{"id":8718,"date":"2016-04-05T11:32:54","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T16:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/?p=8718"},"modified":"2016-04-05T11:40:23","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T16:40:23","slug":"bass-player-of-the-week-chris-mccarvill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/article\/bass-player-of-the-week-chris-mccarvill.html","title":{"rendered":"[Bass Player of the Week] Chris McCarvill"},"content":{"rendered":"

We put the call out for bass players to contact us to be featured, and the first feature is Chris McCarvill from Plymouth, Connecticut USA! <\/p>\n

We asked Chris about his bass playing career and his gear. <\/p>\n

How long have you been playing bass?<\/b> <\/p>\n

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About 30 years. Here’s what it started out like… (this is my 8th grade graduation). Yes, that is a skinny tie. The bass is a 1984 Peavey Patriot. $180 new. I still have and use it occasionally. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Untitled-3\"<\/p>\n

What was your first professional bass gig?<\/b><\/p>\n

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Our band (Prophecy) was hired to play high school events, like pep rallies. We all went to diff high schools at the time, so we usually had a decent amount of work. We didn’t make a lot, but it put us in front of large audiences pretty early on. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Untitled-7\"<\/p>\n

How many bass guitars do you own?<\/b><\/p>\n

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Nine. I’ve always used inexpensive basses. This makes me feel ok modifying things. Both my thumbs are double jointed, they bend backwards past 90 degrees. This made learning to play frustrating. My old Peavey had a pickup close to the strings, and I found it a lot easier to play directly over it, using it to keep my fingers from getting stuck between the strings. One thing led to another and by 1990 I was building ramps between the pickups, so what you see below are the different ramps I’ve made. <\/p>\n

If you’re curious what the basses are…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Peavey\"<\/p>\n

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1. 1984 Peavey Patriot. Water damaged (See that neck crack?), but still plays well enough. Original Super Ferrite pickup and a spare J I had laying around. 3 way switch. No volume. Passive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Silver<\/p>\n

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2. Fender Squier P\/J, $179 new. Silver glitter paint, Mighty Mite neck painted black, stock pickups – the one in the Maxx Explosion “Devil’s Locomotive” video. Passive. Sounds amazing. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Whitey\"<\/p>\n

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3. Fender Squier Tele. White, black painted neck, all black hardware, Dimarzio P\/J pickups. Passive. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"8<\/p>\n

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4. Started out as an ESP 8 string. I didn’t like the body, so I made a new one out of poplar, painted the neck and the body. Added dual DiMarzio split P pickups wired to 1 killswitch each. Passive. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Pink\"<\/p>\n

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5. Started out as an orange Ibanez RD707. Had Performance Guitar (in early 90’s in Los Angeles) make a new maple neck\/fingerboard, Then I made a new body out of alder in 2010. It has a DX4 Ibanez Iceman humbucker right up against the neck and a 7 string guitar pickup in the middle (DiMarzio X2N7). It’s wired sort of like a Ric. Treble pickup\/Bass pickup. Passive. Very Unique voice.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Dean\"<\/p>\n

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6. Dean Hillsboro: I keep my friend Keith Fanning busy. He paints all my stuff. This started out as a dark blue bass. Now it looks like something out of Avatar the movie. It has a Seymour Duncan music man replacement pickup and a Dimarzio model J. Passive. Sounds killer. I had added 6 UV LED’s in there wired to a mini toggle, but I’ve since taken those out. This bass was the test mule for the Ignis bass below. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Fretless\"<\/p>\n

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7. Ibanez RD707 Fretless, black. Has a G&L L2000 pickup in it. Passive. Throw an octave pedal on this and you can tear your playhouse down. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Red<\/p>\n

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8. Warmoth super bass maple neck (11\/16″ nut – HUGE). Jazz bass body, ash, second quality. Has Dimarzio Ultra Jazz bridge and middle and a Dimarzio Model One (DP120) in the neck. Has Seymour Duncan tone circuits making it my only active bass. It weighs the same as an aircraft carrier. Used it in the “Famous” video by Maxx Explosion. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Ignis\"<\/p>\n

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9. Leeax Ignis. Leeax is a combination of my middle name (Lee), My wife’s name (Leah) and my son’s name (Alex). It’s a Carvin neck thru, but I made the rest. Maple body wings, it’s gilded with bronze leaf and copper glitter in the poly clear. Has a Delano ceramic bar magnet quad coil (Music Man type) and a Dimarzio Area Jazz dual coil J type pickup. It has a volume knob for each coil. Each volume knob is also a push\/pull that affects the EQ in diff ways. It’s passive, but it can sound like a P bass, a J bass, a MM, a Ric, Super sub low, etc. I’ll be doing a video showing this thing off, and I have tons of tech spec on it if anyone’s interested. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What is the main bass guitar that you use?<\/b><\/p>\n

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Definitely the Leeax Ignis. It’s new, finished it last month. I’m still getting used to it, but it has so many different sounds that all work in a rock context that I’m still exploring it. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What is your stage amplifier setup?<\/b><\/p>\n

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A lot of times I don’t have a choice. Festivals and bigger shows normally have Ampeg SVT’s supplied. Usually 2. But I swear by the basic Tech21 Sansamp Bass Driver. So far, that’s been the best way to give me some control over my sound when I don’t know what my amp will be. One stagehand on a big festival told me that mine was the 3rd sansamp he saw that day. <\/p>\n

At home I have an old mid 90’s Peavey Mark VIII amp…the fan is blown, so I have a home depot fan blowing right into the fan vent. I also have a mid 90’s Bag End 1×15″ coaxial speaker. That’s it.  I use the Peavey only as a poweramp, since I use the sansamp for the pre. It’s a little setup, people laugh at me…until they hear it. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Do you use any effects, and if so, which ones?<\/b><\/p>\n

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I’m not a big bass fx guy. For myself, I like to think that there’s more impact when it all comes from your hands. Effects are cool but they also can allow you to hide. Well, I don’t want to hide. I’ve spent a long time working on bass, and I want you to HEAR IT. If I use fx, I think they sound best when you can split the signal and have the fx work on the hi\/mids only, leaving the bottom end clean. I haven’t found a simple\/portable solution for this or I’d consider using more fx. <\/p>\n

For recording, I’ll usually run thru my live sansamp, but I leave it turned off and just use it as a DI to the interface. Once I get the track down how I like it, I duplicate the track 2x, so 3 total. 1 track for low end, one for highs, one for mids. Each processed to fit the song. Usually I distort the mids somewhat. Sometimes I reamp w\/ a boss distortion pedal, sometimes I’ll use a .vst amp modeler. It tends to be very light distortion, so I’m not super picky about where the distortion comes from, but I do compress all the tracks quite a bit, of course, depending on what the song calls for.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Is there any special bass you want that you don’t own now?<\/b><\/p>\n

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Wal MK One. Fretted. Orange. With the filter controls. <\/p>\n

Burns Bison Bass (the one w\/ the MAD DOG setting) Something with a black pickguard. I hate white pickguards. Haha. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Videos<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are a few videos of Chris on the bass, enjoy!<\/p>\n