Carvin LB-75wp

This bass was made in Cali like all Carvins. 24 Fret 5- String. It has a standard LB 3 piece body Black walnut(back) Alder(middle) California Claro Figured Walnut (top) with a clear high gloss finish. It has a neck Jazz pickup and bridge humbucker as well as piezo's under the bridge saddles. Tone nobs are active/passive master volume with blend knob for magnetic pickups and a blend knob for mags and peizo's. Neck is great it's a 5 piece maple walnut neck thru with stripes showing swapped out the ebony fret board for rosewood. Nice carvin case made for my bass.

I really only have one dislike and that is that the 18 volt preamp on my bass sends more signal than the input on the BassPod I was using can handle. However I could go passive if I really wanted to use it. But why would I this thing sounds so amazing just running it strait through the house. The Walnut body gives me that growly sound I was looking for as well as looks to die for. There is no end to the sounds this thing can do I can do P-bass on the neck single, J-bass when I split the humbucker and blend to the middle as well as that huge musicman sound on the humbucker or anything in between not to mention the deep acoustic tones that the Piezos bring to the table. The EQ on this bass model allows you to boost or cut up to 14db on bass treble and mid as well as a sweep for the mids so you pick which mid frequency to boost or cut. In other words RIDICULOUSLY versitile.

This a beautifully put together intrument the transition from neck to wing is flawless, the piece of wood they picked for me couldn't be better(well maybe it could but I'm quite satisfied) and it came with nice action and great intunation right out of the box. Havn't tinkered with it because well there was no need to. Carvin is really meticulous about their finishes mine apparently went back to painting and finishing twice because their quality control guys wouldn't pass it. And let me say I definatly appreciate that. The only flaw it had when I got it was a scratchy master volume pot but they're going to send me a whole new electronics board with pots and I just have to pay to wire it up which I'm fine to do because I don't want to have to send it back to them. Other than that this thing is really well put together.

This thing as my boss would say is built like a brick s#1T house and don't ever need a back up because even if the two nine volt batteries go dead I can pull the master volume knob and go to passive and keep on playing. The beautiful gold strap locks it came with I don't think will over comeout only time will tell but I don't ever worry about it and I play live 12 hours a week. As with all high gloss finished you're going to fight finger prints but it was totally the way to go with the Claro Walnut because it brings out the lines and flame and swirls where as you wouldn't see them as well or at all with the tongue oil or satin matte finish.

Unfortunatly like in other reviews Carvin doesn't have very good customer service after the sale. I wouldn't know about pre-sale because I ordered online. However the one bright and shinning spot in my Carvin customer service experience was a manager named Marco he called me and let me know i had picked an option that clashed and was able to suggest somthing that would be better as well as personally picked out the piece of walnut over lay on my head stock and the piece for my body. THANK YOU MARCO. because of him they get a 7 when it definatly would not be that high.

If this was lost or stolen I would definatly buy another just maybe I would buy instock as opposed to buying another custom built one I don't think I could wait another 10 weeks. I looked around and decided to go with Carvin because I couldn't find anything with as many features (neck-through, walnut, pickups with piezo's, humbucker with coil tap) for under 3 grand. Carvin can seell so cheap because they are factory direct no middle man to screw you. I took it into the local mega music store and let the manager of the bass department play and it and he sai it was hands down the nicest bass he'd ever played. And thats saying something because he wasn't trying to sell it to me I already owned it.