My New Bass - and its not a Warmoth

[Delberthot]

When I was trying to sell my Warmoth '57 single coil bass I had a few offers of trades but decided to wait until I was sure no one wanted to buy it before deciding on a trade.

The one, well the only one it could be was this:











For those of you that don't know, its a Warwick Corvette $$ 5 string in Ocean Blue.


When I say it ws the only one it could be, I mean that I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it.


I've cleaned the frets and board with steel wool and given it a wooling up the back of the neck as well so that it is slippery smooth. The body has been cleaned. New Yellow label 45-135 Warwick strings as I thought I'd try nickel strings for a change as I hadn't used them in a while.

Set up the action and locked the bridge back down and its ready to go.


Before I put the strap on, I hoped that it wasn't as neck heavy as my Thumb NT5 had been since this also has a relatively small body but was amazed to find that it balances perfectly horizontally.


Its the first 5 string I've had in a while so it will probably take time to get used to it but I'll be using it tonight. This will also be the first time I have put a 5 string through either my Genz head or Schroeder cab so that should be interesting.

It will probably be a bit early to give a review of it but I'll report back later on after the gig so any night owls like myself will be able to read what I thought about it. If I don't post anything here later on then I don't like it and its in the for sale section. Ah well, at least I already have the pictures ready should it come to this.

Edited January 17, 2009 by Delberthot

[The Burpster]

PORN.....

Moved accordingly..!

[Delberthot]

Sorry, its my first time on here. :blush:

Edited January 17, 2009 by Delberthot

[littleal]

Mmmm!!! Thats really nice, Good luck with your gig i'm sure you'll love the sound of it

[budget bassist]

Ooh that's gorgeous!

[Delberthot]

Well the gig wasn't ideal to judge the sound as I effectively had to stand to the side and just behind the front of the cab so I never got the chance to listen properly.

It took a bit of getting used to the narrower string spacing. Since I have been playing 4 stringers for so long I have a larger finger sweep as I have more space in between each string. This bass requires me to play with a shorter sweep so that i don't hit any string I don't intend to.

If that doesn't make sense then tough because i can't think of a better way to put it


The sound is very modern compared to my Warmoth and very burpy. I found I could play as fast as i wanted and every note was clearly defined. I did think that notes on the G string sounded a bit thin and quieter compared to the others. I lowered both pickups on the bass side and this seemed to help a bit but I'll have to see what i can do about this. When I was setting it up I purposely set the G string lower than the others as, apart from anything else, the string could go lower than the others without buzzing. I have found other basses had thin sounding G strings in the past (ooer missus) so that is why I did this.

Another thing I noticed was that I instinctively put my index finger where I thought was the 5th fret and realised that it was the 7th due to the longer neck and smaller body than I am used to.

The pickups provide a sort of ramp when playing meaning that I can't dig in as much as I normally do. I'm not sure that i like the feeling of the exposed poles of the gap between the pickups as I felt my thumb landing there quite a bit during the night.

Overall I really like it. I found myself playing stuff that I hadn't been able to play since I had my Flea bass due to the low action I suppose. The bass is very comfortable to play but looks about a mile long with that huge looking neck. A very comfortable, well balanced bass with a really punchy, clear sound.

Too early to tell but I think what I mentioned above about the pickups may annoy me enough to look for something else but I'm going to give it 6 months before I make my final decision.

If I do get something else then it will almost certainly be a Streamer 5 string but we'll see. I'd need to get some money together first before that happened.

[budget bassist]

I know what you mean about the pickup being like a ramp. The newer musicman basses have a similar style of pickup too(except they curve inwards rather than out), and i really don't like it because it's not as solid a thumb rest as the old style ones like on my SUB. The bongo i'm after has pickups like this, but i'll force myself to get used to it because in every other respect it's near enough perfect. Maybe you could find someone with the same coloured bass but with the old style pickups, because i'm sure the $$ corvettes used to have those trad style MM pickups with the lugs too.

Edited January 18, 2009 by budget bassist

[7string]

Sounds like a promising start with the new 5 string.

The gap between pickups drives me mad as well, so a ramp is the way to go. Jon Shuker made a ramp for my Conklin and it's a great piece of work. Reminds me that I must see about getting one for my Tyler bass.

[Delberthot]

Should be easy enough to make one if I wanted to - there's only about 10-15mm between the pickups.

That's what i can't understand - why not just have them as close as they could get without them touching? It means more work routing the pickup cavities as they could've just had one large one instead of 2 with the tiniest of gaps betwen them.


I honestly didn't see myself going back to a 5 string again. I think it may have been the width of the 6 string necks that hacked me off in the end, making me go back to the more conventional 4 string. I had managed to persuade myself that i didn't need anymore than 5 strings.

I changed my technique, learned to play songs differently without the missing 2 strings, only occasionally using a drop D but not enough to warrant a D-tuner and am still very happy playing a 4 string. I actually perfected using the drop D by learning 'Bad Love' by Eric Clapton inside out as a spotty teenager.


The things that I liked but need to get used to again are the closer string spacing. I'm a big fan of octaves so playing something like 'Everybody Dance' by Chic becomes a lot easier.

I also like the fact that I can play the E string quicker by virtue of having the B string as a barrier to limit finger travel so I can recover quicker after each note.

After I went back to 4 I learned acouple of new slap techiques: the first is doing it the way Larry Graham plays, right back over the pickup which is more difficult with less room to move on the 5 to vary the attack used to change the sound. The other is to literally bring my hand down over the E string. I don't know what you call that one but i remember seeing an Indian guy playing something in 22/23 time or something like that where he strikes all or most of the strings that way. I can't imagine many amps will thank you for hitting a low B as hard as that this way.


I'm going to keep at it with both basses before I make up my mind what to do.

Edited January 19, 2009 by Delberthot