Carvin AE185-12 string arrived
- From: Burnham Treezdown <dolphins@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 12:46:36 -0700
Got it yesterday afternoon from Ebay (2002 model) and have put several
hours on it, so these are only first impressions. As time goes on I'm
sure a more stable love-hate relationship will develop & mature.
In a word...well, I dunno. It has some nice & not so nice features.
First of all, it's LIGHT! The whole thing is light. So light that my
very first impression was, "this is so-o-o-o cheap" - but it's not.
Just a shade heavier than my Taylor 712CE, but even with a fat neck &
12 Sperzels it balances very well. The fingerboard is nice & wide so
my big fingers can do clean hammers & pulloffs within chords that I
could never do on my Ric without killing adjacent strings. The back of
the neck, though, is sort of an odd shape and is not conducive to
thumb wrap-arounds. Not terribly uncomfortable, just not what I'm used
to.
The neck is also pretty flexible for something so big. As the
acoustic-style bridge is fixed, truss-rod adjustment is all you have.
After tweaking mine for very little relief the high-fret action is
acceptable. I'll get more precise after changing strings and letting
it settle for a week. Until then, I can't really make final judgements
on the tone or intonation, which for now isn't too impressive.
As I was warned, the stock C22 pickups aren't the greatest. But it's
hard to tell since they're fed thru the active electronics, no telling
what kind of EQ curve they're being subjected to. The piezo saddle
pickup doesn't perform the way it would on a real acoustic guitar,
owing to the guitar's semi-hollow dynamics. I ran the piezo through my
Yamaha AG Stomp, mixer & studio monitors and never got a real acoustic
sound but still, some nice ones. Really not much different than my
Guild jumbo with the Duncan Mag-Mic. When running all pickups thru the
same cord into a guitar amp the piezo doesn't sound much different
from the bridge humbucker. No Hotel California tone here.
Bear in mind, I've had a 60's Ric 330-12 for over 30 years and that's
the standard by which I judge all others.. In comparison, the Carvin's
sound (both plugged & unplugged) CAN'T compare (what DOES?) but the
wide fingerboard is a huge improvement, and the only obvious one,
besides having the separate output for the piezo allowing different
amping/effects chains for the two systems.
Oh, the pots are STIFF, the little knobs with the smoothed knurling
require you to GRIP them, no fingertip nudging here. The EXTREMELY
STIFF volume control is very close to the bridge, making the gripping
situation even more difficult. The pickup switch feels cheap and not
long for this world (a common Carvin complaint) and the circuit boards
make control replacement/mods a major chore.
I'm already wondering how a pair of Duncan Pearly Gates or TV 'Trons
would sound on this...those pups are just sitting in my drawer,
begging to be installed on something. If there are more suitable
buckers for a 12-string I could use some suggestions.
.
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