Carvin BB75 Fretless

A 2002 model I believe, made in USA, fretless with fret lines, 5-string, Koa top, Koa and maple multi-laminate neck, stacked Jazz humbukcing neck pickup, MM-style double-coil humbucking bridge pickup with coil splitting switch, and piezo bridge. Controls include master volume (push/pull active/passive), bass, mid, treble, magnetic pickup blend, and magnetic/piezo blend. More of a P-bass type body style, satin stain finish, 34" scale, and an Ebony fingerboard.

This fretless has a very woody and organic tone. There are lots of lower mids, but not a lot of bite. It has somewhat of a dark sound in my opinion...not nearly as articulate as I prefer. Tonally, it's a very versatile bass with all the EQ, active/passive, coil-tapping, pickup blend, and mag/piezo blend, but that said, I couldn't find the one or two fretless tones that I was really after from it. You can get a great upright-ish tone out of it by thump-plucking, you can get a smooth and mellow vibe from fingerstyle that would be great for some forms of Jazz, it has good growl down low and good mwah up high. The thing it was really missing for me was bite and articulation...I couldn't find that in passive mode nor any blend of mag and piezo nor any EQ setting in passive mode. I sold this bass after about 2 months with it. I could see lots of folks really liking the woody and organic tone, but I simply did not.

This bass was excellent in this category...everything was just about perfect. The finish was gorgeous, the wood was beautiful, it played very comfortably, and was lightweight and well-balanced (no neck dive). My only complaint was that the top was very flat...I really like the area where I rest my playing hand forearm to be cutout a bit. However, a gorgeous that doesn't work for you sonically isn't the right bass...it's important to listen with your ears and not your eyes.

I didn't have this bass for long, but it appeared very well-constructed and I'd would expect it's reliability and durability to be excellent. The only concern might be that the finish *might* wear off where it's abraded by your fingers (usually just above the neck pickup where many players rest their thumb).

I've never dealt with Carvin's customer support, so I can't offer any valid opinion here.

I've been playing bass for over 13 years, and music in general for 3 decades. I own and have owned quite a few different basses, both fretted and fretless. This is a high-quality bass, and overall very versatile. If you want a fretless with extreme bite to it's tone, this probably isn't it. If you want a warm, reasonably growly bass with prominent lows and lower mids, this might work for you.