

Get with Nick to see if he'll set you up an Ebay listing so you can buy from him AND get the deal.

[hippietim]

OK, I was wrong. Gigging with this guitar would have been a bit rough. I used it at rehearsal the other day and the action was just too high for comfortable chording up high, soloing was a bit rough as the guitar was on the stiff side (I still had the original really crappy strings on it), there was too much relief in the neck, and the spring tension was wrong. So last night I took the neck off to adjust the trussrod (WTF is up with trussrod access at the heal - it' not 1957), lowered the bridge, put on decent strings, tweaked the spring tension, etc. It's *much* better.

I changed the strings on my GMW Green Meanie at the same time. It has a Schaller Floyd. Nobody can tell me that the Ping Floyd on these new Charvels is as nice as the Schaller. It's simple but noticeable things like the way the string lock block gizmos are a bit looser on the Ping, the whidlee bar lock down mechanism doesn't feel quite right, the allen wrench isn't quite as snug as the Schaller, etc. The Ping bridge will be fine but there is a reason they are cheaper.

[hippietim]

Also, I'm not sure that the JB is a good pickup in this guitar. I've always liked JBs but I'm not sure it's working for me in this guitar.

[shreddermon]

Sounds like the guitar may have "settled" a bit since you got it, Tim. I find that happening with some of my new guitars, usually a couple of weeks after it first arrives. Especially with oiled necks, which makes me think it's an environmental adjustment thing. A quick set-up tweak like you did has always taken care of it for me.

As to the bridge, it's not a Ping, bro. Those are "licensed by" Floyd bridges and done by a different manufacturer in China. The Charvels have "real deal" Original Floyds, although made in Korea (instead of Schaller in Germany). It'll be interesting to see how these bridges hold up after a few years - IMHO, that's the true measure of quality in a bridge and why the Schaller OFRs have been the "gold standard". We'll all have to cross our fingers until that experience / knowledge comes to pass. Hopefully, it just remains the "little things", like you said.

And I agree about the JB. It's been hit or miss for me. Mostly miss. Seems like it varies pretty widely, depending on guitar. Or maybe it's the JB pickup itself that seems to vary. Not sure. It sounded killer in my old KV2, pretty good in my old Bullseye. Pretty much sucked in other guitars I've had, though. I have noticed that the JB seems to be extremely sensitive to small height adjustments. Try playing around with the height, and see if that helps.