I went for an oiled finish on the back of the neck, instead of satin or gloss, because I wanted to be reminded that the guitar used to be a bunch of trees. I always feel like I play more ‘sunny’ on maple and more ‘dark’ on rosewood, so this is a way to bring balance to the force, if you will. The Aqua Burst finish reminds me of a shade of blue I often see in my dreams I selected zebrawood because I like the balance of colours and the whole idea of ‘light and dark’ in one playing surface. I selected the specs and colours based on specific emotions I wanted this guitar to evoke. This guitar has two humbucker pickups, although you can specify different pickup configurations, and the electronics consist of a Master Volume control, Master Tone control and five-way Pickup Selector switch.Įvery element of this guitar was selected for a particular reason related to synesthesia, a condition where a sensory input will set off other sensory resonances – for instance, the number two is blue to me, three is a sort of rusty brown, four is red, and so on. The body wings are made of alder, a wood I particularly like the midrange response of, and the top is flamed maple. In my case, the neck is made of five‑piece black and white limba, with a zebrawood fingerboard and no inlays. You can also choose a 27-inch baritone scale or multiscale in six-, seven- or eight‑string models. This is a neck-through seven-string guitar with a 25-inch scale. The bridge pickup was crunchy in all the right ways, and didn’t have a shrill high end so I felt comfortable turning up the presence control on my amp.Īll in all this guitar is off-the-charts awesome, and if headless guitars is your thing, the Vader needs to be on your radar.Let’s run through the basic specs first. The neck pickup was like a liquid laser beam that gave me Petrucci-like leads and really shined during alternate picking runs. I would compare them tonally to the Seymour Duncan Nazgul/Sentient set in the Schecter KM-7 I reviewed, but with some unique flavors, and not as blaring high output. When I reviewed the TL70 my only complaint was that the pickups were alright, but a little lackluster. The new Kiesel passives are really a huge leap forward in terms of Carvin’s pickups. In the same way that Kanye’s greatest regret is that he’ll never be able to see himself perform, the worst part of owning this guitar would be not being able to see it from the audience perspective when you play it in concert. The Vader I reviewed had a stunning quilted maple top on a nice koa body, and the finish was a deep orange burst that was a wonder to behold. The TL70 I reviewed was a great guitar, but being an opaque finish I didn’t get a feel for the kind of tops that they could do. Also, I don’t have Jeff Loomis spider fingers. Really, it was only a matter of getting to see how a longer scale length had it’s benefits that were different benefits from a typical length. This statement was of course just made because simply based on the fact that I didn’t have a hell of a lot of time to play it. I got endless shit from the peanut gallery on my KM-7 review because I said the 26.5″ scale wasn’t all that suited for lead playing.
I’m normally a 25.5″ scale kinda guy, but I spent some serious time with this guitar and found that 27″ has some serious benefits. I forgot to mention it in the video, but as Jeff said in our factory tour video, all Vaders and all their 27″ scale guitars have carbon fiber reinforcement rods in the neck for stability. You can get the 6 and 7 string versions in either 25.5″ or 27″ scale length or the 8 string in 27″. Normally one of my favorite things about Carvin Guitars is the ability to choose your headstock shape as well, but obviously that doesn’t apply here. The Vader is a chambered, headless guitar that comes in a 6, 7, or 8 string version with Hipshot hardware, Kiesel passive pickups, neck-through construction, and as always, your choice of woods and finish. Well, we have the answers to all these questions and more in our review of the Vader V7 headless guitar:
You wanted to know: is it as good as it looks? Are the new Kiesel passive pickups good? Do they come in a color other than green? We brought you some NAMM video of the Vader (in 8 string form), but that wasn’t enough for you raving lunatics.
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