Allan Holdsworth New Carvin Guitar Review

Modern Saint

Modern Saint

Starve your Fear, Feed your Dream!
I have tried Carvin guitars and for me it has been hit or miss. Well I got to play this guitar last night and I tell ya, I have major GAS now. This guitar is so well balanced that you don't have to hold the guitar and can just play it the way a guitar is designed to play. Normally when one plays a guitar, we become accustomed to holding the guitar even we have a strap connected. The Holdsworth model just falls into place where hands will natuarally fall. As for the ease of play, the guitar really plays like butter and sound great at 5.1 pounds. I would've love to try the guitar through my amp but the party provided the backline and mine was at home. This guitar really sits well for playing fusion and jazz. Felt kind of weird to play blues on it along with some rock stuff but for playability, the guitar is top notch!

Crazy Finger's On Al's Guitar - Shrunk.jpg



The Holdsworth Signature Series Headless HH1 was designed to meet Allan Holdsworth's exacting requirements for tone, playability and weight. By designing the guitar without a headstock and with a chambered body, the weight drops down to less than 6 pounds, while the overall length is just 31 inches. A single H22 bridge pickup makes this guitar sing! Can be strung with regular strings (standard) or double-ball end strings, regardless of bridge choice.

Standard Features: - Premium chambered alder body
- White birch top
- Eastern hardrock maple set-in neck
- Headless design
- 25.5" scale ebony fingerboard with white dot inlays
- 24 jumbo frets
- semi-flat 20" fingerboard radius - H22T bridge humbucker
- Master volume and tone
- JCustom Headless Research™ hardtail bridge standard; JCustom XS Trem optional
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http://www.carvinguitars.com/catalog/guitars/hh1



It was great being able to chat this with gentleman about the guitar!

Al Holdsworth.jpg
 
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It must play good to get past the Quagmire chin fugliness!
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I've always been curious about those.
 
Tig said:
I've always been curious about those.
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I told Al that the guitar for me needs a neck pickup. As he said, Carvin offers it with the neck pickup. Al doesn't use the neck pickup and uses his tone control for his colors. When I played my set, I set the tone control around 2 and that tamed the bridge pickup and really warmed up the sound. As for the Fuglyness, you forget about it because the guitars playablity is just wonderful.
 
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That Modern Saint guy gets around...

Does that thing take normal strings, or does it use those double ball-ends?
 
Guitar Heel said:
holy shit you were hanging out at a party with Allan Holdsworth???
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I am just lucky. A friend of mine is really good friends with Allan and he has brought him to the jams just to hang. Allan is a great guy who just as human as the rest of us. Aside from getting to know him little by little over the past 6-7 months, it is just great to get to know who he is rather than have him placed on the iconic pedestal. What makes things really tough is that I have been listening to his works with Tony Williams Lifetime, with Bill Bruford and with UK up to the present. So sometimes it is hard to separate genius from just another guitar player. All in all, he is just in another circle of talent that we all look to be in one day and maybe be at such a high level. After all that is why we practice, perform and play!
 
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shoeless said:
Does that thing take normal strings, or does it use those double ball-ends?
Click to expand...

Never really looked but according to the Carvin website: Elixir 1046 standard single-ball end strings; also compatible with double-ball end strings.

If you all are curious, the guitar I was using has 10's on them, Allan uses 8's.
 
I prefer his Strandberg sig. I love headless designs, just not this Carvin
 
That's great! I'm jealous :embarrassed:

The headless Carvin is the only Carvin I'd consider buying at this point. Ever since getting my Steinberger I've wanted a headless guitar with a maple fretboard. Not that I don't like other Carvins, I'm just fairly well set on guitars.
 
Wow, that must have been a cool night. Playing a Allan Holdsworth signature guitar would be pretty cool, playing Allan Holdsworth's Allan Holdsworth signature guitar must be epic.

I always liked the design of these but I have never played one. I read a few interviews of Holdsworth over the years, and it seems his signature instruments are based on modifications and enhancement of the old steinberger GLs he used to play. I would probably love this Carvin, as I really love the old GLs.
 
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