New Rating:
I’m going to do something that I have never done before and that is to re-rate some gear that I’ve already rated. The SH575 now gets a Tone Bone rating of 4.75 instead of the 4.5 I gave her yesterday.
I should know better than to do a review after only a day of playing some new gear; especially when it’s something that is completely new. Maybe it was my vanity in thinking that since I play all sorts of guitars that I should be able to pick up a new guitar and just start playing – and play it well. So shame on me for not taking more time with the Carvin SH575 to get to know the guitar better before I reviewed it.
It bugged me that I gave it a 4.5, which is not a low score by any means – I was really hoping it would be higher. So this evening, I went back into my home studio, pulled the SH575 out of its case, and just started noodling around to find out where the sweet spot was with the guitar. I originally took off marks for the guitar not really sustaining all that well. For the most part, I was wrong. The SH575 has a lot of sustain – you just have to figure out how to get it.
What I discovered is that this guitar requires an extremely light touch to play. That’s not a bad thing because a lighter touch in general means that you can play faster. Once I lightened up my touch, I was able to get some really stinging sustain out of it, and for that, I decided to give it a higher rating. Here’s a quick clip I made that demonstrates the nice sustain:
I added some overdrive with my trusty Tube Screamer, but it was pretty light. I wanted the guitar to do most of the work, and I added just a touch of reverb to create a little ambiance in the tone. Excuse my little mistakes in playing… 🙂
So why not a 5.0? There are a couple of reasons. First off, a high B on the 12th fret is actually a little dead. Not sure what that was about, but no matter how lightly I played, the tone of that string was just flat. Secondly, to me, the bridge pickup is just not very inspiring to me. I dind’t like it yesterday, and even though I really tried to look past my opinion of it, I just couldn’t get to liking it. As I mentioned in my original review, if I owned one of these, I’d lower the bridge pickup a tad to bleed off some of the highs.
But despite those two nits, this guitar plays like a dream, and in either the neck or the middle pickup selector, the SH575 just sings! That’ll teach me to get a review out too fast. I’m glad I proved myself wrong. 🙂
Guitar Gear 
Hi Goofydawg,
I’m searching for a versatile guitar, that gives me access to good acoustic sounds and decent electric sounds. Would you say that the SH 575 would deliver better acoustic-guitar sounds with acoustic phosphor/bronze strings? The other guitar I’m considering is the Godin Multiac Spectrum, wich comes from an acoustic approach.
Yours, (working on his english) Mavid from Germany
Funny you should mention strings. I’m at this moment doing a review on Wyres Strings, which are just about the best strings I’ve ever played in my life!
Yes, I believe a change in strings would do wonders for the SH575. I personally do not like Elixir strings. They’ve always seemed to brittle and way to bright for my tastes. Wyres, on the other hand, are also coated, but they have a much more rich sound than Elixirs, with both acoustic and electric.
Hey goofydawg,
I didn’t get a chance to read your review of the SH575 until today. I was glad that you discovered the technique for better sustain. I found the sustain to be amazing, particularly with synth pads.
Let’s talk more about adjusting the bridge pick-up offline. I also agree with your note about it not being optimal, but somehow it gets the job done for the rich acoustic tone and the synth input. It’s a relatively new design from Carvin, so I expect them to improve on it in the future.
My favorite combination is running the humbuckers through my Fender Blues DeVille with the synth background going through my Genz Benz Pro acoustic amp. It doesn’t get any richer than that!
Thanks for taking the time to review – it’s was fun reading your impressions!