After seeing a few curious people around here asking about
Carvin's new acoustic bass guitar, and after being curious
on my own, I decided to drop by Carvin Hollywood to check
them out. Thanks to Mark who is always patient and eager to
let me check out their stuff.
In stock, there were two of these instruments. Both were 4
string fretlesses with the inline headstock. I'll start with
the first.
It was a lined/dotted fretless with standard spruce top,
roundwound nickel strings, and chrome hardware. It sports
active electronics with the standard pop up battery compartment.
As is mentioned in the catalog, these are semi-hollow body basses.
As such, they're about as loud unplugged as a solid body. From
playing standard ABG's, I don't blame Carvin for not making one.
They just don't stand up against an acoustic guitar unless they're
amplified, so what's the point of making a large acoustic bass? Ok,
they probably sound "bigger" when amplified.
When plugged into a PB300C 15" combo with everything set flat, it
sounded pretty decent. I found that the G string was noticeably
quieter than the other strings. The D was a bit louder, and the A
and E strings were fine. The tone has a bit of the acoustic overtones,
more of a hollowbody sound than that of a Linc bass, which has a pretty
cool tone. These basses are quite light and comfortable to play once
you get used to not having a thumb rest like a pickup.
I didn't particularly care for the sound of the roundwounds. They
were brighter than I prefer on a fretless, and it just didn't do it
for me. Mark prefers the roundwounds, as do some other people who
had checked out the bass.
The second bass was a tobacco sunburst with a flamed maple top,
unlined fretless with nylon-wrapped flatwounds. I loved this bass.
It had a sound that leaned way more toward an upright than the first
bass I'd tried. As an extra bonus, the string volume was more even
across the neck. The "mwah" was there and sounded pretty sweet. If
I had a lot of money to blow (but who does?), I'd get it.
Construction-wise, it looks like Carvin did a great job on them.
The routing inside the body was clean and looked nice. The neck relief
was set just right for a fretless, but the bridge is at a fixed height
which I found too high for a fretless. What can you do? It's probably
the same setup as their fretted version.
I didn't see the nylon string option in the catalog, and I find it
odd that the catalog says it comes standard with bronze strings and
neither bass I tried had bronze. That's probably an option best
suited for the fretted version.
As I look at the catalog, they say that it's made to eliminate unwanted
boominess. I agree, that boominess wasn't there, yet it still had a
good bottom end. But I'd expect this from a semi-hollowbody.
After spending some time playing both basses, I'm pleased with what
they've come out with. I'm not a big fan of traditional hollow body
ABG's, so I prefer the semi-hollow body when looking for a bigger sound.

[July '97] That was some time ago. I've since actually bought one of these
basses. It's a 4 string fretless version with the cherry sunburst paintjob
and the standard Carvin headstock. It also has the nylon-wrapped flatwounds.
It's an incredibly fun bass to play. I dropped by Carvin in West Covina just for
kicks, tried this bass out and it was such an incredible thrill to play! I just
couldn't leave it behind. It has a semi-upright sound, and a great tone. As for
my complaint about the high action, for the style of playing that the bass lends
itself to (wannabe upright), the action is just right.
The catalog now lists the nylon-wrapped strings as standard.