Anyone ordered a Carvin bass from the USA?

[fretmeister]

I've been looking at 5 string Precision options and the Carvin PB5 looks very nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ujgbDoNeI


It seems that Carvin now sell direct to the world. the prices look good (I am aware of Vat and import duties etc).

Has anyone ordered directly from them? Did it go ok? Any issues that I should think about?

I'm thinking of the simple alder body, maple board, passive P and maybe a J at the bridge too.

[molan]

As a dealer I must have ordered about 25 or so

I know exactly how the system works so happy to help.

The only real things to watch out for are that certain options don't go with others. Their option list is so vast that you can, in theory only, have 96,000 different options!!

The trick is to use their bass builder and work through methodically adding things as you go. It should generally start removing options based on your choices as you move through the builder.

Lots of little things tend to be dirt cheap so don't be afraid to add them and ask for a pricer per option to see what is affordable.

From memory a simple example is a birdseye maple board is about £25 more than plain maple. You won't get the super highly decorative birdseye at this price but little things like this can make a real difference to how you feel about the bass when it arrives.

The other thing is that there are no returns - if you specify a 'custom' bass (even if it's all CNC) then it falls outside of general return policies if you don't like it. Obviously if there's a flaw then that's a warranty job.

[Funky Dunky]

Those are cracking basses.