The NAMM Show 2022 may have moved to 3-5 June, but that didn’t stop Charvel from announcing a raft of new gear back in January. One of which was its signature model in collaboration with Sean Long, lead guitarist for UK metalcore heroes While She Sleeps - the Sean Long Signature Pro-Mod San Dimas Style 1 HH HT M - and is now making its way to dealers.
Decked in gloss black, the alder-bodied Charvel Sean Long San Dimas Style 1 also features a satin urethane-finished maple neck with a Speed Neck-profiled and 22-fret maple fingerboard. It’s cut to a compound, 12”-16” radius and reinforced with graphite for stability, and also features rolled fingerboard edges, a Graph Tech TUSQ XL nut, Luminlay side dots, and Charvel’s heel-mounted truss rod adjustment wheel.
As the full name denotes, it’s got an HH pickup configuration featuring a pair of active EMG pickups, with a 66 (neck) providing “warm, smooth mid-range and expansive lows along with clarity in the upper register” alongside and an unmissable neon yellow EMG 57 in the bridge position which “evokes an unmistakably PAF quality with plenty of headroom and punch for unparalleled definition and presence”
The controls are kept simple with a single volume control offering the only pot, plus a three-way switch giving you standard options of individual bridge/neck and a combination of the two in the middle position.
Fans of consistent tuning for heavy styles will be glad to hear that this is a hardtail via a Charvel HT6 fixed bridge, including through-body stringing, and at the other end there’s a set of black six-in-line Charvel die-cast locking tuners.
Of course, this is a signature model, and the yellow EMG is going to make spotting this guitar a mile off easy, but Sean has kept the autograph minimal with a small signature and the While She Sleeps logo on the back of the headstock. On the front face, the Charvel logo is highlighted to match that pickup.
“If you were to transform me into a guitar, this would be it,” Sean Long says of the design. “Seeing this come to life was a total dream - when I met my Signature model for the first time, I instantly created a riff which made it onto our latest While She Sleeps record.
“To me, the guitar is a vessel to express myself and I've never written music so easily as on this model - I created this in the hopes that others would play it and be inspired to write the best music they have ever written.”
“I felt the guitar community was missing a San Dimas in gloss black, so here she is. With Charvel, you know every feature and spec is the best possible quality and everyone knows if you want this kind of quality - you have to come here.
“The fact that I failed school and college and haven't had a single guitar lesson in my life, along with knowing zero music theory - this guitar is a reflection of what's possible regardless of your ‘professional credentials’ and I want people to see that if I can do something like this, then they can too.”
“Sean Long is a true innovator and we could not be more excited about this Signature launch,” adds Jon Romanowski, VP, Category Management Charvel.
“The guitar world looks to Sean as somebody who creates, bends and owns musical genres and this guitar is a simply beautiful creation which will allow players all over the world to do the same. He had a vision for this guitar and it was an honor for Charvel to bring that to life for him.”
The Charvel Sean Long Signature Pro-Mod San Dimas Style 1 HH HT M is available now, priced at $1,199.00, £1,069.00, €1,249.00.
