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Kiesel's lack of bass evolution

#41
Ya'll beat me to the Fender quotes. lol

MultiScaleMale said:
Carvin is a different company than Kiesel and has been for a few years. They're making a much higher quality instrument now.
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Just a matter of trivia/clarification here:
The company that makes Kiesel instruments and the company that made Carvin instruments has been the same company since Kiesel was founded in 1946. Jeff has discussed this on a livestream or two, and there's Invalid Link Removed if you're interested in reading. What's not mentioned there is that the reason they changed to the Carvin name was that there was some kind of dust-up about the Kiesel name... They were finally able to get rights back for the name early in 2015.

I think what you're thinking is that Carvin Audio is indeed a 100% separate company from Carvin (Kiesel) Guitars, which Jeff has been very clear about not having any link to. (I suspect there's some bad blood there...?) And speaking from personal experience, Carvin Audio's customer service is much... ahem... "different" than Kiesel/Carvin's.

Wretched Banana said:
This. Kiesel offers so many options & variations well beyond the industry norms. The one innovation they desperately need is a proper web interface that makes me want to build and order something.
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The first part of your statement is exactly why they don't have a "visual" online order interface like some other companies... Jeff has also addressed this in the past as well, there are simply too many options to do a proper visual order form. It would cost a fortune to develop and maintain.

5sg.
 
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#43
MCS4 said:
I've gotten the impression that they don't really do those types of repairs anymore, and it was never something that they wanted to advertise in the past given the labor involved in stripping down a neck-through bass to remove the truss. If the bass is under warranty they'll usually just build a new one, and if it isn't under warranty they might begrudgingly do it if they aren't too busy but they'll charge too much for it to be worth it. I would recommend that you reach out to Martin Keith Guitars (on TB as "Keith Guitars"), since they did a great job with a truss rod replacement for my old LB70 at a fraction of what Kiesel was potentially willing to do it for.
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Thank you for that heads up. I'll look into Keith Guitars to repair my BB five string. Beautiful bass sitting in a case with a broken truss rod. Carvin really dropped the ball on that truss design.
 
#44
fivestringgecko said:
The first part of your statement is exactly why they don't have a "visual" online order interface like some other companies... Jeff has also addressed this in the past as well, there are simply too many options to do a proper visual order form. It would cost a fortune to develop and maintain.
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My professional opinion is that it’s very doable and it’s certainly not going to cost a fortune. Yeah, it’s not as straightforward as doing a simple shopping cart but we’re not solving an open computer science problem either. Somebody just has to sit down and write the code, simple as that.

Regardless of the difficulty involved, they badly need a good interface.
 
#45
fivestringgecko said:
I think what you're thinking is that Carvin Audio is indeed a 100% separate company from Carvin (Kiesel) Guitars, which Jeff has been very clear about not having any link to. (I suspect there's some bad blood there...?) And speaking from personal experience, Carvin Audio's customer service is much... ahem... "different" than Kiesel/Carvin's.
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Well, glad you know what I'm thinking. Carvin on the headstock is a different company than Kiesel on the headstock, but there is an oddity in overlap that they were putting Carvin decals on some Kiesel instruments at the customer's request. No idea how many of those are out there. The original name for the company back in the 40's or whatever was Kiesel. They switched the name to Carvin when they changed their business model to factory direct leaving the Kiesel name and dealer network. 2015 rolls around and yeah, bad blood but they keep that largely under wraps, the guitar and audio segments go their separate ways, Kiesel / guitars proves that they were carrying the company. Carvin Audio becomes a warehouse somewhere in the middle of the country selling trinkets made overseas. My point was Kiesel likely honored Carvin warranties, which were for 5 years, but anything with Carvin on the headstock is no longer under warranty and they will essentially treat it similarly to a Fender at this point. Carvin and Kiesel's warranty was never that great anyways. It's 5 years, but there are a lot of gotchas in the fine print. For example, "For USA warranties, Kiesel Guitars will provide its own service and parts at no charge providing the Customer includes "proof of purchase" (receipt or invoice) and the unit is shipped in the original carton." Better keep your original box.
 
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#46
Unless bassists evolve and take bass playing to a new level that changes the current requirements a bass player has, a good instrument from 20 years back is still a good instrument today. I mean, take violins. To the untrained eye, the all look exactly the same. Like there is one single blueprint for a violin and everyone just builds that model. What about those from 150 years ago? Still in use, still great.
My oldest bass was built more than 40 years ago and is still built more or less the same until today.
My oldest Carvin was built 26 years ago and you can still order that exact model from their website.
So unless a bass model has some design flaws that need addressing and the people building it are happy with their product and customers buy it, there is no real reason to change models. See Fender, Rickenbacker, Music Man etc.
Even Ibanez, a company famous for continuously introducing new models into the market, has models that have been running for decades.
 
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#47
Awhile back I played a Kiesel Bromberg bass and a headless 5 that blew me away, which isn't easily done. The headless was one of the only headless basses I've every played at any price that didn't have didn't have a "wolf" as found in upright basses. (a note or two that is choked and vibrates through the neck)
And the Bromberg bass just flat out killed. Again, at any price.
The family split was a shame, but it's worked out well for the Keisel brand. Higher quality basses. imho
 
#48
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#56
I have been GASing over basses 46 of my 60 (nearly 61 years.) Who is really doing anything new? Active electronics have been around about 50 years. Headless basses are close to forty. Five and six strings with extended range are well over 30. Piezos are at least 40. Maybe the newest is fanned frets, but that is probably old too.
 
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#60
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