Warwick Dolphin Pro II demo

[72deluxe]

Hello everyone

With this flurry of time off work, I realised that I had never posted a video of a bunch of basses I have (and enjoy), so along with yesterday's rushed FNA Jazzman demo, here's a demo of the Dolphin Pro II that I bought the other month:

[media]http://youtu.be/UwXO-X9pKNg[/media]

The headphones look pretty sad but I can hear what's going on without deafening the neighbours... Some info:

It's a 1990 German-made Dolphin Pro II. The Dolphin Pro IIs were originally made by a subcontractor to Warwick (as Warwick were quite small at the time) in Germany, a company named Shadow I think. They had problems with large batches of these and had problems with the subcontractor company selling rejects out the back door apparently. This is one of the few German ones that is alright, so it seems.

The rest of the Dolphin Pro IIs were made up to 1999 (?) in Japan by Morridaira, the same company who made instruments for Fender and Charvel apparently (I could be wrong with this). They weren't made after 1999, and Warwick has never made a Rockbass version of it so the only options for a Dolphin are the SN and Pro 1, both pricey models. They are the same shape but have 26 frets instead of 24 on this and are made from some rather exotic woods.

As Warwick expanded massively in 2000 (or thereabouts) I guess that's when they stopped subcontracting.

This is made from ash I think, and the neck is made with three pieces of maple. The fretboard is wenge, and the nut is a brass one, the early ones where all strings are adjustable individually unlike the later Just-A-Nut models.

It has a two-band EQ on it (on a stacked pot) and the other controls are master volume and blend (between the pickups, both of which are towards the bridge). Unlike the Japanese models, this does not have a preamp bypass so once the battery is dead it's Game Over.

This has been bashed around a bit and the hardware has been changed (mixed gold and black) so it needs a bit of love to get it to showroom condition but it sounds great I think! In better hands and with less coffee it could be made to sing but I hope someone enjoys it.