With so many guitar brands available in the market, it can be confusing for beginner guitarists to pick the right brand. Every brand has specific quality standards and technologies, along with features that separate each brand.
Charvel and Fender are two extremely popular guitar brands. However, there’re some key differences in their designs and quality that customers must know.
Charvel
Charvel are well known for their electric guitars and launched in the 1970s by Wayne Charvel. In particular, their first guitar was released in 1974 and make some of the best metal guitars with thin necks, punchy pickups, and jumbo frets.
It’s for this reason that Charvel has become the preferred brand among many professional metal musicians.
Originally, the company used unfinished maple necks and creative graphics on their guitars, but it was only till the end of the 1970s.
Since then, their guitar designs have been made cleaner and are made from alder, mahogany, and ash wood. Charvel also makes some of their guitars using poplar and basswood.
Design
Their electric guitars are known for their contoured bodies and thin necks, making them popular among guitarists who like to shred in the metal genre. The thin necks provide better music action to their guitars, resulting in faster playability.
As Charvel makes their guitars with jumbo frets, the guitarists don’t feel much of the fretboard.
In addition, the frets help ease string-bending, giving the user more room to manoeuvre the riffs. Charvel‘s humbucker pickups are designed into the guitars, so the guitarist can increase the gain and volume without getting any buzz.
The contoured body of these guitars makes the tones more resonant, allowing for easier access to the guitar’s upper frets.
Common Features
Charvel guitars are designed with a speedy neck profile, which helps with shredding. The punchy humbucker pickups not only help suppress the background noise but also help produce a warm yet loud sound.
If you use a Charvel guitar with single coils, these pickups help to create a bright and snappy sound, making them suitable for heavy metal and jazz guitarists.
Popular Charvel Guitar Models
Charvel has hundreds of guitars available, with some of their models have become extremely popular among rock and heavy metal guitarists.
Charvel Pro-Mod DK24
The Pro-Mod DK24 was launched as a part of the Pro-Mod series and is the mahogany guitar. It’s made with the caramelized mahogany fingerboard which gives an amazing sound – the overall look is very natural.
The Pro-Mod DK24 is suitable for heavy metal and rock music because it has been designed with a tremolo bridge and HSH Seymour Duncan pickup.
The pickup design promises natural sound by allowing more headroom and distortion-free saddle pickup.
With HSH Seymour Duncan pickup, you can mix in the middle single coil, which is why it’s suitable for shredding. However, it’s important to mention that this is an expensive guitar.
Charvel SoCal SC1-2H
This model is from the SoCal series and is an affordable option with valuable features. It’s usually compared to Fender’s Stratocaster, although more aggressive.
Given the pair of Seymour Duncan humbuckers, this model has faster response and processing. There’s a Floyd Rose tremolo making the guitar more stable and playable.
This guitar is great if you like to play fast solos and heavy riffs.
The guitar is integrated with quarter-sawn maple wood and a C shape, which allows shredding and provides better control. It’s made from a highly balanced alder body and 22 larger frets for better bending of the notes.
Fender
Fender has been producing electric guitars and bass guitars along with some other great designs that are based on Fender’s classic design philosophy and instruments, since the release of their early designs there have been certain improvisations in not only the design of these guitars but also the performance parts.
Variety
You certainly won’t have a hard time picking a Fender model due to the wide range of guitars, including Stratocaster, Telecasters, Precision, Jazz and Bass guitars in electric.
Fender also makes some of the best acoustic guitars available that will add the right touch of perfection to any performance that you might have it planned for.
Modern Electronics
Fender has some state-of-the-art series that are popular all across the world, and that makes it certainly the best choice for you to go for Fender if you’re looking for exceptional performance and if you’re not restrained by a budget.
Fender guitars are also the best thing in terms of features because each guitar comes with the very latest in terms of electronics, making them sound amazing.
Fender are also known for manufacturing some of the best bass, amps, and audio instruments along with the accessories out there that are just the best thing that you can get to make it work out for you and enjoy the perfect experience with your overall musical needs.
If you’re international, then the good news is that they have dealers all over the world that provide excellent support services to cover their wide inventory along with some of the best possible support services at the same time to complement the brand name and if you’re looking for something authentic with exceptional performance, Fender is undoubtedly the first choice for you.
Build Quality
Fender’s guitars are known for being made to the highest levels of quality and are precision instruments.
Fender’s choice of either a rosewood fingerboard or a maple fretboard is good as these woods improve the overall sound.
Pickups
Although the majority of Fender guitars come with single coil pickups. Their Stratocasters come with three single coil pickups.
Of course, these aren’t the only two options out there as Fender includes the option to purchase a guitar with a humbucker in the bridge position too.
Which Guitar Brand Is Better For You?
The Charvel brand tends to have more modern specs, i.e. radius, neck thickness and pickups. It’s also important to note that Charvel is also owned by Fender.
If you’re looking for a Stratocaster, then you should know that Charvels Stratocasters are “Super Strats” while Fender are known for making the normal Stratocaster.