The guitar thread

The guitar thread

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Cutting it close, but yeah unless you spend most of your time with the volume dimed you're probably going to be just fine. Cab power handling numbers are pretty subjective (some manufacturers really overstate what the cabs can handle, I have no idea where Carvin stands on that subject) and can mean RMS, thermal load, etc. I suspect that your amp has the power to cause them damage when cranked, but it'll sound pretty obvious when the cabs are in trouble. They'll distort long before they'll self-destruct so just keep an ear on them if you're playing loud.
 
New Carvin options:
- Lava color
- Jescar EVO gold-colored frets
- Zebrawood fretboards. I suddenly want a fretless bass with a Zebrawood fretboard. :blink:

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Damn...I'm surprised to see wenge getting so popular lately. It's the one wood that my uncle won't work with, and a local shop-for-rent won't let you work on wenge there.
 
Yeah Ibby must be getting that stuff in bulk, they seem to be the only manufacturer that works with it in quantity. I love the look, too bad it's just not worth the $ for me. Maybe in a year or two when they hit the used market.
 
Is the wenge/bubinga combo stronger than the maple/walnut combo? I've got several Ibanezezez with 5-piece maple/walnut. But the Wenge/bubinga does look very attractive and "wood-ey" (large pores/grain).
(Disregarding what it does for tone, since for pure tone I like a single slab of maple bolted to a single slab of alder :p)
 
Wenge and bubinga are extremely stable, but I wouldn't say a maple/walnut lam would be less strong than wenge/bubinga. Frankly, I think it's 90% just for appearance - I've never had stability problems with any of my maple/walnut lams even with the super-thin ESP and Ibanez necks.
 
BerserkerCatSplat said:
Ibanez is doing wenge/bubinga neckthrough SRs now. :drool:
*snip*
Spendy, but still like half of what Hasgtrom wants for that new Super Swede I've been GASsing for...
Click to expand...

So much want! :eek:
 
Can Wenge be un-finished? Like...not even tung oil finish (like some rosewoods, or ipe)? That's sounding familiar, and I could imagine that has some appeal to it.

It's heavy as fuck, though! Claro walnut is 40lbs per cubic foot. Wenge is 54lbs. My friend has a Warwick Dolphin Pro II and it's got a (mainly) wenge neck...the thing should have notches on it for the number of stands it's warped. :p

If you can source it to their specs, Carvin has done Wenge before, too...but it's not a standard wood.

here's one they did with a (I think) white ebony top, back and headstock overlay, black limba (korina) body wings and neck "stringers", and a streak-free ebony fretboard, with no inlays.

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NecroJoe said:
Can Wenge be un-finished? Like...not even tung oil finish (like some rosewoods, or ipe)? That's sounding familiar, and I could imagine that has some appeal to it.

It's heavy as fuck, though! Claro walnut is 40lbs per cubic foot. Wenge is 54lbs. My friend has a Warwick Dolphin Pro II and it's got a (mainly) wenge neck...the thing should have notches on it for the number of stands it's warped. :p

If you can source it to their specs, Carvin has done Wenge before, too...but it's not a standard wood.

here's one they did with a (I think) white ebony top, back and headstock overlay, black limba (korina) body wings and neck "stringers", and a streak-free ebony fretboard, with no inlays.

1709_Carvin_DC7X_j_1_zps4fbfdd84.jpg
Click to expand...


I don't know if unfinished wenge is available... or even a good idea considering the toxicity, haha. Ibanez doesn't put much of a finish on it anyway that I remember. It is fairly heavy, but bubinga is even slightly more dense than wenge.

The Carvin looks nice, I'm not sure about the wood species on the back but it looks more like rosewood to me rather than an ebony species (black and white ebony is very distinct) - the BTB7E that's coming out has a rosewood top and it looks pretty similar. I've got a massacar ebony top on my ESP and it's got a different look than the rosewood but with how much wood varies from tree to tree I could be totally wrong.

BTB7_NTF_1P_02_CU_Body_Top.jpg


Yes that's a nine-piece Maple/Walnut/Rosewood neck-though.
 
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I got clarification on the Carvin: the customer sourced it, and it is some sort of striped ebony.

I do ding a multi-multi-multi piece neck. :) my next custom will hopefully be a 7-piece. :)
 
Cool, I wonder what species of ebony it was. Some searching indicates it may be Ceylon Ebony (diospyros ebenum) and that's some seriously rare wood.
 
Top wood - New Guniea Striped Ebony from Gilmer Wood Co. in Oregon USA.

The piece big enough to use for the book matched top, back and headstock was $300.

Neck Wood - Wenge from Exotic-Woods in Burlington, Canada.

He spent $250. Carvin requires a veeeeery slightly larger piece than what most places normally supply, so be had to buy a much larger piece. They have very specific size and moisture content requirements, as I'm sure most builders do.
 
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Aha, very cool! Exotics sure do hurt the pocketbook - I was grabbing some smaller exotic pieces for a project and grabbed a piece of Kingwood that was in the wrong bin - imagine my surprise when it rung up at $150/board-foot. :lol:
 
NecroJoe said:
So, I wanted to get an acoustic guitar amp...but also something that would work well with a bass,
. And I know that some people play bass through acoustic guitar and keyboard amps (like Carvin's AG100). So, on a whim, I picked up a bass amp (Carvin BX500), thinking I could play my acoustic guitar through it, too.

It seems like it should work fine (or if it doesn't work as well as I'd like, I do know a bass player that might want it.

The question is...do I buy a full-range speaker cab, or do I get a bass cab if I want to use it for both bass guitar and acoustic guitar?

Carvin BX500 bass amplifier:
6ed2ba91-d60e-47d5-b8ed-cee7a8dfcaa1_zps6ddd0c87.jpg
Click to expand...

My friend has a Hartke Model 2000 200watt (@ 4 ohms) bass head that he's had for at least a decade and a half. It's giving him trouble, almost sounding like it's plugged into a wah; kinda nasaly and thin, and he just can't get it dialed out.

However, for the last few years, he hasn't played bass much, and thought maybe he was just imagining things, and that maybe his memory of great tone was faulty.

I brought the amp over and he immediately almost hit himself in the face with it when I handed it to him...he wasn't expecting it to be so light. Then I told him it has more than twice the wattage, and he was quite shocked.

So, we plug it in to 1/2 of his stack, his 1x18+2x10 cab (He also has a 4x10).

Setting everything to "noon" and a flat EQ, he wasn't terribly impressed. The moment he touched a couple of knobs, the amp opened up, and he was slappin away to the Stanley Clark song he has been learning, with the biggest smile on his face.

"Now, THAT is how I remember my Warwick sounding!!"

I plugged my crap-tastic classical guitar into it, and got a serviceable tone. I didn't spend too much time plugged into it, to let him get back to working his way through 1/2 of "Blood Sugar Sex Magic." :p

After all was said and done, I took my amp back home with me, but it left him with a few thoughts:
- I got a smokin' deal. I told him that they come up fairly regularly for $260-$280.
- He's positive that there actually is something wrong with his amp, so he'll try and get that sorted first...because he knows that a GOOD amp sounds as good as he remembers.
- He wants to give a couple MarkBass combos a try, just to get it out of the way...if it doesn't work, he might scour the web for a BX250 or BX500. Honestly, he said he wouldn't miss the graphic EQ, by going with the BX250, because the knobs were plenty responsive enough.
- He can borrow my BX500 any time. It was great to hear him play, and to see how good he's gotten so quickly after not playing for a long while. :)
 
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This is probably far from what this thread is about, but I saw this guy on the wharf in San Francisco and eventually looked him up. I've never in my life seen a better street performer:



I remember just standing in awe for several minutes watching him play.
 
The old bastard (69-years-old now) can still play. Yes, he is not as fast as he used to be, and the solo is a bit derivative, but in terms of tone and sense of melody he is still pretty good.

 
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