Carvin SH575 questions

[hotroad]

Carvin SH575 incoming soon. This one is stock from 16 years ago with the piezo and synth as well as two humbuckers. I am seeking information on the guitar from anyone who has one or has had one. Should I replace the pickups. What strings work well on it. Any tips on using the synth. I will just start playing it a lot when it gets here but am eager to hear from anyone who has any experience with this one. The Carvin SH550 is the same but no synth or piezo.

[Song]

Congratulations on your INCOMING Carvin!




Here's some videos that may help you get started: https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...y=Carvin+SH575

[hotroad]

Hilarious photo and thanks for the links for the SH575.

[Sonics]

Congratulations! But you're gonna need at least two amps. Run the magnetic pus through one amp and the piezo through another. The resultant sound will be HUGE with a 3D like presentation.

Carvin make great PUs for all musical genres, so there is no need to replace them. Carvin PUs are priced low because they: a) make them, and b) they sell direct to the customer, therefore cutting out the middle men. This business model/strategy gives the false impression that Carvin makes 'budget' PUs, when the fact is if you bought them from a dealer, you would be paying Seymour Duncan prices...or more!

The standard Carvin S22 PU is voiced like a medium-low output PAF, no real surprises here, and many people consider the PAF PU the holy grail of tone. IMO they are one of the few humbuckers that sound good when split.
My Carvin AE-185 is outfitted with these PUs. However I have non-standard PUs installed on my SH575: A Carvin Frank Gambale PU in the neck position and an Allan Holdsworth Carvin PU in the bridge. As you would expect these are Jazz-fusion PUs and are designed to sustain and 'sing'.

The SH575 is synth access only so you'll need an external sound source. If you want to connect to a MIDI device e.g sound module, computer or keyboards, then you'll need a guitar to MIDI interface, eg Roland GI-20. Luckily Roland has produced a single box solution in the form of the GR-55. This device contains a synth,an effects unit, a looper, a guitar to MIDI interface and the virtual guitar system. The virtual guitar system allows you to model other guitars e.g a Telecaster, a 335, a Martin D18, etc, with degrees of accuracy ranging from: indistinguishable from the real thing, to not bad but close. I highly recommend this product but you're gonna need a multichannel amp or a mixer/PA to deliver these additional sounds.

[Sonics]

Originally Posted by Sonics

The SH575 is synth access only so you'll need an external sound source. If you want to connect to a MIDI device e.g sound module, computer or keyboards, then you'll need a guitar to MIDI interface, eg Roland GI-20. Luckily Roland has produced a single box solution in the form of the GR-55. This device contains a synth,an effects unit, a looper, a guitar to MIDI interface and the virtual guitar system. The virtual guitar system allows you to model other guitars e.g a Telecaster, a 335, a Martin D18, etc, with degrees of accuracy ranging from: indistinguishable from the real thing, to not bad but close. I highly recommend this product but you're gonna need a multichannel amp or a mixer/PA to deliver these additional sounds.

A forum member has hipped me to the GP10 (...thank you!), which seems to have taken the more useful parts from the GR-55 and enclosed it in a smaller, and cheaper package. You lose some models, the looper and all those pcm synths, but you get those 1970s analog keyboard sounds (...only three I'm afraid). In addition you also get improved virtual guitar tones, and a more user and computer friendly product.

I previously described the guitar modeling so here's some examples of the GP10 modelling capability. The good news is you can also plug in a standard acoustic or electric guitar into this unit and access the amp and modelling functions. How did they do that?