Ed Friedland's Collection

If the name sounds familiar, it should!  Ed is a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Bass Player Magazine, and is also a Carvin endorser, and he was gracious enough to share his collection of Carvin basses here.  Ed has a wealth of information on his website, including more basses, soundclips and articles - be sure to stop by.

First up is Ed's Swamp Ash BB75.  I'll let him explain:

"My main axe is a Carvin Swamp Ash BB75, sunburst with a maple fingerboard, J99 single coil pickups. This bass rules! It has a thunderous low B and a crisp yet smooth top end that loves to be slapped. It's light and responsive and comes the closest to being a 5 string version of my beloved '74 Fender Jazz I've found."
Next is Ed's 4-string BB70, with a very nice trans purple finish on Swamp Ash & gold hardware.  Probably my personal favorite of Ed's collection.

Ed says:

"I just got my very first Carvin 4 string. It's a beautiful Swamp Ash BB70 with the Piezo bridge. It has the HB2 humbucker in the bridge position and an H50N in the neck position. This bass slaps like a dream, the HB really does have the classic Music Man sound. The two pickups together sound like a Music man with more bottom and warmth. But the surprise for me was how much I love the sound of the HB2 as a singlecoil! The coil cut on the HB2 blended with the H50N sounds like a great Jazz bass. The Piezo is a terrific sound too, I wouldn't use it for slapping, but it's great for punchy sounds, and acoustic tone."

Here's a very unique bass which began life as an LB75, that Ed has customized into a piccolo bass.

The story:

"I have an old Carvin Alder LB75 that I converted to a piccolo bass. It's tuned up an octave from standard bass tuning, BEADG. I'm using LaBella Deep Talkin' Bass strings gauged 80/60/40/30/18 Plain Steel. I use only the front pickup to get a fat jazz guitar sound. I took the bridge pickup out to use in another bass, and left this unsightly hole, kind of adds to the charm, don't you think?"

 

Ed's last two basses are quite unusual.  They're both custom made Carvin hybrids, and they are both really interesting models.  Just goes to show what you can do with a little imagination.

This bass is half LB75, half BB75.  Very unique!  And I think I've already expressed my fondness for Vintage Yellow finishes...

Ed explains:

"My fretless is a Carvin hybrid. It has the body of a BB75 with the longer top horn, but the neck of an LB75 (narrower string spacing). I have two H50N pickups and the new Piezo bridge. The H50Ns sound like Jazz Bass pickups, but without the hum. I chose them because I tend to play mostly the bridge pickup and didn't want single coil hum to be a problem. The Piezo is very warm and full. I like using it to add extra bottom to the magnetic pickups, and it sounds great by itself too. The B string is terrific on this bass, and the beautiful Swamp Ash body has a Vintage Yellow finish."

Finally, this is Ed's very slick, new B5 Bolt hybrid.  I love the body on this one - one of the nicest pieces of Swamp Ash I've seen.

The details:

"Here's a brand new axe! I love bolt-on necks, but Carvin doesn't make one with 24 frets, at least not yet. This is an experiment made from a Carvin B5 body (swamp ash of course). I had Tucson luthier Bob Mick hand build a 24 fret neck, sculpt the body, and assemble it. I used Carvin J99 pickups and a U-Retro Preamp (the universal retrofit version of a J-Retro). This thing sounds amazing, it has the best B string of any bass I've ever owned."

 

Thanks again to Ed for sharing his collection!