Kev

First major Adam firmware update is here! Main feature, you can now get muchhhhh lower gain sounds, so it can now be used for grit, and it sounds great. They’ve added the option to move the cab sim to the end of the chain, rather than just the distortion side. They’ve added attack/release controls to the compressor in the suite (so the comp now has ratio, threshold, attack and release controls, which is awesome) They’ve formally announced the next update will include a built in noise gate. This has pretty much resolved all the issues people have had with the Adam, fair play to Darkglass for listening to their customers!

Yup, just spec'd out a £2k P that I really fancy now. Thanks for that....

Interesting piece for sure. It's interesting, as an awful lot of more expensive instruments these days have some form of chambering, particularly on heavier woods to reduce weight down, so it seems in many cases the more you spend, the more likely it is the wood will make a difference? Its certainly interesting when you compare the comments to that of someone like Sheldon Dingwall. He designed the Z series bass to have two piece bodies made of different woods, specially selected to enhance the qualities of the low and high strings. Is this just complete BS from him then? Who is wrong?

How do you have the LPF and HPF set? LPF fully clockwise I assume?

Not a brilliant example of HPW’s “massively aggressive persona” or something “downright nasty”, so I’m interested to hear what Cuzzie has experienced.

Any examples?

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.