Carvin LB75

I bought my beautiful Carvin LB75F new in 1998. This five string model is fretless, but it has 24 fretmarks (optional) across the ebony neck. Two JB pickups, five knobs with active electronics. Alder body with a Hipshot bridge. Black Gotoh tuners and the color is pearl blue. Very good looking design!

Wow! You can find a lot of sound possibilities with this bass. The tone can be very warm or, if you prefeer, deep and dark. No noises in this bass. Every sound comes from your fingers! I use the two pickups at the same time when I'm playing bass lines. And I turn to the bridge when I??m soloing. I??m a pro bass player, here in Argentina, and I was playing jazz, blues, rock, and commercial music for 35 years. So, in few words, the LB75F, is the most sensitive and expressive bass I ever had.

When I bought my bass from factory in 1998, I had to calibrate it and tune up. I like to feel low action on the neck, and that is possible, because the ebony of the neck is flat such a glass. Since then, I've adjusted the neck several times. I feel very well playing this bass. It does exactly what I play and that is great!

I had not serious problems with the bass. Once a year I need to adjust a little the neck/truss rod. Remember, the neck is thin and I play with very low action. The hardware and finish is like new. I play this bass several hours a day:onstage,in my study, T.V. gigs, etc. and I never had a real trouble with it.

Great instrument! This is the most friendly fretless I ever had! Of course, I would buy the same bass if it were stolen or lost, twice!! Great sound, great playability, great shape, great woods, etc.,etc, etc...

I have decided to do this review as a tribute to the finest instrument I have ever owned. I bought my Carvin LB75 new via mail order in 1996. The reviews in Bass Player magazine convinced me to get one as my first 5-string. Mine is all Mahogany, neck-through 2-peice Mahogany, with Mahogany body wings. All of it the most beautiful, rich, warm Honduran Mahogany imaginable, tung-oiled so it looks deep, and changes as the angle of light hits it. The way the neck tapers where it meets the body wings is superb, smooth and allows free access to all frets. It is solid, strong, simple and beautiful. It is a 34" scale fretted with a jet black ebony fretboard, and perfect fretwork.
It has all black hardware, typical modern large tuner keys, the old-style Wilkinson bridge which is fully adjustable in every way. 4 knobs - master volume, pickup pan, bass, and treble. 2 J-style H50N stacked humbuckers. 9V onboard active pre-amp with a pop-up battery holder for 20-second battery changes. Durable metal jack plate, graphite nut. Balanced and comfortable and not too heavy for 4-hour marathon sets.
I give a 10 for features because with Carvin, there is a nearly endless number of options to configure your bass the way you want it. I chose mine custom ordered with just what I needed.

I love the tone of this thing. It has a piano-like ringing tone that speaks with authority in the midrange. The lows are better than I expected with nickel round-wound medium-heavy gauge strings, although I have heard many 35" basses with a tighter B-string. The Carvin I have has the sweetest clean midrange tone to me - warm and round from the Mahogany. With the pan rolled towards the bridge pickup, it gets a very J-bass-like tone - bright and clean with a solid bottom, and towards the neck pickup it gets dark and deep. I play it clean through a Trace V-Type preamp, into a 2-channel DBX studio compressor, then into a 1000 watt Stewart 2-ch power amp. I use no pedals or effects, just a warm tube tweak at the preamp. Every musician I have played with, and every recording engineer had remarked on the excellent tone I get, and it records well too.
The stacked humbuckers are totally silent - I have had zero noise for eleven years with this bass. There is literally nothing bad about the sound of this bass.

When I got the bass, I took it to my local luthier Mike Lull for a complete setup. He recut the nut and adjusted the truss rod. I play fairly agressively with a heavy pick most of the time, so I like the action high. The Wilkinson bridge is easy to adjust for height, intonation, and string spacing. I have this thing in near perfect intonation - an 'A' sounds the same at every position, as does an 'E' or any other note.
The overall construction of the bass gets a solid 10. It is glued together so tight that the seams are barely visible - it looks like one peice of wood from one end to the other.

I have been using this bass for 11 years, it gets used for practice every week, and has been used at hundreds of gigs with several bands. After 11 years of constant use and good care it looks and feels almost exactly like NEW. I had the frets redressed one or two times, and I plan to take it in soon for evaluation for whether the frets can be redressed, or need replacement. Every so often I open the control cavity and lube the pots. I apply oil to the entire body and fretboard once or twice per year as directed by Carvin. There are little dings and marks in the body wood, but you have to look CLOSELY to see them. It looks, feels, and sounds as solid as ever. I have never needed to re-adjust the trussrod. I gig without a backup almost always. I have complete confidence in this bass.

I have had no reason to contact them for these 11 years concerning this bass. When I ordered it, there was a delay in production, but they were decent people to deal with from my experience. The guy who took my order I recall as being very helpful.
I feel sort of neutral about them in some ways because I have spoken to other customer support people about other instruments and amps, and some seemed detached or uninterested.

This bass cost me $804 US delivered to my door in a hardshell case (in 1996). A bargain for what I got. I had been playing 4-string bass for about 4 or 5 years very casually when I bought this LB75. With the Carvin, I began playing regularly, and gained experience quickly. I have used it in private jam sessions, multiple gigging bands, and band practice steadily for 11 years. I have no regrets from this purchase, and yesterday after jamming for about 5 hours, I decided I would pay my respects to this superb instrument with this review. I will never sell this. I can't even think about it being stolen. I never leave it lying around carelessly, and I hide it at home. This bass is like a loyal friend that never lets me down. It's hard to explain exaclty how rock-solid reliable it is - after thousands of hours playing on it with reasonable care, it remains as new. I suppose it has taken on a sweetness that comes with the billions of vibrations I have sent through it, so maybe it's better than new. I like it more now than ever. GUSH!

I was so pleased with the bass, that I also purchased Carvin's RL118 (18") cabinet, and the RL210 (2x10" with HF horn) which I have been using for almost 10 years. All of them were a bargain for cost vs. quality.

2000 Carvin LB75, purchased used

- Tobacco sunburst finish
- Alder body wings
- Ebony fretboard
- Dot inlays
- 5-piece Maple neck with two strips of Koa
- Neck-through-body construction
- Two J99 single-coil pickups
- Gold hardware
- 3-band EQ with 9v preamp
- Volume pot
- Pickup blender pot
- String-through-body

Obviously, there are many different options one can select when purchasing a Carvin brand new. I'm very happy with the set of options that came as the default with my instrument. I would have prefered a MM style soap-bar in the bridge position and diamond inlays, but that's the trade-off of buying a customizable instrument used. Since I bought the instrument used, I gave it a rating of 10.

Many people don't like Carvin's electronics. I understand why some don't: It doesn't have the instantly recognizable sound that one would get from a Precision, Stingray of Rickenbacker. But while Carvin doesn't have that ultra-colored tone that some people may be looking for, what the Carvin does if offer a very well-voiced sound that sets well in a mix. I would describe the timbre of my bass as being "pianoesque". It's a very clean and pristine sounding bass.

Right after I purchased this bass, a friend of mine sat in at a gig. I sat in the audience, and I was astounded at how good it sounded in the front of house mix. It was present but not obstrusive. Recording engineers would probably love my bass.

I use a BBE preamp and a Crown power amp which drives two matching Aguilar 4x10 cabinets. This is a pretty transparent sounding rig, and in my experience, it's a good representation of what is coming through the front of house. I've also played the Carvin through Gallien-Krueger, Ampeg, Sunn, Hartke, Peavey, and Avatar equipment. It performed great through all of this equipment.

Each room is different, but with my rig I usually leave me bass flat, cut my highs, and boost my mids. I find that the bass has a lot of brightness in its timbre - probably due to the Alder/Maple/Koa combition - hence why I often find myself cutting the highs a little. Finger-style playing has a lean punchy sound. Pick playing is ballsy yet cuts through. Slap playing is the best. I find the Carvin to be a slap-machine.

The pickup sound is not what one would expect. The neck pickup has the growly Jaco sound. The bridge pickup is rather transparent and "woody" sounding.

Carvin is known for having top-notch finishes. My bass is no exception. The sunburst finish is superb and gives the bass a classic vintage look, harkening back to the old Fenders of times gone past.

The fretwork is nice and even; it allows me to keep my action low. The pots feel like quality when turned. The intonationn is perfect!

I've been playing this bass for a half of year, and other than some slight action adjustments, I haven't had any issues. When you hold this bass, you know that you're holding quality.

I haven't had to deal with CS, but I've heard many horror stories, no personal comment.

I've been playing for over 10 years. I gig just about every weekend. I currently play modern rock and 80's pop-metal, but I've played everything from rock to blues to country to jazz in my life.

I've wanted a Carvin since I was 15 (I'm currently 23). I finally made the purchase 6 months before writing this review. I was very impressed at first as anyone would be, but I wanted to gig with my Carvin for a good couple of months to be able to write an objective review of it. After every gig, I realize how much I love this bass. It's a dream to play and sounds great. The alder body makes it a light bass, which is nice when playing hour long sets as I sometimes do. The string-through and neck-through designs gives this bass sustain for days. The first gig I walked into with this bass, my guitarist couldn't believe how good I sounded. It's distinct, and I'm told by many respected players that every run I play comes out through the FOH. Sound men love it, and usually just leave it set flat. The pickups are ultra quiet, even on stages where I use to get hum with my other basses. One club we play at is notorious for having bass hum due to power cables over top the side of the stage. The Carvin was whisper-quiet there.

The only things I would change is that I wish it had a MM pickup with coil-spliter in the bridge position and possibly one of the stacked J50 humbuckers in the neck position. I also wish that I had more options for darker tones/timbres. But a Walnut body would probably provide those.

I'm definitely considering another Carvin purchase sometime in the future.