Carvin Icon 5

I ordered my Icon 5 in March '09. Scale length is 34" regardless of the number of strings (4,5,6). Starting with the standard configuration, I added the following: Wide assymetrical neck (19mm string spacing- 3" bridge), maple neck with walnut strips, mahogany body, stainless steel m/j frets and black hardware. The board is ebony with 24 frets and you can chose from a curly flamed/quilted maple and claro walnut tops. Body wood and maple top are separated by a thin black laminate layer that nicely highlights the two woods. It's a neck thru design and standard finish is clear gloss which is what I ordered. The assymetrical neck is very comfortable and thinner on the higher stings so it contours to your hand. The body reminds me of the Yamaha BB model- nice, compact, slightly offset and modern looking. My Icon has a Hipshot A bridge and the bass is strung through the body. Tuners are Carvin's own and feature a 20:1 ratio.

As for electronics, the twin battery 18v package came standard with two soap bar humbuckers with side-by-side coils (now, you can opt for J99 singles and H50 stacked coils- both with AlNiCo magnets). You get a volume knob with active controls or pull for passive. Behind that, is a pickup sweep control and below those two are a stacked bass/treble boost/cut pot and a stacked mid control with boost/cut and frequency sweep. If you opt for piezo, there'd be a third pot for blending them in. The bass is fully loaded. The only missing useful feature I've seen elsewhere is an adjustable nut.

Okay, this will be difficult. The sound of this bass is a bit bland when set flat out of the box. You really have to dial in your amp settings first with the Icon set flat before you can begin to explore. My practice amp is a cheap POS (but I live in a row house so the other rig is too much for just practice). The better your AMP, the more the Icon shines. You need a good amp to add aggression to the Icon pre-amp which focuses too much on the high mids. Add too much bass and it becomes boomy. My treble stays cut almost all the way down and yet it's still plenty bright (Carvin even acknowledges that it's pre-amp is treble happy in the included literature). Also, I boost my mids with the frequency set a little deeper than center which adds some meat. When panned towards the bridge pick-up, I can get some nice growl and she sounds pretty damn good. It took a little patience and effort but now the Icon sounds nice. Be warned though, no matter how much fiddling you do, the soapbars fundamental sound is SMOOTH- try the J99As for my bite and growl. Also, if you are like me and came from a not so nice bolt, the sustain on this model will be a problem. You absolutely have to mute the strings or they will ring for DAYS, lol. This baby has some damn good sustain and if you need it, she's got it!

Fit and finish are perfect. I'm sorry, but a bolt just can't touch a neck through on overall craftsmanship since there's a gap in the neck joint. I can't stress enough how beautiful this bass is to look at and hold. It's really like a piece of art with the figuring of the top appearing to be three dimensional. I don't see how people pay top dollar for a bass and cover of beautiful wood with ugly paints. The wood work on my Icon is simply exquisite and cannot be beat for the price. A lot of basses look good from a distance but fail to impress under close inspection. The joint where the neck meets the body converges 4 different pieces of material- the maple neck, mahogany body, black laminate and maple top. It is seamless and in fact, you can run your hand over the entire instrument and not find a single snag. Action is good but since the bass was shipped from Cali to Philly, it needed some truss rod adjustment. I may get it professionally done as it isn't quite right. Controls are precise and tuners are smooth and snag free. I would rate it 15 out of 10, seriously.

I've only had it for a few months but it seems it will stand the test of time. The gloss finish is definitely durable because I've banged it a couple of times with nary a scratch to the finish. I do wipe it down after each session because it's a finger print magnent. We'll see how the tuners and control knobs hold up. Temps and humidity here are all over the place so I do have to re tune pretty often which is a pain on five strings. Intonation was reset when I switched to tapered strings as well.

I never had to use it and haven't dealt with Carvin since it was delivered. I think the warranty is 5 years on custom shop instruments.

I would highly recommend this instrument. While not blowing your socks off out the box, it does sound damn good. With that said, if you want a bass that has that easy to identify signature sound, the Icon probably isn't for you. It's a neck thru which to me, smoothes out the aggressive burp/fart sound of bolts (unless you're Nathan East who can make a neck through sounds like a Fender Jazz, lol). Up until now, you didn't have a single coil option so it definitely sounds nothing like a Fender Jazz or its knock-offs. Although I've never heard a neck through with single coils, I can't imagine it have that same type of attack you get with a bolt. Anyway, now you have 3 pick up options and I've heard the non soaps are more in your face. From a build quality standpoint, this bass simply has no rival for a made in the US guitar. A Peavy with the same features will be well over $2k so it's a relative bargain. The configurations are endless and you are basically getting a custom bass for well under $1500. If you have a good amp head and some patience, you will have an excellent new bass guitar that will look good, play superbly and sound groove-tastic.

My bass is a 2006 model, purchased new from the Sacramento outlet in November that year. There are many options available from Carvin. So, if you're considering a new one, it would be wise to go into their web site and try a few "pretend" custom builds, to see what is most important to you. It is surprising to see how easily, and how quickly your choices add up to a very expensive bass. Even so, they are still a bargain, for a hand made customized build.
My bass has the matching peg head in quilt maple, with umber stain, black hardware. The fingerboard is a nice thick slab of ebony, with abalone position markers. (square block style) The frets are jumbo stainless. Dunlop strap locks were factory installed. Pickups are Carvin soap bar humbuchers in both neck and bridge positions. The neck position pickup is not too close to the fingerboard, it's set back a bit, similar to how pickups are spaced on a PJ setup.(Good for slap) There are seperate bass, treble, and sweepable mid controls (200-800hz)detented pan, control for pickups, 18 volt preamp with two switches: #1 on/off, #2 in/out of phase. The body is quilt maple with umber stain (4AAAA) with mahogany core. There is a super thin laminate of some kind of black wood sandwiched between the core and the top. (Looks cool) My bass has the option to cover the neck laminates with the wood chosen for the top, so you don't see the neck through style on my bass. (classy)The neck is a 5 piece mahogany with two maple runners, reinforced with 2 graphite rods inside, and a truss rod. The asymetrical design with wide spacing was included. The bridge is a string through- body, or top, Hipshot type A.

I tried every bass at the Carvin outlet the day I bought mine there. I had only come in for some strings, but couldn't leave without her! It was the variety of sound possibilities that intrigued me so much. The sweepable mid gives you some amazing control over the tone. I will forewarn you though, that if you aren't used to so many tone shaping options, it can be intimidating. If figuring out how to dial in some complex controls isn't your thing, choose something simpler. Of course you can simply leave the controls flat though. And there is also a pull up switch built in to the volume control, that will defeat whatever you have done with the tone controls. That feature can give you two bass tones such as, one for slap, one for finger style. Or one for normal, one for soloing, etc.. Then there's the pan control. One trick I have learned is to pan slightly toward the front for my "main" sound; that is, it gives you that almost P bass-ish fat, strong fundamental sound. Pan back a bit toward the bridge pickup, for a good solo, or jazz tone. "The sky is the limit" with the options you have. The bass itself is built to sustain well,and produce great clarity. That, with the quality of the electronics makes this bass a world class instrument,at a factory outlet price. I have been very pleased, although I am never completely satisfied!!(Don't expect it either!)

My bass is nearly flawless in not only the build, but the set up too. They really seem to work hard at this, and it shows. The flaws that I could find were hardly even noticable, but I'll tell you about them. There is a slight unevenness to the stain on a small area; Barely noticable. Also there is a small glitch in the wood laminate between the core and top in a tiny area; again, hardly noticeable. And yet they aren't absolutely perfect. I will point out however that I have a custom Alembic Series II that would cost 10x the amount of the Carvin, easily. And I returned to the factory for some problems with that bass. So I think that Carvin has stood up well against other top quality brands. None of them have been perfect in my experience either!

It runs on 18 volts. Don't forget to unplug it between sets!!! It will use batteries a lot faster than you'll like, if you do that. They are easily changed however. I've had no reliability issues whatsoever with my bass, other than some distortion I was hearing. Is it the gain setting? no. Something wrong with my amp? no. DOH! my batteries are about dead! Man, I just replaced them three weeks ago??? Oops, I left the bass plugged in.
I have used this bass on many gigs without a back up. I always have spare batteries, and strings with me, so no problem. The bass is built like a tank! It's going to out last me.

Their support is good, not the very best, but good. They return calls fairly promptly. They do what they say they will do, as well. I like them, but I wasn't blown away with their customer service.

I am a life long working bassist with many basses and amps. I am obsessive about tone and response. (Two different aspects of the sound of a bass.) If this weren't an awesome bass, I would never have took it home with me. And then if I hadn't loved it, I could have returned it within the 10 day trial period. Would I replace it? There are other basses I would love to have like F bass, Fodera, and others. So perhaps the better question is, If I bought one of those basses, would I sell the Carvin? Maybe not. The Carvin is unique. It would boil down to usefulness for me at the time.
I bought this bass already made. I wouldn't have chosen mahogany for the body and neck. But, when I played it- wow!! You know the story; I couldn't leave her at the store. (There are so many basses, so little time.) I'm loving it. I would say, check them out. You could get lucky, like me.

This bass was made in 2005, made in USA. Beautiful 24 fret neck thru 5 string. Birds eye maple fretboard with a solid KOA top and swamp ash wings and a 5 piece neck with a tung oiled neck, has the 5W asymetrical neck with .750 string spacing. Active/Passive 18 volt electronics, volume,bass,treble, cut and boost and mid frequency selection and cut and boost.

Gets all the sounds I need and some I do not use. I play in a modern country/Southern rock band

no problems, bought it used and basically new from a collector, but I always do my own setup, just a lot of craftmanship

I play it live 3 to 4 times a month w/o a backup and rehearsal 5 to 6 times a month, I have had this bass about 6 months

I have bought new basses from Carvin and they are hot and cold, I mean sometimes they could really care less, sometimes they act interested in your comments or questions.

I have been playing bass and guitar about 40 years on and off, this is the finest bass I have owned and I have owned a bunch, for the money I believe that Carvins are a absolute value. I do not see myself ever selling this piece but I have said that before. I guess this review sounds like an advertisement but I truly am 100% satisfied with this bass.