7string

Cool guitar. Don't see many of those about and it's always good to see something out of the ordinary. P.S. Does this mean I'm the only Carvin owner on Basschat now???!!!!

Great bass I've owned one of those. It was such a good bass and far from the one-trick pony I thought it would be.

Indeed... I got my Ovation guitar back from a warranty repair yesterday. Long story, but they put themselves out to help me so I'm going to send a thank you card.

[quote name='derrenleepoole' post='812516' date='Apr 20 2010, 01:24 PM']I used too way back in the day, but not anymore. I did however name my classic Mini car Bootsychuggaboom [/quote] Aah, the proper Mini. I had a yellow one as my first car and it was named Floyd. No idea why, but Floyd it was. My wife has named 2 of my basses. The Sei is Jezebel as it's the other woman and the ACG is called Minnie because it's so big......

Looks good that. Like the saddles....

Very cool. You're first brand new bass is a special moment When you remove the plastic on the pickguard, take the screws out and peel the plastic from around them. Makes it all neat. Can't believe how many basses I've seen with little trails of plastic around the pickguard screws. I just find it irritating. Can't help it, just do. My wife would say it's because I'm a Virgo....

Yup, shimming is a last resort As others have mentioned, you need to see how much relief (straightness if you like) the neck has. The capo at 1st is a good idea as it eliminates the nut as a factor which can just cause more confusion. Have a look at [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2HGn7c9_uo&feature=related"]this YouTube video[/url] It shows Dan Erlewine explaining how to adjust a truss rod in a bass. If you have any worries about it, then add to this thread and we'll give you a hand. There's a lot of scare stories about truss rods, but as long as you understand what they do (counteract string tension to keep the neck straight) and how they adjust (tightening straightens the neck, loosening it allows the strings to pull it into more of a curve or more relief) then you're fine. As others have said, don't force anything, if you're doing it right you shouldn't have to. I was working on a bass this afternoon which the owner had asked me to setup and fit a new nut. I used that Dan method to get the neck straight, in fact I've been using it for quite a while on virtually every setup I do. By the way, how are you measuring the action in the first place?

Yup, the SUBs are great basses. Every now and again CC turns up a little jewel. Just don't expect something to be there every time you go in

There's no eBay Feedback on the basses yet. No doubt someone will take the risk of ordering one and write something be it good or bad.

Looks like it's going to be a great BassBash (again!!). I'd like to come on the Sunday and bring the usual suspects, including the newly-acquired Carvin!! Jezebel has a pickup in this time, so won't be just a piece of bass-art this time around

Good to see you on here

Years ago, Yamaha had a series of guitars with this idea and sold different designs to go under the clear scratchplate. It's a very cool way to change your bass though

I've bought a couple of guitars from Cash Convertors in the past and whenever I go in there I hope that I'll find something that's slipped through the net. The worst case is when they've way overpriced something. Even though you tell them and that you want to pay the going rate, they don't budge!

If you're looking for a new decal try [url="http://shop.ebay.co.uk/plankspanker101/m.html"]Plankspanker on ebay[/url] I've got a bass which I'm re-finishing at the moment and I had this made for it. The bass is a biddy 3/4 size which my wife bought me for Valentine's Day.

Gordon Smith's are way under-rated. Congrats on the catch with it's associated history!!

Blimey !! Looks like you did a superb job with your first self-made bass. I have nothing but admiration for those who can do this

It's a great bass. It sounds great, plays great and the trem is cool thing to have. A keeper unless I get offered an outrageous swap or a huge amount of money

Spector's have to be one of the classic bass designs. I know I've asked this before (and I have a mind like a sieve), but how do the Euros compare to the USA's ?

A mate of mine has one of the prototype Berlins which were named "Climaxe". This is before PRS asked Eggle to change the shape a little. The thing sounds great, but it's heavy. So heavy that he used to have a neoprene strap to help with the weight. An amazing guitar though

Carvin have been in business since 1946 and started making their own-brand guitars in the 1960’s. Unusually, Carvin sell direct to the public with a money-back guarantee and have just 3 stores. Ordering a Carvin is similar to ordering a custom instrument with many different choices of wood, hardware, colour, fret material and so on and it’s only in the last couple of years that Carvins have been available to order outside the USA. That’s not to say that Carvins weren’t heard of, many bands tour with Carvin equipment, but they weren’t seen too often on this side of the Atlantic. Using the information on the Carvin Museum website, my best guess is that this 5 string bass is a LB75 from 1989. A thru-neck design, both the neck and the body wings are maple and are finished in a solid, off-white colour. The fingerboard is the blackest piece of ebony I have seen for quite a while and has abalone dots on its face and side. Even after all this time, the fretwork is top-notch. Of course, it may have been re-fretted in the past but there’s no obvious sign of this. The fret tangs are very shallow, like an old Fender bass. The headstock shape, faced in black with a white Carvin logo, might make the bass look dated but its large size does make the bass seem longer than the norm. The neck itself is quite chunky with square shoulders and the whole bass has a really solid feel. The most interesting part of this bass though is a part of the black hardware: a Kahler trem. Yup, a trem system on a bass. The Kahler trem is a factory fitted option and works differently from that on a guitar as there are no springs involved. The bridge saddles are connected to a bar and it’s the bar that’s rotated by the trem arm itself. Before fitting, a string needs to be pre-bent (as on a Bigsby) and fitted into a slot on the bridge. The string then comes up over the bridge and onto a brass roller before stretching to its tuner at the other end of the bass. There are 3 adjustments on the Kahler trem; a grub screw which attaches the saddle to the bar (which gives a little leeway on string spacing), a crosshead screw which lets part of the saddle move for intonation and another grub screw which adjusts the string height. This whammy’s not designed for huge dive-bombs, but it’s a cool tool to use and so far, I haven’t found any problems with the trem at all. When it’s not being used, the arm sits out of the way and the bass is just like any other with a regular bridge. Electronics-wise, the Carvin has 2 x M13 single-coil sized humbuckers with 13 polepieces each allowing “fuller coverage of the E and G strings”. Controls are a 3-way pickup selector, 2 volume knobs, 2 tone knobs as well as coil-splitting and phase switches. Unusually, this Carvin bass has 2 outputs, one of which is the bridge pickup only. Opening the control cavity I was pleased to find some copper shielding, but I’m not sure whether this was factory fitted or not. Just looking at the bass, it seems as if it could be difficult to play as the string spacing is very tight. The nut measures 46mm (1.8”) which is only slightly wider than a 4 string Fender Precision and the spacing at the Kahler bridge isn’t much wider at 71mm (2.8”). Also, it’s not a light bass by any means weighing in at 4.7kg (10.3lbs). Combining these factors could be a recipe for disaster, but it all works well. The bass is easy to get around on and I haven’t thought about the measurements at all. In fact, I’d been playing the bass for days before getting a ruler out and measuring it and I only did that to answer questions that had been posed on the initial thread! Here’s the tale of the tape: Total length: 117cm (46”) Total width: 33cm (13”) Scale length: 864mm (34”) Nut width: 46mm (1.8”) String spacing at nut: 8mm (0.3”) Bridge width: 71mm (2.8”) String spacing at bridge: 15mm (0.6”) With all the volume and tone pots wide open and no coil tapping or phase switching, the Carvin has a big, almost piano like sound which would fit well in any musical situation. Adjusting the tone controls give a wide range of useful sounds which I wasn’t expecting and that’s before using the coil-splitting or phase options. Flick these switches and there are instant differences to the tone. The range of tones from rumbling lows to cutting highs makes this a bass for all occasions. This Carvin LB75 is a bass which will split opinions. First of all, there’s its looks, then that tight string spacing and 10lb+ weight, Regardless of the stats, this is a hugely capable, high quality bass which deserves to be heard. The neck shape is a winner and the sounds are wide-ranging and useful. Some could consider buying this bass on Carvin’s reputation alone a bit of a gamble. With no way to try one before buying and only a sketchy eBay description to go on you could say it was. However, Carvins have a loyal following, I wanted a white 5 string and I figured that if a company been making guitars for the last 40-odd years they must be doing something right. If this is the quality that Carvin produces I’d have no problem buying one and shopping direct makes them even better value for money (even though the £/$ exchange rates isn’t what it used to be).

I had the a similar problem with my Sei. Long story short, I eventually found out that the pickup was the problem. I looked at Nordstrand (very expensive) and then got in touch with Aaron Armstrong who made the OE. He made a new pickup (at a fantastic price) and the bass just came alive. Couldn't be happier. If you need/want new pickups, he is the man. Martin knows him well, so hopefully you could get a solution between the 2 of them.

One other solution is to set the outside polepieces flush with the cover and set the others at the same radius of the fingerboard. Make sure that the polepieces don't lie in line with the strings as then you have less magnet picking up the string. Zig-zag or screws at right-angles to the string are the norm.

I've had this problem with my Carvin 5 string and I managed to fix it. It's a common problem with older guitars and basses, so I thought I'd post it here. I wanted to setup the bass and give it a good clean at the same time. This is what I found under the truss rod cover. The wood is compressed in the truss rod channel and someone had used a big washer and a regular hex nut to fix it. The rod was really tight and the neck still needed to be straightened a bit, so something had to be done. The solution was to make a wooden washer to take up the slack, then put the washer back and put a Gibson acorn nut of the end as n adjuster. I've asked Carvin what they use but so far I haven't received a reply. The acorn nut fitted so I decided to go with that. To make the wooden washer, I cut a slice of wood, drilled 4 holes in it (in case I made a hash of the first one) and cut a quarter of it out. I then shaped the piece with a Dremel. Here they are all fitted. The next problem was that the truss rod adjuster wouldn't fit in the cavity, so I slotted the top of the acorn nut and used a screwdriver to tighten it up. Then I found that the truss rod cover wouldn't fit as the edges of acorn nut were too high. The Dremel came out again to grind down the high bit. That was then tidied up a bit. The neck was bent into a backbow and the truss rod nut tightened up. This took the relief down from .030" to 0.014" Job done.

Very cool. Especially like the blue Ricky