Carvin Basses

[Al Krow]

Not seen much about these on BC.

I had them highly recommended to me back in 2014 by a fellow BC'er who was also a retailer but I ended up going for a Sandberg instead, so Carvins have kinda been lodged at the back of my mind, I guess!

I've recently seen a couple in the FS which, on paper, look really good so I'd be really interested to get your thoughts on them for good or ill!

Cheers AK

[CookPassBabtridge]

I'd be interested in this too actually as I've often thought the same. Only thing of use I can add is that I believe their guitars and basses are now known as Kiesel, with their amps etc. still retaining the Carvin moniker. 

[bnt]

Kiesel was split off from Carvin in 2009 and still makes some of their classic designs, such as the Brian Bromberg signature model. They make a few instruments that I would really like to try if I could afford them, such as the ZBM5 multiscale headless.

[LeftyJ]

I've owned a couple of them, and still have two. Three of them have been very impressive, especially for the price I paid used. One was a dud, but then again it was modified by the previous owner (lacquer on the back of the neck removed and replaced with tung oil, and the profile shaved down by a couple mm) so I can't tell for sure if it always was. It looked fantastic though, it was an LB75 with a hidden two-piece maple neck through body, walnut wings and a flamed walnut top, ebony fingerboard, and it looked really well-made. I didn't get on with the neck, and it didn't sound as lively and not nearly as loud as the other LB75 that I had (and bought back last summer after 10 years). 

I think used Carvins are incredible value for money, because they hold their value very poorly. You can often find high-spec Carvin instruments for really low prices. I paid only 250 GBP for my black LB75 here on Basschat because of wear to the finish, and I paid roughly the same for a lovely B4 in perfect shape (bolt-on, natural gloss alder body, one-piece maple neck, birdseye maple fingerboard, passive electronics). My 7-string DC727 guitar cost me 600 GBP and it's like new, almost untouched. The 7-string and my black LB75 are the ones I still own, and not going anywhere soon 😎

Edited October 23, 2021 by LeftyJ
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[itu]

I've seen a red 5-string Carvin B. Brunel. Black unlined fretboard. It was fab! Want one!

[ped]

@BassBunny has my old BB75 which was a superb bass in all respects. It had to be sent away for fixing because I think the truss rod broke (I can't actually remember) and so Marleaux fit a new neck and did a refinish - now it's a very unusual one-off bass!

It was extremely nice to play, balanced perfectly and had a very flexible array of sounds. I only sold it because I kept buying and then selling five strings, feeling more at home on a 4.

[Mykesbass]

On 31/01/2021 at 16:01, CookPassBabtridge said:

I'd be interested in this too actually as I've often thought the same. Only thing of use I can add is that I believe their guitars and basses are now known as Kiesel, with their amps etc. still retaining the Carvin moniker. 

Interesting to see Carvin Amps are back. I'm a very happy owner of a BX500. Apparently there were a lot of QC issues, but if you got a good one, as I did, then they are great. Company closed temporarily, but back, with family at the helm.

[BassBunny]

4 hours ago, ped said:

@BassBunny has my old BB75 which was a superb bass in all respects. It had to be sent away for fixing because I think the truss rod broke (I can't actually remember) and so Marleaux fit a new neck and did a refinish - now it's a very unusual one-off bass!

It was extremely nice to play, balanced perfectly and had a very flexible array of sounds. I only sold it because I kept buying and then selling five strings, feeling more at home on a 4.

@ped Still got "Marvin" and it's going nowhere. It's the one in my profile picture and it really is awesome.

Ped is right that it is a joy to play and weighs less than 8lbs. I have meddled a bit, although it wasn't necessary. Changed the MM pickup single coil/parallel switch to single/series/parallel. This has added a new dimension to the sounds it can generate. Also swapped the pre-amp to a Glockenklang one for no real reason than feeling the Carvin one is a fairly old design and the Glock gives me Active/Passive switching.

They are seriously underrated basses that are as good as most out there.

[ped]

3 minutes ago, BassBunny said:

@ped Still got "Marvin" and it's going nowhere. It's the one in my profile picture and it really is awesome.

Ped is right that it is a joy to play and weighs less than 8lbs. I have meddled a bit, although it wasn't necessary. Changed the MM pickup single coil/parallel switch to single/series/parallel. This has added a new dimension to the sounds it can generate. Also swapped the pre-amp to a Glockenklang one for no real reason than feeling the Carvin one is a fairly old design and the Glock gives me Active/Passive switching.

They are seriously underrated basses that are as good as most out there.

I think you bought it in 2007? Great you’re still enjoying it. The switch mod sounds great; does it select the front or rear coil?

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, ped said:

I think you bought it in 2007? Great you’re still enjoying it. The switch mod sounds great; does it select the front or rear coil?

I came pretty close to pulling the trigger on a BB75 recently and your thumbs-up is certainly not helping! It did feel very nicely balanced.

The EQ was seriously versatile:

• two single coil tap / full humbucker switches, one for each pup
• vol knob with pull for active / passive
• pup selector 
• 3 band EQ

Unfortunately the EQ was a little shot (mids did nothing and treble was more like a secondary vol) - I guess not surprising for a nearly 20 yo bass. Is it possible to replace just the 3 band EQ (e.g. with an J East?) part of the preamp, or am I looking at full new preamp replacement to cover off all of the above?

Edited February 3, 2021 by Al Krow

[Cuzzie]

10 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

I came pretty close to pulling the trigger on a BB75 recently and your thumbs-up is certainly not helping! It did feel very nicely balanced.

The EQ was seriously versatile:

• two single coil tap / full humbucker switches, one for each pup
• vol knob with pull for active / passive
• pup selector 
• 3 band EQ

Unfortunately the EQ was a little shot (mids did nothing and treble was more like a secondary vol) - I guess not surprising for a nearly 20 yo bass. Is it possible to replace just the 3 band EQ (e.g. with an J East?) part of the preamp, or am I looking at full new preamp replacement to cover off all of the above?

It’s just knobs, circuit boards, potentiometers, switches and capacitors - you are only limited by cavity space as to what you can fit in, you can even drill more holes if you like or rout more space, use stack knobs etc.

Its pretty easy to work out with some research and not that hard to fit

[BassBunny]

3 hours ago, ped said:

I think you bought it in 2007? Great you’re still enjoying it. The switch mod sounds great; does it select the front or rear coil?

2007 sounds about right as you probably know the very personal story around it.

Not sure which coil. I emailed Carvin to ask which wire colours are which coil and they kindly sent me a wiring diagram so I just cracked on. I can check the diagram and see if it mentions it.

Edit: It was actually 2008 Chris. It did hang around for a while, which I was grateful for at the time.

Edited February 3, 2021 by BassBunny

[BassBunny]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

Ufortunately the EQ was a little shot (mids did nothing and treble was more like a secondary vol) - I guess not surprising for a nearly 20 yo bass. Is it possible to replace just the 3 band EQ (e.g. with an J East?) part of the preamp, or am I looking at full new preamp replacement to cover off all of the above?

You can easily change the whole pre-amp. As I mentioned, I went for a Glockenklang 3 band as I happen to really like them.

As you rightly say, it's a pretty old design and electronics have changed massively in that time. The Glock was a very worthwhile change.

[Al Krow]

10 minutes ago, BassBunny said:

You can easily change the whole pre-amp. As I mentioned, I went for a Glockenklang 3 band as I happen to really like them.

As you rightly say, it's a pretty old design and electronics have changed massively in that time. The Glock was a very worthwhile change.

Cheers. I'm not much cop with a soldering iron, so I'll probably get Bass Gallery in Camden to sort for me. I'm guessing it's going to be a £200+ job for labour and parts for a John East 3 band. 

What is it about the Glock hits the mark for you? 

[BassBunny]

4 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Cheers. I'm not much cop with a soldering iron, so I'll probably get Bass Gallery in Camden to sort for me. I'm guessing it's going to be a £200+ job for labour and parts for a John East 3 band. 

What is it about the Glock hits the mark for you? 

It just does the job. I didn't want to change the look, ( no stacked knobs and additional switches ), wanted it as original looking as possible. It's also considerably cheaper than an East and set flat there is no difference soundwise between active and passive. With the 3 band you also get a passive tone when in passive mode.

I've got the 2 band version in 2 other basses. The East is a fantastic pre-amp as well. I've got one in another of my collection which was installed from new.

 

[LeftyJ]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Unfortunately the EQ was a little shot (mids did nothing and treble was more like a secondary vol) - I guess not surprising for a nearly 20 yo bass. 

Pretty much sums up the controls in my black LB75. The mid control also looks like it was added as a sort of afterthought, as the other 4 knobs form a neatly aligned diamond shape but the mid control dangles loosely to the side - the order is bass - treble - mid. I love the bass though, it plays beautifully and I love the range of tones I can get with just the blend pot and coil split. 🙃

That Glockenklang pre with passive tone sounds like it would work for me too! I'll have to look into it 

[Al Krow]

Ok I succumbed! Seller kindly offered to knock the cost of a replacement Glock pre off his previously agreed price and left me with nowhere to go in terms of excuses!

Quick review

There was a huge amount of fret buzz on 4 out of the 5 strings, when I first got my hands on the bass, but this was easily sorted by raising the action on the strings a little and it's still very comfortable to play. I needed to order some imperial Allen keys, as it's a USA Sept 2005 model predating my other basses. 1/16" was supposedly the right size, but turned out to be too big; fortunately the immediately smaller thread (1.27mm) in the mini set I got from Amazon did the honours nicely. Followed that by adjusting the pup heights to balance the volume from each of the pups and also adjusting the internal preamp trim pot and she was good to go.

 

The preamp does need replacing, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, but set flat on active both pups individually deliver a full, meaty tone which I really like. There's a slightly sweeter mid-scooped tone with both pups engaged, but the B string is then correspondingly weaker, so I'll likely be using it on either solo'd pup for now. At just over 10 lbs she's at the heavier end of my basses, but the extended horn is there to provide really good weight balance, which seems to work well. 34" fretboard is what I'm used to and makes it easy to play and has 24 frets with very easy access to the top end, which I'm a fan of.

 

I always love a neck through for that additional touch of sustain and ability to make the bass sing, but mostly 'cos it looks great (ok I'm shallow - haha!). Block inlays on what seems to be an ebony fretboard are a nice touch and I'm very much a sucker for anything white sporting a "BB" moniker 😁, and in common with my Yamaha BB1025, the Carvin also offers the option of body through stringing.

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Al Krow

[Al Krow]

Been a few months since my previous post, but I've recently managed to find a really excellent and reasonably local-to-me bass tech in the shape of our very own @gary mac who has just fitted a Glock 3 band pre-amp to replace the previously somewhat "tired" Carvin preamp, which was passed its best as mentioned in my previous post. Gary even gave the truss rod a quick adjustment to give the fretboard a little more relief and eliminate fret buzz and the whole bass in now sounding massively better. With its choice of neck and bridge pups and ability to go for a more J style single pup or a fatter dual coil tone combined with the very good 3 band EQ and you've got a lot of tonal versatility on tap. My favourite settings so far are neck pup on full fat dual coil which provides a meaty / punchy and warm tone and which seems to play really well with some effects (e.g. fuzz) but pipped on "clean" setting by the same pup on single coil which adds clarity to the warmth - just lovely! And the latter also works really well with pedals that prefer a clean signal to bite on (e.g. octaver). Cheers to @BassBunny for the recommendation of the Glock for this bass.

 

I was thinking of taking the Carvin straight out on the road tomorrow night, however I can see that I will need to get used to the wider 19.0mm spacing on this 5er which, whilst it is the staple string spacing for many 5 string bass players, my other basses have a narrower 18.0mm to 16.5mm and something I'm definitely noticing when doing repetitive stretched chordal patterns on something like Hotel California over the full neck width, so 'll see how brave I'm feeling! 

 

Edited November 4, 2021 by Al Krow

[MacDaddy]

They don't seem to hold their value second hand, which is great for the buyer because they are great basses. I had a BB 5 string, can't remember the exact model, I liked the feel and could get such a wide variety of tones from it.

This is the only pic I can find of me playing it.

 

[MacDaddy]

On 03/02/2021 at 11:02, Mykesbass said:

Interesting to see Carvin Amps are back. I'm a very happy owner of a BX500. Apparently there were a lot of QC issues, but if you got a good one, as I did, then they are great. Company closed temporarily, but back, with family at the helm.

 

Back in the day I had a Carvin guitar amp. Nothing to do with Lita Ford endorsing them ☺️

Sounded great. Very good for (old school) metal.

[Mykesbass]

10 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

They don't seem to hold their value second hand, which is great for the buyer because they are great basses. 

Pretty much the case for all the more esoteric brands.

Edited October 23, 2021 by Mykesbass

[Al Krow]

13 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

They don't seem to hold their value second hand, which is great for the buyer because they are great basses. I had a BB 5 string, can't remember the exact model, I liked the feel and could get such a wide variety of tones from it.

This is the only pic I can find of me playing it.

 

Nice pic - are we allowed to know "when"? 😊

[MacDaddy]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

Nice pic - are we allowed to know "when"? 😊

2008ish.

[Geek99]

I always liked the pointy ones

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, MacDaddy said:

2008ish.

Cool! No question, a rock / metal look for the band - your hair was defo longer then! 😁

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Al Krow