Fast-playing compound-radius fretboard

If complex, virtuoso-level shredding is your bag, you’ll appreciate the Guthrie Govan Signature MJ San Dimas SD24 CM. This solidbody electric guitar’s curvilinear San Dimas-style body is a wonderful slippery thing with a sculpted shredder’s cut heel, which makes accessing upper frets effortless. Its caramelized, graphite-reinforced maple neck offers rock-solid stability with a built-for-speed satin finish. Beyond that, the Guthrie Govan SD24 boasts an easy-playing compound-radius fingerboard with 24 jumbo stainless steel frets. With a 12-inch radius at the nut that flattens to 16 inches at the 12th fret, you’ve got the just-right feel you need to grab chords in lower positions, while the flatter upper registers enable blazing-fast fretwork.

Versatile HSH configuration of custom-wound pickups

Versatile doesn’t even begin to describe Guthrie Govan. He’s a true virtuoso’s virtuoso, with the ability to nimbly morph between jazz comping, blues-tinged slides, and full-blown metal shredding without so much as a pause. Boasting a versatile HSH configuration of custom-wound pickups, the Charvel Guthrie Govan Signature MJ San Dimas SD24 CM was built to keep up with Mr. Govan’s eclectic playing. This solidbody electric guitar includes a 5-way blade switch, which unlocks a bevy of sonic textures with coil-splitting for achieving classic Strat-style in-between tones. You also get a 2-way mini toggle to engage single-coil simulation in positions one and five (full-on bridge and neck humbucker positions, respectively).

Rock-solid locking tremolo

The Guthrie Govan Signature MJ San Dimas SD24 CM is primed for shameful whammy bar abuse, thanks to its locking tremolo. Designed to work in conjunction with this electric guitar’s Gotoh die-cast locking tuners and Graph Tech TUSQ XL nut, this single-locking trem provides tuning stability that rivals double-locking designs. This tremolo includes a convenient pop-in arm and a sustain-enhancing brass block. The guitarists here at Music Experience are blown away by this trem’s recessed design — it sits nice and flush with the Guthrie Govan SD24’s body to provide texture when you need it and a relatively low profile when you don’t.

What Charvel Says...

Harkening back to the late '80s when Charvel guitars were manufactured exclusively in Japan, we proudly introduce the all-new Guthrie Govan Signature MJ San Dimas® SD24 CM. Exquisite in style, this MJ signature model blends Charvel’s unparalleled legacy of designing high-performance instruments with an assortment of Govan’s preferred top-end features. This 25.5" scale guitar features a San Dimas® basswood body with an ash top and specially contoured heel (sans neck plate) for easy access to the upper reaches of the fingerboard. The bolt-on maple neck has a "caramelized" heat and drying treatment that makes it sound and feel much older, along with graphite reinforcement, satin finish on the back of the neck and a conveniently located heel-mount truss rod adjustment wheel. Most unusually for a San Dimas model, the 12"-16" compound radius caramelized maple fingerboard features 24 jumbo stainless-steel frets, as well as crème dot inlays and Luminlay® side dots. Other premium features include three specially wound Charvel custom pickups arranged in a versatile HSH configuration with five-way switching for the expansive tonal openness and dynamic sensitivity that Govan demands, along with a two-way mini toggle switch to engage single-coil simulation in bridge and neck humbucker positions. This instrument also comes loaded with two Luminlay numbered dome control knobs for volume and tone, recessed Charvel locking tremolo bridge with pop-in tremolo arm and brass block, Gotoh® die-cast locking tuners and Graph Tech® TUSQ® XL nut. The Guthrie Govan Signature MJ San Dimas® SD24 CM is available in a stately Three-Tone Sunburst finish, complete with chrome hardware, brown pickup bobbins and a licensed Fender® Stratocaster® headstock.