Charvel Pro-mod DK24 HSS

first play
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August 2019 guitArist
CHARVEL PRO-MOD DK24 HSH & DK24 HSS
CHARVEL
maple cap. That explains the lack of a skunk
stripe round the back. It reminds us of the
necks on ’68 and ’69 Strats. The 648mm
(25.5-inch) scale length accommodates
24 jumbo frets and a bunch of small dot
inlays. The side markers are cut from
something called Luminlay, which lights up
when you’re on a darkened stage.
Before we move on, we must doff our
caps to the Strat headstock. It evokes the
early days of modified Fenders and Eddie
Van Halen’s groundbreaking Frankenstein.
Other manufacturers can’t use this
headstock, of course, but Charvel can ’cos
it’s ‘one of the boys’ and owned by Fender.
Feel & Sounds
These Charvels are obviously modern rock
machines, so you would expect the necks
to be more caramel wafer than caramel log.
They are slim but not quite as insubstantial
as, say, an Ibanez Wizard neck. Unless
you’re pathological about 50s baseball-bat
necks, you should get on okay here.
While the recessed 510 vibrato returns
to pitch flawlessly, it doesn’t have quite the
range of a Floyd. It will dump the strings on
the pickups like a load of metal spaghetti,
but there’s less pull-back potential. It’s a
small price to pay for the stress-free string
changing and intonation adjustment.
Before we continue, let’s check in with
the slightly unusual pickup switching. On
the HSH, position 1 gives you the bridge
pup on full power; position 2 is the Full
Shred’s inner coil and middle SSL-6 single
coil; position 3 is the bridge and neck
humbuckers’ inner coils; position 4 is the
neck’s outer coil and the middle pickup;
while position 5 voices the neck pickup in
full humbucker mode. The HSS shares the
same first two settings as the HSH, but the
difference comes at position 3 where you
get a combo deal on the bridge pickup’s
outer coil and the neck single coil, sort of
Tele-like. Position 4 is the middle and neck,
and position 5 is neck only.
As previously noted, a Seymour Duncan
Full Shred ’bucker occupies the bridge
position in both DK24s. This is described
3. These DK24 models
have a sculpted area on
the rear bottom body
bout that hosts the
recessed Strat-style
jack plate. This plate
is angled upwards to
direct your guitar cable
over your strap or into
a radio transmitter
4. Since Charvel is a
member of the Fender
family, you get that
iconic Strat headstock
on the DK24 models
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GIT448.rev_charvel.indd 13 6/13/19 1:35 PM