Charvel Dinky Pro-Mod DK24 HH 2PT CM
CHARVEL BRINGS A LITTLE OF THE OLD AND A LOT OF THE NEW INTO A MODERN, PROG-FRIENDLY GUITAR
If you look close, you’ll notice there’s something of a trend arising among guitar companies at the moment. A lot of high-end brands are releasing Stratocaster-like guitars with two humbuckers, non-locking tremolos and an extra wiring trick or two. Sound familiar? Because although there are lots of modern brands doing this now, you can trace their lineage back to what Charvel was doing in the late 70s and early 80s. The very definition of ‘Superstrat.’ And with Charvel now under the ownership of Fender, the company is able to incorporate particularly Fender-y touches into their designs such as lawsuit-free use of the Stratocaster headstock shape. If you’re in the market for this type of guitar, Charvel is making damn sure you consider them on your wishlist.
NOTHING DINKY ‘BOUT IT
The model name - Dinky Pro-Mod DK24 HH 2PT CM - may be a bit of a mouthful, but let’s distill this guitar down to its essence. Yes, it’s the same Dinky shape used by Jackson (who is also owned by Fender and who was closely aligned with Charvel in its pre-Fender history), in this instance made of Alder. We reviewed a Matte Blue Frost model, although it’s also available in Three-Colour Sunburst, Gloss Black and Satin Burgundy Mist. The bolt-on caramelised Maple neck has graphite reinforcement, a heel-mount truss-rod adjustment like the one you’ll find on EVH guitar models (yet another brand operating under the Fender Musical Instrument Corp banner), and Luminlay glow-in-the-dark side dots. The fretboard edges are rolled for a more comfortable feel, and the nut is Graph Tech TUSQ XL for nice smooth string travel when using the whammy bar.
The bridge is a Gotoh Custom 510 recessed model for upwards as well as downwards pitch-bends. There are also locking tuners to make string changes a breeze and aid in tuning stability, and the electronics are built around a pair of Seymour Duncan humbuckers: the Full Shred in the bridge position and the Alnico II Pro in the neck. The Full Shred was developed in the 80s in consultation with players such as Vivian Campbell (Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Dio) and Nancy Wilson (Heart) with the intention of providing players with a nice harmonically complex lead tone along with chunky, solid power chords. The Alnico II Pro is the same pickup Slash uses in his famous ‘Appetite’ Les Paul. But Charvel hasn’t just taken two great pickups and chucked them in a guitar: they’ve combined them with a five-way blade pickup switch and a mini switch. With the mini toggle down, the pickup coils are wired in series. Flip it up and they’re in parallel. And that’s a heck of a lot of flexibility when you consider that alongside neck, bridge and ‘both on’ pickup selections, you’ve also got in-between settings combining the two inner coils or the two outer coils. There’s also an EVH Bourns lowfriction volume pot and a no-load tone control.
BABY BLUE
What’s especially interesting here is that this guitar uses all sorts of seemingly complicated technology to simply get out of your way and let you play. The hand-rubbed neck is unobtrusive, the frets feel great, the electronics mean you never have to compromise, the trem is nice and smooth, and the volume control’s high-speed operation is perfect for volume swells or fine control adjustments. And sonically, this is an instrument that rewards technique and nuance. The Full Shred is a little hotter than a vintage humbucker but it’s by no means a super hot model for high gain, so it reproduces lots of detail in your phrasing and pick attack. Similarly the Alnico II Pro is a very interactive pickup; play softly and it sounds smooth and mellow but dig in hard with the pick and you’ll get an aggressive attack that will definitely remind you of Mr. Slash at times, although it’s one of those pickups that helps each guitar to emphasise its own character too. The tones are suited to everything from fusion to blues-rock to prog to shred to metal, and if you were at the Melbourne Guitar Show you may have even heard Jeremy Barnes pull of some damn convincing country tones on his Matte Blue Frost guitar.
Downsides? The absolute only thing you could possibly find fault with in this guitar is the absence of any straight single coil pickup sounds. You can’t just flip on the bridge pickup or neck pickup in single coil mode. The various series and parallel split-coil combination modes will certainly help though, and there’s a bit of a single-like attack in the neck pickup. But yeah, it is a bummer that you can’t approximate gloriously buzzy Strat sounds.
That one little beef aside, this is a gorgeously playable, sonically sophisticated guitar that represents the cutting edge in ‘best of the old, best of the new’ technology. It doesn’t feel like an early 80s Charvel but it clearly couldn’t have existed without those guitars, regardless of what it says on the headstock, and it’s probably what players in 1980 imagined guitars in 2019 to be like.
THE BOTTOM LINE
This is a guitar that doesn’t shy away from Fender’s electric history, and while it most definitely sounds like an acoustic guitar, it doesn’t play like one. And therefore it’s made for a very specific yet very broad family of players who don’t want to wrestle with uncomfortable acoustics but don’t want to miss out on the tones. Fender has also been very clever in creating three tiers of affordability and build quality - although even this most affordable level is a lot of guitar for the money.