Charvel Pro-Mod San Dimas Style 1 HH FR M MN Noir

This is an overall good guitar for the money but there are a couple of things about it that left me a bit surprised given the Charvel pedigree. The good: - Build quality is there. You can tell this is a quality instrument. Everything feels sturdy, well put together, no spaces between joints (neck, body etc). Everything fits the way it should - The finish is amazing. The neck feels amazing to play with that natural oiled finish. The ebony fretboard is also a sight to behold & should prove to be sturdy in time - The pickups & wiring make this guitar a Swiss army knife; you can get everything from hot-rod shred metal to pristine cleans with the push-pol Volume knob. The Tone knob locks into place when moved all the way up & removes itself from the circuit which really lets that high-end come through the way you would expect it to. This is the first guitar (out of the 10 I own) where I feel there is no need to change anything about the electronics - The Floyd Rose 1000 does its job and keeps stuff in tune after you've set it up. This being my first FR guitar, it took me a little bit of research to figure out how to tune & level the bridge but I got the hang of it pretty quickly with some of the stuff on YouTube - The guitar rings / sings. It has a great resonance even when not plugged into anything. Amplified, you feel this a lot & it translates into note definition / articulation & great sustain (even with the bolt-on construction) The not so good: - Fret sprout. This guitar came with some really nasty fret sprout on both sides of the neck / fingerboard. I'm still looking at the best way to get rid of it with little intrusion as possible; doesn't seem like it's something hard to overcome but still I expected this to not be an issue on a Charvel given that I've had cheaper instruments come in which did not suffer from this one - The FR ar feels a bit loose when you try to do more subtle movements. The looseness goes away if you tighten the screw almost all the way but that makes the arm rigid - may or may not work for you; I prefer it to move around a bit & make it easier to grab or get out of the way. - Nothing to do with Charvel but the Floyd Rose R3 locking nut has some crazy pointy edges and playing close to the nut, I hurt my fingers pretty good at the beginning until I learned my way around this guitar. - While leveling the Floyd Rose bridge & tuning, I had to take the back plate off to work with the Claw & screws. The finish in the cavity is pretty sloppy - splinters all over, the EVA foam got unstuck in a couple of spots and needed a lot of reseating for it to inspire some level of confidence re. fitting onto the instrument. - While it works alright, would have loved a carved neck heel joint like that on the Squier Contemporary Stratocaster series. All in all, good instrument for the money but even with the Charvel logo on it, needs a little bit more work to get to "great' as you would expect an instrument bearing this brand's banner to be.