Back in the summer of 2002 it hit me that I'd been playing guitar for 25 years. My first thought was, "I should be better than I am." My second thought was that I'd never owned a high quality guitar... I've always had bottom of the line ones. It was also a realization that, now that I was divorced, I was the one with all the decision making power when it came to my money. So... the time had come for me to buy my dream guitar... but what was my dream guitar? One was the Gibson ES-175D Steve Howe model. But those have a street price of $2800. Way to much for me to afford. There was Alex Lifeson's white Gibson ES-355. Those also turned out to be way too expensive.
So... what did I want? Well, there were all sorts of guitars that I'd ogled in the past... Strats, Pauls, 335 types... I started trying to figure out what would really give me my best bang for the buck. Then I remembered how often I'd drooled over the AE-185 in the Carvin catalogues. Manufacturer's URL http://www.carvin.com/products/guitar.p ... mber=AE185.
In the past I'd heard that Carvin guitars were wonderfully playable. I'd seen Billy Sherwood play them with YES... and Alan Holdsworth plays Carvins as well...
The AE-185 intrigued me because it seemed it could do so much; cover so many different sounds. It's a neck-thru the body semi-acoustic. So it has sustain, but with the hollow sides it also has resonance (like Alex's 355). What's more, under the bridge it has a piezo pickup system so it doubles as an acoustic guitar. If you've seen Rush in Rio you see Alex use a system like this in his red PRS guitar. In both Closer to the Heart and Natural Science you hear him play both acoustic and electric sounds out of that guitar. The manufacturer describes it like this: "Jump from your favorite lead riffs to an acoustic guitar sound instantly. The semi-hollow body construction along with the solid Engleman Spruce top, acoustically designed chambering and ?-hole, gives the AE185 a sweet acoustic tone that compliments both the electric & acoustic realms of this versatile guitar." I decided to go for it.
Carvin is a cool outfit, based in California. You call them up and tell them the model of guitar you want, what kind of pickup options, woods, finishes, etc., and then they build it for you. When I made the order I also opted for coil-splitting switches and a phase switch. Now the guitar could either have Gibsonish sounds from the humbuckers or Fenderish sounds if I put it in single-coil mode. With active electronics and an EQ knob for both the electric and acoustic sides of the guitar, it was going to be a real tone factory! The hard part was choosing the color. In the end I just asked them to put a clear gloss finish over the natural wood. But a few dys after that I called them and changed it. I kept thinking that for so many years I'd thought Alex's white ES-355 was such a beautiful guitar, I asked them to make it in Pearl White instead of clear gloss. As it turns out, the PW finish tends to reflect different colors in the light, as opposed to a classic white which just looks... white. Whe taking pictures of it, it turned out to be very difficult to photograph. In one picture it might look like it has a bluish hue, and in another a creamy off-white. Up close and in person, it looks like a pearl.
To see the large version of the picture in my signature go to http://matt.purescience.com/images/carvin/carv_usa.jpg
Upon receiving the guitar, it took a while to get used to the electronics layout. Wtth the four knobs it looks like it'd be the same as a Les Paul, but it isn't at all. One knob pans between the humbuckers and the acoustic pickup. Two knobs are for EQ, and one knob is a master volume. It has two output jacks so if desired you can play in stereo (acoustic out one jack and electric out another). It has a gorgeous and wonderful feeling ebony fingerboard. The tailpiece is also made out of a lovely chunk of ebony. The neck is extrememly comfortable. It's a little bit wider than a lot of electric guitar necks. I suspect they did that to accomodate the acoustic players who buy the thing, but I really like it. Despite being a tiny bit wide, it's also nice and thin... it is so very comfortable. Since the neck runs through the length of the body, the heel is extremely smooth and reaching the 24th fret takes no effort at all.
And boy, is it ever a tone machine! Does it sound exactly like a Les Paul or a Telecaster? Of course not; it sounds like a Carvin. They have a very unique pickup design (lots more pole pieces than the typical 6... that way you get no dropouts when string bending). But it does sound mighty fine. It's great being able to sound like a solid body, semi-hollow, thick humbucker, thin and twangy single-coil, and all sorts of variations in and combinations between... and an acoustic to boot!
I currently own 7 electric and 3 acoustic guitars. If I had to reduce it down to one, this would be the one I keep.
