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anyone got a Carvin/Kiesel vader headless?

thehangingmist

thehangingmist

Dec 14, 2007
6,367
302
New Delhi, India
#1
did anyone order one and review it? youtube has nothing and a a few (one of two that i could find) talkbass members do have it or have it on order but no reviews that i could find. am concerned about -
*reach to the first fret area* does it feel 'normal' there?
balance/comfort when playing without a strap. does it sit well?
24 fret access. i hope it has 24 frets!!
i would go for all maple if the wood they pick is hard enough, or which combination would surely be a much stronger wood combo without adding more than 150$ to the bass at the carvin builder form?
 
#7
The Vader is pretty sweet. It is very punchy and cuts, but then again i've been playing the MPB5 with an alder body, rosewood fingerboard, old strings and stacked nordstrand J pickups, all of which don't spell "punchy". The Vader has a swamp ash body with a maple and walnut neck.

The radiused pickups are cool, the bass i had before the MPB5 had a ramp with the radius and I usually play over the pickups so it kind of mixed those 2 things. Lack of headstock has seemingly only effected the way I grab my basses from their stands. The strings are probably a little more slack than most people are used to, but at this point I have gotten really used to the feel of short scale basses.

It's gonna take me a little to get used to the 6 strings and how it hangs compared to the MPB5. I played a show with it last night and it performed well but I kept getting lost when it came time to play on the G and C (thats my problem though).

Overall after a day (which obviously isn't a lot of time), it seems like a good purchase. I have a rehearsal with a full band soon so I can see how it fits outside of a trio (and if I can get my bearing on the 6 strings).
 
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#8
I have one. Its in my avatar. #3 of the first 30 run. Its a 6 string 30" scale as well. I have the humbuckers and opted for the 2 band eq with passive tone also. The tone is really great. I like all of its tones it can produce. It has a growl and can get super smooth. I took me a while to get the high c string probably intonated. I had to upsize the strings, ( especially to get rid of the bloom and also to have the C intonate).
 
#9
I've got a 30" 6-string on order. I'm thinking I'll probably eventually string it EADGBE or EADGCF, but will see how it goes at BEADGC initially. I put in the order right after the new year but don't have an ETA yet :(

I'm not super in love with the overall looks of the Vader bass (I think the Vader guitar looks better), but had to go for it as I've wanted a 30" scale 6er for a while. And I do like the weight savings of the headless design.
 
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#10
geshel said:
I've got a 30" 6-string on order. I'm thinking I'll probably eventually string it EADGBE or EADGCF, but will see how it goes at BEADGC initially. I put in the order right after the new year but don't have an ETA yet :(

I'm not super in love with the overall looks of the Vader bass (I think the Vader guitar looks better), but had to go for it as I've wanted a 30" scale 6er for a while. And I do like the weight savings of the headless design.
Click to expand...
The low b sounds really good with the 30" scale. They didn't use heavy enough strings. I would recommend a 130 or 135the low B. My bass has a very great sounding low B.
 
#12
geshel said:
I've got a 30" 6-string on order. I'm thinking I'll probably eventually string it EADGBE or EADGCF, but will see how it goes at BEADGC initially. I put in the order right after the new year but don't have an ETA yet :(

I'm not super in love with the overall looks of the Vader bass (I think the Vader guitar looks better), but had to go for it as I've wanted a 30" scale 6er for a while. And I do like the weight savings of the headless design.
Click to expand...

the look is the only reason why i probably have not ordered a 4 string yet. i love headless basses now i think but this one is too pointy (sg) sorts for me in a strange way. if you look at the picture in my avatar thats my maurizio uber bass and one could get 30" 6 string headless hand made bass from him and with the specs i want it would be a minimum 2.5k ish price range or more but i guess you pay for what you get :D so a little more money but i'd end with a way more beautiful bass i guess lol so am back and forth between the two crazy ideas
 
#13
Anyone with a Vader bass can chime in on which of these designs is the standard one? Notice the seemingly extra material behind the tuning pegs on the blue one? I think i prefer that look, but not sure if that's a proto or just the lighting or possibly because it's a short scale?

Edit: Pretty sure it must be because it's short scale, the whole body is a slightly different shape it looks like. Good stuff.
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#17
shal1234 said:
Is there any advantage to NOT having a headstock? Weight, balance, etc? Wasn't it Billy Sheehan that used to hang vice grips off his headstock to get more sustain or improved "tone"?
Click to expand...

Headless basses tend to balance better, are usually lighter weight, and don't tend to bang into other players and onstage things as much.

Sheehan likely did that to increase sustain/remove a deadspot somewhere.
It's a take on the Fat Finger bass accessory.
 
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#18
shal1234 said:
Is there any advantage to NOT having a headstock? Weight, balance, etc?
Click to expand...

All of the above? My only experience is with guitars, but it really is amazing how much more compact, light, and handleable an instrument becomes when you knock the headstock off. On the Vader bass, combined with a shortscale which i think a lot of potential Vader buyers are interested in, you're talking about a reduction in overall length of just over 10" (~22%), 7" without the shortscale, certainly enough to be hugely noticeable. When i pull out my Vader 7 string guitar everyone instantly remarks on how small and compact it is, even though it has a full 25.5" scale length.
 
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#19
The thing with adding weight to the headstock is to move a resonant frequency, so that it wasn't in a spot that lined up with a note fundamental, because it would suck the energy out of that note. In that case, it would move the resonant frequency downward.

Removing weight from the headstock (including removing the whole thing) will have a similar effect, but moving the frequency upward (potentially out of the range of fundamentals altogether).

However, making a stiffer neck is also a way to fix the issue, because that moves the resonant frequencies upwards quite a bit.

So headless + modern, stiffer neck => way higher resonant frequency and very little chance of dead spots.
 
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#20
I see that the bass has two strap retainers at the bridge end. Neither of which is in the traditional location due to the headless design. I find this kind of odd. All the videos I've seen are with the player sitting. So I wonder how well this balances when standing.
 

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