Charvel Desolation Cherry Sunburst

This Charvel with a sleek, fast 12-16” Compound Radius neck is a $1,500 guitar masquerading as a mid-tier $899 guitar back when it was new.

Somehow, the series never caught on, which is nuts: despite the China origin, I’ve rarely seen a mass-produced guitar constructed with such care and perfection: neck-through, mahogany wings, maple cap, with extremely vibrant perloid triangular fret board inlays (see pics), Rosewood fingerboard, and with very well-rounded fret edges (unlike so many in this price range), and tuners that REALLY keep tuning stable despite being mass-produced Charvel rather than Gotoh (no slippage when turning, nice solid feel).

Further, the Cherry finish on the back is stunning, and the previous first owner (I‘m second) got better roller-bridge-saddles installed, a better volume knob, and installed a tone knob.

The sustain and clarity under very high Gain, with the neck-thru, is incredible, something I improved on by ditching the EMGs and installing the Seymour Duncan “Pegasus” for bridge and Slash-favored APH-1 in neck. With all these changes, it’s a helluva “Heavy Prog-Rock” machine: the Pegasus is crisp, sharp, and staccato, but not harsh at all. Notes are differentiated in thick chords, while the Neck is instead fat and smooth sounding (though also very heavy on rhythms, a nice benefit — both humbuckers do well on drop-bottom rhythm ”chug”). The Pegasus also takes layering of pedal effects very well.