Carvin SB5000 review.

[SisterAbdullahX]

My lovely new Carvin SB5000 arrived last week. I intended to give it a full review but thought it would be better to wait till I'd gigged with it before doing so. Well, tonight's the night! I'll get a review and some more piccies up tomorrow night. Early thoughts on it are it's lush!

Well, thought I'd start with the specs;

Swamp ash body, clear gloss finish. Maple neck with birdseye maple fingerboard, both with tung oil finish, abalone dot inlays, "wide flat" frets, Graph Tech nut, black logo, Carvin J99 single coils, standard active/passive preamp, vol-vol-tone-bass/treble stack knob, Dunlop straplocks.

I'd already received a few pics from Phil at Bass Gear before the bass arrived, so I knew it was a looker, but when I opened the case I have to say I was knocked out by the looks! I know the outswept horns have divided opinion but I like them. At least Carvin have had the courage to do something different with the Jazz design and I have to say the top horn makes perfect sense when the bass is on a strap. The quality of the finish is absolutely impeccable. The laqcuer has a glass-flat finish with not a single hint of sinking into the grain of the ash and, as the pics show, the piece of ash Carvin picked is gorgeous! The grain is big and bold and I just love it! The tung oil finish on the neck is silky smooth and the birdseye on the fingerboard is quite subtle, which I was pleased about. Some birdseye boards can be a little over the top, I feel.

Taking the bass out of the case and having a close inspection of the fit and finish revealed a super tight neck/body joint with not a hint of a gap on either side of the heel. The join between the scratchplate and control plate is also perfect.

The first things I noticed when I sat with it on my knee and played the first few notes on it were that the action was quite a bit higher than I like and that the string spacing at the bridge was less than the 19mm I was expecting, or so I thought. I was a little disappointed about the spacing as I was used to the wide spacing I had on my Pedulla Pentabuzz. That was set so as to be the same as the spacing on my CIJ Jazz 4 stringer, and I thought that was 19mm. What I liked about that was not having to get used to having two different spacings when switching between 4 and 5 strings. I took a tape measure to check the spacing on the SB5000 and, blow me, it was 19mm! My mistake! The Pedulla was obviously set wider, even though it had "19mm" on the back of the control panel. I then put the SB on a strap and found it balanced perfectly, not a bit of neck dive, just stayed exactly where I left it. Great! Also, the neck was super comfy with a flat D profile on the back and a flat-ish 14mm radius on the fingerboard. I also found that the string spacing made it really easy to play, the whole thing just felt quite compact and, well, easy!

The sound acoustically was big and deep, yet the top end was there as well. I knew it was going to sound good plugged in but first of all I wanted to drop the action. This was a doddle as the truss rod is adjusted at the nut so it could be done with the neck on and strings up to pitch. A quarter turn on the truss rod and a few turns on the bridge saddles and it was spot on in no time at all.

I'm pretty useless at describing the sound of a bass in any kind of technical way but plugging in to my Promethean (at bedroom volume) with the amp and bass eq set flat with the active on the bass on, both pickups full up all I can say is it sounded great! Full, deep, throaty, great balance between all strings. Nudging a bit of bass and treble on gives it some real "meat" and the top end has a lovely rich sparkle to it. Gigging it for the first time last night was just a lovely experience! The room was awful and the keyboard player next to me too loud so I knew I wasn't hearing the best it could do but, man, I didn't care! The best comparison I could give to the sound, fingerstyle with both pickups (and I know not everyone will be familiar with this) is the sound James Genus gets from his Fodera on the "Return Of The Brecker Brothers". Lush, lush, lush! Then there's the slap sound! Glorious Marcus Miller Jazz! Rolling to the back pickup and cutting the treble and rolling back the passive tone (or even better, switching to passive and rolling the tone back, although the passive level is lower than the active) and there is your basic Jaco growl! The neck pickup sounds great on it's own as well, doing a very good Precision imitation. It's all there!

I got a review from Luke FRC of an SB5000 which he checked out in a shop in Glasgow (I think) and have to say I was a little worried about what he wrote as I had already ordered mine. He found the B string on the one he tried floppy and indistinct to the point of being useless. He also said he didn't care for the preamp, although the one he tried had the optional mid control. I have to say, with some relief(!) that neither issue affects my bass. The B string sounds and feels as good as any I've tried, not floppy at all. And, for me anyway, the preamp does exactly what I would want it to, providing a variety of USABLE tones (I put that in capitals as I've tried some in the past which have had more variation but also provided tones I would just never want to use). Overall, the best way I can describe the SB is it just sounds great! It's thick and fruity, the mids are rich and the highs don't go into that horrible cutty territory that some preamps go into. I'm one happy bunny!

Cost wise, spec'd up as it is this SB5000 would have been £1265, including the great hard case and delivery. That's still less than a Fender Jazz Deluxe 5 and obviously way way less than any Sadowsky Jazz. As it turned out I got it in a straight swap for my Pedulla Pentabuzz, which I was asking £1295 for. I would call that a good deal!

Finally, I've said all along since ordering that the whole process was made that much easier and altogether pleasant by the great service I got from Phil and Barrie (Molan) at Bass Gear. Not only did they take my Pedulla Pentabuzz as full payment when nobody else wanted to buy it, but they have just been great all along. They gave my by far the best deal of any of the UK Carvin authorised dealers and made the whole process a breeze. They even gave me a free t-shirt!


Cheers!

Edited November 26, 2012 by SisterAbdullahX

[SisterAbdullahX]

pics!

[url="http://s1070.beta.photobucket.com/user/SisterAbdullahX/library/Carvin%20SB5000?#/user/SisterAbdullahX/library/Carvin%20SB5000?&_suid=1353277494670043116387657072075"]http://s1070.beta.ph...116387657072075[/url]

Edited November 18, 2012 by SisterAbdullahX

[LukeFRC]

It looks awesome - I'm so glad it's a good one - it was odd on the one I tired (edinburgh not glasgow ) that such a well made and finished bass would have the odd problem going on with one of the strings- it's great your one is a good un! I one I tried was a good bass that had gone wrong at some point (and it was s/h so maybe not cavin's fault!) happy for you!

[Nico@Bass]

Lovely bass. Too bad stores in my neighbourhood aren't selling carvin products. You hear a lot of good things about the SB5000 and especially when I watch the youtube videos I question myself why you would buy a much more expensive bass like a Sawdosky which basically does the same thing....

I really think you going to enjoy this bass. Thanks for the review!

Edited November 19, 2012 by Nico@Bass