Peavey B Quad

[BaggyMan]

For years i have seen the odd photo of the carbon fibre necked b quad  bass.  

Looks fabulous, anyone tried one? opinions??  i am intrigued because they are rarer than a rare thing, and i have tried many a fabulous bass but never even physically seen one of these, let alone tried one out.

 

[visog]

So these are Brian Bromberg's signature basses (the 'B' in 'B Quad'). I think he's had a few companies make them. Currently with Kiesel: https://www.kieselguitars.com/catalog/guitars/b24

Haven't tried one so can't comment but the Peavey looks nice.

[BaggyMan]

they weren't around for long as far as i know.   Intriguing bit of kit..

 

[uk_lefty]

There's a guy on the forum who collects Peavey's... Check the bass guitars section and there's a million new bass day threads from him with probably every single Peavey bass model there's ever been! He would know the inside track on these.

[BaggyMan]

Just found this tech spiel 

it is a bass designed by Brian Bromberg and made by Peavey for a few years. I believe the B Quads (they also made a 4 string) are the finest and most expensive basses Peavey has ever made.

The neck is graphite and made for Peavey by Modulus. It has two VFL pickups (neck and bridge) plus piezo pickups in the bridge saddles. The bass features optional stereo output. The switch controls Mono vs Stereo output. And it has 2 output jacks, for when you want to use Stereo. The 2 magnetic pickups (the VFLs) output equally to both L and R in Stereo, but each Piezo pickup has an individual Pan pot (and Gain trim pot) that can be accessed through the control cavity cover on the backup. Those Pan pots let you adjust each string to be panned however much you want to whichever side you want. I never use it this way, myself. I just set the Pan pots to all centered, so the bass sounds the same whether it's in Mono or Stereo mode.

The controls include a Master volume, individual volume controls (stacked) for each VFL pickup, and a separate volume control for the Piezo pickups. There's a 2-band boost/cut EQ (stacked, bass/treble) for the VFLs. And there's a Passive Tone control for the Piezos.

The sound is just flat-out incredible. Peavey VFL pickups (as are used in the Cirrus line) are known to be fantastic. But then the piezos add another dimension - some warmth, to my ear - that just takes the Cirrus sound up a level.

The neck is the Modulus graphite neck. You can get action that is so low.

[AndyTravis]

There was a Dean version too.

I hope one of the Peavey versions comes up when I’ve got a few quid spare.

[v8bass]

Had both the fretted and fretless ( both 4s ) .

Modulus neck iirc .. and another ( vastly ) underated Peavey ...

Not without fault of course ( bridge can cut you to ribbons ..Wilkinson with piezos ) electronics temperamental ..oddish shape sat on the lap ....

Really loved the fretless .. singing tone with an epoxy coating ...very playable .. 

If you find one for the right money buy it ..Simple ...

Ill dredge a pic up of my old one ..

Kinda miss it ....

Cheers 

 

Gary 

[v8bass]

" My " Ex BQUAD ...

Oh for a better preamp ..... 

Gary 

[ped]

Always been interested in these. They were in fact the first graphite necked basses I tried, PMT in Oxford had some in second hand. I really liked the feel and sound but want such a fan of the shape. However they spared my curiosity and sought out graphite basses from then on.

[4000]

They used to have a Teal one in The Gallery that I played a lot. The neck was fabulous, one of the nicest necks I've ever played. Sound was very 'graphite'. I love the shape but it doesn't love me; I couldn't get on with the extreme forearm contour (something I can't cope with on any bass). TBH, that was the only thing stopped me buying it. 

[kodiakblair]

If folks are interested there's one for sale in Germany. Not mine's though it's going nowhere  

[BaggyMan]

Not that I can afford it...but how much is it going for, I have no idea how much these go for 2nd hand

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by BaggyMan

[kodiakblair]

@BaggyMan

The one advertised on bassic.de has gone  Think I've saw 2 or 3 come up for sale in Europe the last 3 years, prices were around £1100 for 4 strings. Over in the States it's about the same, $1400 but the 5 string (also called a B-Quad ) is closer to $2000.

[ped]

The one in PMT was £800 but that was in about 2004!

[Arto]

I own three Peavey B-Quad (original owner). Two 4 stringers fretted and one 5 string fretless.

The two 4 stringers are 2 of the first 12 pre-production prototypes (Violet & Teal). I have a personal letter from Hartley Peavey stating so. These were on USA dealer tour at select Peavey dealers featuring Brian Bromberg himself giving a seminar/demo. It was a fantastic experience being able to sit just a few feet away from Brian as he just blew everyone away with his virtuosity.

The 5 string fretless I have was custom made. It's one of the very last B-Quad made (see extended story below) I had to contact Brian to get permission for the changes (no fret lines, side dot markers placed were the frets usually are, and no "B" at the 12th position). Surprisingly he approved it! It's black, black hardware. If Darth Vader played bass this is the bass he would have.

The pre-production prototypes have electronics and piezo bridge saddle pickups that were designed and hand built by Rick Turner, co-founder of Alembic. I don't know how long Turner continued to make the pre-amp for the B-Quads. I do know that he wasn't happy with the Peavey relationship at some point because I had to contact him for a piezo bridge saddle pickup replacement for one that failed. He had ONE in stock and kindly sent it to me for FREE (Thank you so much Rick!).

The custom 5 string was a disaster. It took 18 months to arrive. I had to repeatedly complain and inquire "where's my bass?". It turned out that because of the above mentioned "custom" modifications, someone at Peavey thought it was a defect and had tossed in pile of other defective components. When it finally arrived, it had the wrong hardware (I originally ordered gold), and the batteries were dead. It had different electronics, different piezo bridge saddles, sounded way different, and I never really liked the way it felt. BUT - it sure looked cool. It always draws comments from the audience with the shiny fretless, almost glass-like black fingerboard.

At the time I bought the first one I really had my heart set on a Modulus. The sales guy suggested I try more instruments including the B-Quads. I hadn't been playing for a while and was just getting back into the music scene. When he left I decided to try a B-Quad. To my surprise, my wife who was with me suddenly said "I like the way you play this one. You're playing things I've never heard you play before". I was stunned. Why? Because at Brian Bromberg's demo one of his pitch lines was "This instrument will bring out music in you that didn't know was there". I thought "holy s***! talk about taking the words right out of the horse's mouth!!" So I bought it. It was nearly a year later and the other B-Quad left behind from Bromberg's tour was still sitting there. I was surprised no one had bought it yet. The store manager knew I had bought the first one and caught me eyeing it again one day. So he said "give me a figure - take your time". So I thought about it and finally gave him a rather low-ball figure. He then showed me his calculator. My "bid" was $50 higher. He sold it to me for the lower price.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Arto