Equipment Notes - Part 4

The AE185's unique semi-hollow f-hole acoustic/electric configuration allows you to jump from electric lead riffs to acoustic tone with ease, giving you essentially two instruments in one. There are two humbucking (switchable to single coil) pickups and also a piezo ribbon pickup under the ebony acoustic bridge saddle. The Carvin Custom Shop allows you to order your guitar in any configuration that you like. Mine has a solid AAA Engleman spruce top because I wanted it to double as an acoustic guitar, and I know that most good acoustic guitars have spruce tops. Also, the top should mellow with age and turn a nice amber shade. The top is set of from the sides with tortoise style binding. The back and sides are a beautifully flamed koa wood from Hawaii. The neck is mahogany and the 25" scale ebony fingerboard has white dot inlays and 24 medium-jumbo frets. The tuning keys are Sperzel locking tuners.

The active electronics consists of a master volume, 3-way pickup selector & active tone control for the electric pickups, a separate active tone control for the F60 acoustic pickup, and a pan control to blend between electric & acoustic pickups. Dual output jacks allow you to separate the electric and acoustic signals to different amps, or combine them into one.

The great tone I get comes from special design Alan Holdsworth pickups with 22 pole pieces per pickup. The Holdsworth pickup incorporates some vintage design ideas along with some modern innovations to come up with the absolutely best pickup I have ever used in an electric guitar. Each pickup has a single/double coil selector switch, and there is an phase reversal switch for when both pickups are active.

One of my favorite features of this guitar is it's light weight - very comfortable on long gigs. Finishing off the special order features is a set of straplocks.

To sum it up simply, "I love this guitar!"

Here is a photo:

http://tomsmerk.com/photo/carvin.jpg