Charvel Guthrie Govan HSH

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Guitarist october 2017

art of the Fender empire since 2002,

Charvel’s reputation was founded

by making custom guitars for great

players. It’s currently signature home to

Warren DeMartini, Joe Duplantier, Jake E.

Lee and our own Guthrie Govan, who’s first

signature model appeared in 2014 after two

years of development.

Earlier this year two Charvel Guthrie

Govan Signature models were announced

with virtually identical features and price,

the difference lying primarily in their

woods. It means the full title of our reviewed

model is the, deep breath, Charvel Guthrie

Govan Signature HSH, Caramelized Ash,

Caramelized Flame Maple Fingerboard,

Natural – the other being the Charvel

Guthrie Govan Signature HSH Flame Maple,

Caramelized Flame Maple Fingerboard,

Natural. Bonkers. But name length aside

there’s nothing bonkers about the guitars: our

caramelized ash body model is up there with

the finest bolt-ons we’ve ever played. How so?

Unlike the basswood/flame maple top

version, the construction here is intended to

first play

CHARVEL GUTHRIE

GOVAN SIGNATURE

£3,029

Latest of two Guthrie signatures,

this one has a caramelized ash

body and caramelized ﬂ ame

maple neck and is loaded with

player-centric features

Words Dave Burrluck Photography Olly Curtis

If your jaw drops when you see and hear

Guthrie Govan play then prepare for

your wallet to open for his latest guitar

Uber Axe

GIT425.rev_charv.indd 16 07/09/2017 12:52

Summary of content (6 pages)

PAGE 1
f i r st p l ay CHARVEL GUTHRIE GOVAN SIGNATURE £3,029 Latest of two Guthrie signatures, this one has a caramelized ash body and caramelized flame maple neck and is loaded with player-centric features Uber Axe If your jaw drops when you see and hear Guthrie Govan play then prepare for your wallet to open for his latest guitar Words Dave Burrluck Photography Olly Curtis P art of the Fender empire since 2002, Charvel’s reputation was founded by making custom guitars for great players.
PAGE 2
Charvel Guthrie Govan Signature first play october 2017 Guitarist GIT425.rev_charv.
PAGE 3
first play CHARVEL GUTHRIE GOVAN SIGNATURE 1 3 2 1. Inside the neck are dual graphite rods for extra stability. The ‘super jumbo’ frets are stainless steel while the side dots are luminous by Luminlay 2. This ‘secret’ switch activates a passive filter for the humbuckers, creating a surprisingly single coil-like voice that’s still humcancelling. All it takes is a simple capacitor! 3. Nicely contoured at the heel with inset neck screws, combined with the rear cutaway contour top fret access is a breeze.
PAGE 4
CHARVEL GUTHRIE GOVAN SIGNATURE first play 4 humbuckers, position two voices bridge (slug single coil only) and the middle single coil; position three gives us bridge and neck (both slug single coils); position four offers the screw single coil of the neck pickup with the middle pickup. There’s no provision for voicing the solo middle single coil, or any way of coil-splitting the two humbuckers but via a ‘secret’ two-way mini toggle that is simulated by an old-school passive filter (a 0.
PAGE 5
first play CHARVEL GUTHRIE GOVAN SIGNATURE 5. The Tremol-No means you can lock the vibrato as a hard-tail bridge or limit it to just down-bends for those country-style dual string bends 5 7. Designed by ex-Fender guru Michael FrankBraun, the HSH layout pickups controlled by a 5-way, 4-pole ‘Super Switch’ 6. Based on the original Floyd Rose the strings lock into those big block saddles but there are no fine tuners and there’s no locking nut.
PAGE 6
CHARVEL GUTHRIE GOVAN SIGNATURE first play 7 CHARVEL GUTHRIE GOVAN SIGNATURE PRICE: £3,029 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Offset double-cutaway San Dimas-shaped solidbody electric BODY: Two-piece caramelized ash NECK: Caramelized flame maple with graphite reinforcement, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5inch) NUT: Bone/42.