“Bold, minimalist style meets multitudinous tones.”

Our Charvel San Dimas® Bass PJ IV nabbed a rave review and a Premier Guitar Gear award in its November issue.

The article kicked off with a bit of Charvel’s storied bass legacy history, which definitely served as inspiration to the current product team.

“Prior to this review, my only impression of Charvel as a bass builder was hearing about Lee Sklar going to the Charvel shop in the ’70s to pick out the body for his legendary P-style bass—the instrument that eventually became ‘one of the most recorded basses in history’ in his own estimation,” wrote reviewer Victor Broden. “That’s not an inconsequential bass legacy. And the Pro-Mod San Dimas PJ IV certainly feels like it’s built from that substantial foundation.”

The all-new San Dimas Bass platform blends both old-school DNA— from throwback body perimeters to DiMarzio® pickups — with modernized specs such as Luminlay side dots and caramelized maple necks and fingerboards.

“You can make a lot of sounds with any good P/J setup. But you can cover a lot of extra mileage with what this race car has under the hood,” assessed Broden. “The San Dimas PJ IV features DiMarzio Model J DP123 and Model P DP122 pickups in the bridge and neck respectively, a 3-band active treble/mid/bass boost/cut tone control array equipped with a push/pull switch for passive operation, as well as pickup balance and master volume controls.”

“The best, simplest way to describe the Pro-Mod’s sound with both pickups all the way up and the active tone stack engaged is full,”  he continued. “There’s a distinctive piano-like zing in the high end and a very firm, solid low end that doesn’t come across as too modern or too stiff. The output is impressively even across the neck and in all registers.” 

Read more from Broden’s review of Charvel’s foray into the bass category here.