Replacing Pickups on a Warwick Corvette

[doc40hz]

Howdy,

I've recently acquired a very nice early 2000s Warwick Corvette at a stupidly cheap price (it's terrible how much these basses depreciate). Great bass, but I'm not overly keen on the pickups or the pre-amp - the treble control seems to be more like upper midrange territory to my ears, 1-2Khz and its just a bit too harsh for me.

Any ideas on what pickups would just drop in with the minimum of fuss - I might just leave it as a passive bass. Any suggestions to what would be a good pre-amp? I know it's down to personal preference, but just wondering if any one has tried anything that they think is good.

Cheers!

Edited May 2, 2015 by doc40hz

[3below]

If they are the standard J type pickups there are several discussions here on BC. Some other thoughts are here: [url="http://www.talkbass.com/threads/j-pickups-discussion-and-comparisons.91384/"]http://www.talkbass.com/threads/j-pickups-discussion-and-comparisons.91384/[/url] and here: [url="http://www.talkbass.com/threads/j-pickups-discussion-and-comparisons-part-ii.1024277/"]http://www.talkbass.com/threads/j-pickups-discussion-and-comparisons-part-ii.1024277/[/url].



I fitted DiMarzio J types to one of my corvettes - seem pretty good. Entwistle pickups get good reviews and are outstanding value for money. The biggest issue you will have is too much choice

[Der JD]

I'm not a fan of the MEC 2-band preamps. You're right, the treble center frequency is much lower than most preamps (2.5k, I believe). The MEC 3-band frequency is much higher. I prefer preamps with treble frequency points much higher than 2.5k. I find that with it higher, there's not as much harshness. Adding highs seems to open and clear things up, adding "sweetness" vs. harshness.

I've had good luck with Bart and Aguilar preamps in Warwicks, as have many others.

For pickups, you probably won't notice a huge difference in tone unless you choose something with a really unique EQ curve. I like MEC, Bart, and Nordstrand PUs on Warwicks. With EMG, it really just depends on the bass. I had some on a Streamer Stage II that sounded great. Tried some on a Thumb BO and a Corvette Fretless and I found that on those basses I lost a bit of the "woody growl". The EMGs were just too hi-fi for those two basses. Sometimes with pickups it's just trial and error. One model of pickup might sound good on one bass but not on another.

[throwoff]

Some of the earliest Warwicks came with EMG pickups, I have seen a fair few swap out MEC for EMG on newer ones.

When I worked for them we had a lot of requests for Bartolini pickups in the custom shop and put out a fair few special editions with Barts.