I received a new Carl Thompson a couple months ago directly from Carl himself. I thought I'd give a little feedback as I know there's been some communication, good and bad, on how he works and the overall process for building and ordering a custom bass. I'm new here but I've been reading TB for years. I know there isn't many of these around so I thought some of you may want to see one of the more recent instruments.
I'm not going to debate the wait time, lack of choices, and the like. Those topics have already been discussed on TB and I'm not going to reply to any of them. I'm not going to say the price and it's not for sale. I knew what ordering from Carl is like before getting in contact, for me personally I had no issue with his process.
I'm posting here to show a piece of artwork, as a bass playing community we should be proud there are people that put so much time and effort into building the tools we use for our own artwork. Whether we like these CT's, or any other builder/manufacturer, shouldn't be the topic of this thread but rather the appreciation for those that put in the time to take a tree and some metal ore from the ground, and transform it to something like this.
The facings are West African Olive, the core is Spanish cedar. The neck is mahogany. There's ebony accents in a few different places. 2 Dan Armstrong passive pick ups.
Carl is a real gentlemen and the craftsmanship is unbelievable. I've done some basic woodworking, I know how challenging it is to get wood sanded smooth, this feels like human skin when you touch it. The neck is strait and flat, no deadspots or buzzes. For passive electronics the diversity of sounds is great.
I ordered in Oct of 2017, recieved it mid Aug of 2018. Much shorter wait time than many I've heard about. Carl noted it was about 18 months at the time of order, so it came in much earlier. I wasn't prepared for how incredible this bass turned out.
Getting an accurate depiction of the color is a little hard, the main facings are more of a blonde color than I've been able to capture in the photos.
Enjoy.
I'm not going to debate the wait time, lack of choices, and the like. Those topics have already been discussed on TB and I'm not going to reply to any of them. I'm not going to say the price and it's not for sale. I knew what ordering from Carl is like before getting in contact, for me personally I had no issue with his process.
I'm posting here to show a piece of artwork, as a bass playing community we should be proud there are people that put so much time and effort into building the tools we use for our own artwork. Whether we like these CT's, or any other builder/manufacturer, shouldn't be the topic of this thread but rather the appreciation for those that put in the time to take a tree and some metal ore from the ground, and transform it to something like this.
The facings are West African Olive, the core is Spanish cedar. The neck is mahogany. There's ebony accents in a few different places. 2 Dan Armstrong passive pick ups.
Carl is a real gentlemen and the craftsmanship is unbelievable. I've done some basic woodworking, I know how challenging it is to get wood sanded smooth, this feels like human skin when you touch it. The neck is strait and flat, no deadspots or buzzes. For passive electronics the diversity of sounds is great.
I ordered in Oct of 2017, recieved it mid Aug of 2018. Much shorter wait time than many I've heard about. Carl noted it was about 18 months at the time of order, so it came in much earlier. I wasn't prepared for how incredible this bass turned out.
Getting an accurate depiction of the color is a little hard, the main facings are more of a blonde color than I've been able to capture in the photos.
Enjoy.
