Kev

What did he ruin about it?? Both the eighties and more modern Buzzard basses are outstanding basses and are snapped up whenever they rarely come available. The Bolt-On wasn’t a great idea, but it was just a way of owning a more affordable one.

What has HPW ruined?

The irony of Sadowsky using primarily a Leo Fender design seems lost a little too...

I agree. It is such a bizarre thread. Commented earlier about my top end 2017 Warwick and say again that it is exceptional, at least equal with anything else I have used in finish quality, it's stunning. But yeah, Warwick stopped paying for a License to use the NS design Spector used for their basses when Spector stopped invoicing them, so they must be rubbish.... Silly Roger, someone better let him know.

Missed out a key bit of info here, £££????

It's an odd one. Warwick Masterbuilt instruments are truly outstanding, I have one from 2017 and it is a work of art and plays magnificently. They're expensive though, you're paying for that quality. But charging more than an NYC one?? I mean yeah, its odd (if that's true, same spec etc?). But there's no way Warwick are doing that without Roger agreeing, so I guess if they don't sell, they don't sell?

So much this. Drives me insane when people turn up to rehearsal asking what to play.

How does the Flashback sound?? I’ve always assumed they sound quite different from the usual Warwick vibe, but I’ve never heard one.

The same switches are fitted to the Darkglass ADAM, and they feel absolutely fine. They have machine tested them to death.

Ah okay, I didn't really know what the back story was. I assumed that they stopped selling them as they got the price/build a bit wrong, as £1,500 seemed very expensive for what it was. Always off-putting for me to hear reasons like this for stopping sales. A company having such a lack of control over the instruments that they are supposed to be making just seems bizarre, and I guess it only really happens for instruments built in the Far East or otherwise outsourced. I'm sure your Mayones is a wonderful bass!

Sorry my dude, I ended up going back to Warwick and selling this on a couple of months ago now. It was a really cool bass, but in truth in the end it just didn't quite live up to my expectations of it. It was a little odd in so far of it was a mix of Warwick and Ibanez aesthetics and ideas, but didn't really nail either; neck is a little chunky, more like the Warwicks of the early 00's than Ibanez, but the tone whilst bright an articulate, lacked real power, punch and growl. So in that respect, didn't really nail the Warwick or Ibanez vibe. To repeat what I said even in the honeymoon phase above, it did need an active preamp in it as the output was pretty low, so expect you may want that too with the additional expense that comes with it.

I do find that quite hard to appreciate, but then again bass is, and will only ever be, my only instrument, so if I want to play for fun (why are we bothering if it isn’t fun??) I’ll pick up a bass and play a tune recognisable to me.

The opposite for me. Motivation at an all time low, not practicing as much as I should, definitely a negative impact here.

Quick access was brought in late 1990 I believe, but as with almost all of the old Warwick revisions, there was overlap. Jan II came in about 1998/1999, perhaps was replaced by the III in 2006, and eventually the brass III in 2010 for the high end models?

Watch the video I just posted

Absolutely!! The Bass Channel recently did a video focusing on non-metal tones only.

If everyone else follows suit with such ludicrous price increases, it’ll be a very interesting time for the market indeed. Fortunately just seems to be EBMM for the moment (unless someone has seen these kinds of increases elsewhere?) but it often takes one to take the lead on things line this. As someone said, Far East basses may be the only affordable things left.

Just so odd, guess sales in Europe must have performed badly over the last few years?

Very interesting. They seem to have ditched UPS for that order, and instead of taking two weeks it’s taken 3 days??

And to think, capturing fuzz pedals is one of its weaker captures. It’s so good!

Best get saving, they’re terribly expensive these days, so I hear... 😉

I haven't a clue why you are talking criticism of Ernie Ball so personally. You will have noticed both Admin and Moderator members comment in here, so rest assured if anyone takes anything too far, we'll act. In the meantime, perhaps step away from the thread if you don't like where the conversation is headed, but at the very least refrain from any attack on other members because their opinions on a bass builder you like differ with yours.