NV Six String Electric Basses (Fretted & Fretless)

These two basses were made by Venezuelan Luthier Nicolás Volpe between 1993 and 1994. Both are neck through body and are made of Venezuelan wood. The center piece is a very dense wood and the wings are lighter. They have a 34.5 inch scale and have a very tight feel to the strings. This is especially nice when playing the low B string; it makes it very playable and not floppy at all.
I took both of these basses to NY with me in 1994 and they didn't like the cold dry winter at all. The wood warped and shrunk and cracked. The pickups were fit closely when the basses were made and when the weather got cold and dry they became very tight in the cavity and one actually cracked the body wing from the pressure. Fingerboards cracked as well, and the fretted bass developed a serious hump on one side of the fretboard. Nico has worked on these problems over the years and he now has both basses in the shop. The fretted bass is getting new frets and he's making the fretboard straight. The fretless is getting a new fretboard (ebony this time, kindly provided by Mike Tobias).
The pickups and electronics in these basses has been a problem for me from the start. I had Bill Bartolini make some pickups to my specs and I used his preamp. It wasn't the sound I was looking for. The lower register was ok, but it died when trying to solo or play a melody in the mid to upper register. I'm getting ready to gut all the electronics out of them and try an AERO pickup. Larry at Aero pickups just sent me two pickups for other basses and when I get them installed I'll see if they might work in these basses. In the fretted bass I added a middle pickup between the two that were in the original design. I put a passive EMG in there, but I haven't tested it thoroughly yet. I couldn't even figure out all the controls on the bass with the three pickups and all the options (single coils, humbuckers, tone, series, parallel, etc...) Somehow I always go back to thinking that simple is better. If she needs high heels and tons of makeup and fancy clothes... she's ugly. You know? Just connect the pickups directly to the output jack and shut up and play.
In general, the sound is very, very punchy and midrange-ish, and the B string kills.