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Carvin GH24 Greg Howe Signature

Greg Howe gets a new signature guitar from Carvin Guitars called the GH24, built to the virtuoso’s specifications.

Carvin GH24 Greg Howe Signature

Described by Greg as the coolest guitar he has ever owned, the GH24 is built by the company’s USA based Custom Shop following exacting details as he requested – from the chambered body, to the pickups, and down to the special metal alloy fret wires.

Unlike other signature guitars where the artist only provide some input if not only giving their approval, the GH24 is built as a true personalized guitar for the Greg. He mentioned that this is the first time that he worked extensively with a custom guitar company that is willing to address all his detailed requests.

The guitar starts off with a super strat inspired design, featuring a double cutaway alder body with a bolt-on maple neck. But as expected, the design is not as straightforward as conventional builds, having unique features that will set it apart from other similar shred friendly axes.

First off its unique features is the chambered body design, something that’s not usually done on alder body guitars. According to the company, this chambering is added to help reduce the weight of the instrument, improve resonance and to roundup some of the excess brightness which is found on guitar’s with a lot of maple wood.

Speaking of maple, the guitar’s alder body and headstock are topped by 4A (AAAA Grade) flamed maple, giving the instrument a premium appearance that Greg approves of. Also crafted from maple is the 5-piece Eastern hard rock maple neck, which is topped by a standard 25.5″ scale birdseye maple fingerboard.

The guitar has a semi-flat 20″ radius and 24 jumbo gold EVOJ frets, a metal alloy that sits between nickel and stainless steel in terms of its attributes. For improved playability, the back of the neck has a tung-oiled finish.

According to the official release further describes the neck and headstock, “All of our necks and fingerboards undergo a long conditioning process in our de-humidification chambers to remove any stress in the wood and prevent future warping or twisting. The dual-action, fully adjustable truss rod helps keep the neck straight and true, and allows you to set the action just the way you like it. The standard headstock is a matching flamed maple 6-inline style which adds to the classic looks of the instrument, along with a drop-shadow version of the Carvin Guitars logo.

Instead of the usual Floyd rose which Greg Howe is known for, the GH4 comes with a vintage-style tremolo. This is a conscious choice by Greg, and features a thicker design that helps improve sustain. This bridge is paired with a set of 19:1 ratio locking tuners.

As for the pickups, Carvin agreed to equip the instrument with a Greg Howe Signature GH12B humbucker on the bridge, and a TBH twinblade single-coil sized humbucker on the neck. This combination of mini-humbucker and humbucker is a favorite of Greg, and together with the 5-way pickup selector provides him with a wide variety of sounds. Straight forward volume and tone control knobs are also provided.

Check out the official video demo:

Finally, Carvin Guitars will let you test drive the GH24 for 10 days! If you’re not completely satisfied, they are offering a full return policy within 10 days with no questions asked. And the trial period will start when you receive the guitar not when it is shipped, a pretty sweet deal indeed if you’re looking for a workhorse shred machine.

The new Carvin GH24 Greg Howe Signature is currently available for $1,599. Visit Carvin Guitars for more information.

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