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Carvin Basses
- Thread starter Rock_Ex
- Start date
Love em. Absolutely love em. Cept for the new soap bars, watch out!
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=316321
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=316321
Great deal. I have an LB76 and LB76 fretless as my two main basses. When I got my first one in 1994, I don't think there was anything at even twice the price I would replace it with. Now, there seem to be more good mid price basses, But I still think they hang with anything in the price range or a bit above.
Actually I think I'd put them up a few notches from there. I think they'll hang with anything up to about twice their price range. I've played smiths, zons, mtd's, warwicks, dingwalls, etc. in the higher end bass shops and I think they hang with any of them...
I do like my warwicks, but they are twice the $$$ for a bolt neck edition. I have been looking at a neck thru thumb 6er but I think that'll take a windfall for me to ever hope of owning one.
I love my Carvin's... I'd like to replace my LB75F fretless with an Icon 6er, but that'll be a while too. The wife's pretty well run out of patience with the whole GAS thing for a while... although she did buy me the last two basses as Christmas Gifts... in 05 and 06.
Maybe next year.
True, Although I just played a couple nice warwicks tagged at around 1200 bucks. Although come to think of it, that is still close to double the price of a 4 string...
It's interesting to see good feedback in this thread, because I always thought I perceived a bit of an anti-Carvin-bass sentiment at TB, and it always surprised me.
An awful lot of pros, especially an awful lot of Nashville pros, use Carvin equipment.
Anyway, I'd never kick a Carvin out of bed.
An awful lot of pros, especially an awful lot of Nashville pros, use Carvin equipment.
Anyway, I'd never kick a Carvin out of bed.
I've seen basically 3 gripes.
1. The pickups are weak. Not in my experience
2. The preamp is weak- again, not in my experience, both of mine sound great.
3. They have a higher than average rate of trussrod failure. I know there are a couple guys on here who have had trussrod problems with carvins, but I'm not at all convinced that the rate is any higher than in any other brand.
My only gripe is that I don't like the wilkinson bridges they used to come with (both of my early/mid 90s ones have them). I get a little bit of saddle rattle on one of mine with super light strings. Unfortunately, the plate is so big that you can't easily upgrade them.
1. The pickups are weak. Not in my experience
2. The preamp is weak- again, not in my experience, both of mine sound great.
3. They have a higher than average rate of trussrod failure. I know there are a couple guys on here who have had trussrod problems with carvins, but I'm not at all convinced that the rate is any higher than in any other brand.
My only gripe is that I don't like the wilkinson bridges they used to come with (both of my early/mid 90s ones have them). I get a little bit of saddle rattle on one of mine with super light strings. Unfortunately, the plate is so big that you can't easily upgrade them.
I am very much impressed with their single coils. i don't like their soaps though. I ordered my Icon before there were any in their stores that I could test. However, lots of people are extremely satisfied by them. Example: If you go onto the Carvin bbs you'll see posts of mine complaining about them, and everyone else saying they are the best pickups Carvin ever made. Guess its just my personal preferance.
I am very much impressed with their single coils. i don't like their soaps though. I ordered my Icon before there were any in their stores that I could test. However, lots of people are extremely satisfied by them. Example: If you go onto the Carvin bbs you'll see posts of mine complaining about them, and everyone else saying they are the best pickups Carvin ever made. Guess its just my personal preferance.
Totally. I'm not keen on them for what I do, but I saw a guy doing more jazzy stuff with them and it sounded good
i love the feel of their basses but their electronics could use some work. i hear that the new 18 volt electronics are much better, though.
I guess its a matter of opinion. I think if you play a Carvin bass in passive mode, IMHO the pickups are just too weak. All of the pickup types... the Bartolini's I put in mine sound sooooooooo much better. The Carvin Pickups aren't bad pickups, I just don't think they're great pickups. I like the stacked humbucker much better than the J99s, I am not a big fan of them.
But the preamps are great, at least the newer than mid 90s ones with the trim pot. The older one (that I still have in my fretless, even though I bought one of the newer Carvin preamps to retrofit, I'll get to it one day), I think pre 1996 or so was almost too hot and didn't have a way to trim it down.
I have (unfortunately) had a problem with the truss rod, also on my fretless. I bought it used off of ebay, and I think it was from somewhere with lots of humidity. It was pretty well stuck and unfortunately I got a little too carried away trying to break it loose and twisted off the nut on the top of the truss rod. It is still in tact, I just can't adjust it. So I just play it as is...
I have too, and have another truss rod problem. My LB75 rod end snapped just as you describe, so Carvin stripped the hardware and built a new bass. Well, now this bass' rod turns, but it doesn't correct any bow. It's just as weak as the previous bass, and is essentially unadjustable. I've had it with these Carvin neck problems, and will never buy another Carvin bass because of that alone. Shame too, because I really like the tone and feel. So I have a remade bass that has 10 year old hardware (including a non string through bridge, with holes drilled through the bass
) that I'd be lucky to get even a few hundred bucks for. What do I do? There is no fix short of building yet another bass, and that would have the exact same problems since Carvin will not acknowledge their design flaws. Sorry to the Carvin lovers, but I can't and won't ever recommend a Carvin bass without a real solution to this issue.
