adding preamp to passive warwick corvette

[project_c]

i'm looking into the possibility of adding a preamp to my corvette std, does anyone have any recommendations / advice / words of warning about this? it's brand new territory for me so any advice is welcome.

[Dodge]

It's not particularly hard to do, but you have to consider where you will mount the battery and how you'll access it. Any reason why you have to have it onboard? If it was me, to protect the value of the instrument I'd use an outboard bass preamp like an Aguilar, Sadowsky etc.

[Lfalex v1.1]

If I'm not much mistaken, all Warwicks use the same control cavity cover, right?
I think all the basses use the same basic control cavity routing, too.
If so, then a 9v or even two will fit in there, as there's quite a bit of space.
That solves battery installation/ access for you.
Bear in mind that Warwick make several active 'vettes, their power and EQ has to live somewhere, too.

'Vette passives have 3 controls IIRC;
Vol
Pan
Passive tone.

In Active form, on stacked pots, that'd allow;
Vol/Pan
Mid [i]f[/i] sweep/ Mid level
Bass / Treble

with no holes drilled.
You could re-fit the old electrics if you wanted to sell it on...

[rjb]

You can buy official Warwick pre-amps from their site (www.warwick.de). As these are official parts they shouldn't affect value and you'll have no need to do any new routing as they do various combinations of stacked knobs.

Edited November 10, 2008 by rjb

[The Burpster]

Warwck bits as above or a prewired set up from Bartolini might float your boat....

I have one on order for my latest project.

[clauster]

Whichever preamp you go for, Warwick do battery boxes (both 9v and 18v) that fit in the control cavity.

Again www.warwick.de

[project_c]

thanks for all the replies, i'm willing to go outboard too with something like the tonehammer or the sadowsky, but i'm getting a lot of conflicting opinions on 'what's best'..

i'm trying to bring as much sustained woody growl out of the corvette as possible, some people tell me to go active, others say get outboard gear - what route would you recommend in order to achieve this?

[Lfalex v1.1]

[quote name='project_c' post='326171' date='Nov 10 2008, 07:06 PM']...i'm trying to bring as much sustained woody growl out of the corvette as possible, some people tell me to go active, others say get outboard gear - what route would you recommend in order to achieve this?[/quote]

Oddly, my first question would be;

Are you happy with your current string choice? (whatever they may be)
Experimenting a bit with string choice and/or technique [i]may[/i] deliver the tonal emphasis you're looking for.

My best choices to date on Warwicks have been-

Warwick Yellow Labels (Nickel)
Elixirs (Coated Stainless)

From other basses-

DR FatBeams
DR strings seem to be well thought of around BassChat. Not cheap, but they do sound good, play well, and last for ages..

[martthebass]

I had a Corvette standard active a couple of years back (ash) and TBH it had plenty of growl in passive mode. I rarely used it active as the sound got a bit too harsh - I mainly used it for a bit of vol gain on some songs in the set