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Do all Warwick necks feel "long"?..

#22
I have a Corvette $$ and it feels longer than your Fender variety. After playing it for a year now I find it to be just fine.

Also after looking at the neck for a year I think the whole "fat" neck topic is way over discussed and over dissed. While I would agree their necks are somewhat larger in diameter I think a lot of it is the illusion created by having similar color woods on the fingerboard and neck much like a maple finger board and neck on a Fender'ish bass. And then you add the huge bell bronze frets and it does look massive.

I started playing my Warwick after playing a well respected makers 35" scale 5 string for year and that will make the Warwick "fat" neck seem comfy. A famous man once said "if the shoe fits, were it!" my Corvette is my shoe of choice "fat" neck and all.
 
#23
As has been suggested, I think the long reach on Warwicks has everything to do with the bridge placement, and the upper horn lengths to a lesser degree. Every centimeter of distance between the bottom edge of the bass and the bridge translates into another perceived centimeter in neck reach - no two ways about it.

Pete Skjold's '92 series basses, by counterexample, have very long upper horns and his bridges rest utterly against the bottom edge of the instrument. By result, their reach feels much shorter than it is - take a look at mine in this picture:

l_23e6faf873714a6b8ec0fbdca9bc339a.png


This is a 35" scale bass. You can see how the upper horn length moves the bass to my right as the instrument hangs, and the position of the bridge is as far back as possible. I have my index finger at the third fret, and my left arm is barely extended away from my body. It is a very comfortable instrument, despite the scale length.
 
#24
yes, this is the reason i sold my warwicks. the upper horn on the majority of fender and fender style basses are basically positioned over the twelfth fret. this makes for a relatively comfortable reach for most of the population.

The Warwick Stuart Zender model
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002DGS3PI

seems to be about the only Warwick where the upper horn is anywhere near the 12'th fret and may be more comfortable for some of us that find most warwicks a 'stretch.'
 
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#25
bassman blue said:
yes, this is the reason i sold my warwicks. the upper horn on the majority of fender and fender style basses are basically positioned over the twelfth fret. this makes for a relatively comfortable reach for most of the population.

The Warwick Stuart Zender model
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002DGS3PI

seems to be about the only Warwick where the upper horn is anywhere near the 12'th fret and may be more comfortable for some of us that find most warwicks a 'stretch.'
Click to expand...

....and it's only a little more than 5 grand. :eek:
 
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#26
spade2you said:
I have a couple 35" scale basses that are significantly shorter reach than a Thumb.



Not to start a Warwick bashing session, but their current clientele is mostly young folk and in modern rock/metal. If you don't like the reach, neck dive and weight (some models) then you often need to "man up". I suppose I'm spry enough that I could do that stuff, but I don't see much point in mediocre bridge placement and balance as it really doesn't do anything for tone.

Alembic makes several improved body shapes, but the popular short horns and Omega Cuts only add to poor ergonomics.

Perhaps my Rob Allens, CB, Stambaugh, Peaveys and Conklin have really spoiled me.
Click to expand...

Well, while the first frets of the bass are harder to reach, the lasts are significantly easier to reach also, which I love. And honestly, yes, you have to man up if you can't play a warwick. When I received it, it was much heavier than my jazz and balanced very differently. BUT, after a couple of weeks with pain in the shoulder, I've learned how to use it, make it balanced how I wanted (no suede straps of stuff like that) and adapt to the weight. All because it sounds THAT good to me, otherwise I wouldn't do it.
 
#27
flipper_gv said:
Well, while the first frets of the bass are harder to reach, the lasts are significantly easier to reach also, which I love. And honestly, yes, you have to man up if you can't play a warwick. When I received it, it was much heavier than my jazz and balanced very differently. BUT, after a couple of weeks with pain in the shoulder, I've learned how to use it, make it balanced how I wanted (no suede straps of stuff like that) and adapt to the weight. All because it sounds THAT good to me, otherwise I wouldn't do it.
Click to expand...

I can assure you that my aforementioned bases don't have problems in the upper register, although I might say that the action required for the Rob Allen MB2s doesn't make them my go-to bass for upper register work, but they still get the job done. Upper register work is partly design based, but a lot of it is position based. High positioning like traditional jazz players will help, but tend to put too much tension on the right wrist and make the lower positions more work. Slinging the bass low works alright on the low positions, but not the upper register. Naturally, the middle position is the best of both worlds, but requires good balance of the bass to work effectively.

I can tolerate a given amount of weight, but I really like the tone of my lighter basses. I don't mind the tone from dense hardwoods, but they tend to be a little more high end with a quick attack and fast decay. High density tone blocks can generally get a very similar tone without requiring dense wings, which aren't an important equation to overall tone anyway.
 
#32
I think the long reach on Warwicks has everything to do with the bridge placement, and the upper horn lengths to a lesser degree. Every centimeter of distance between the bottom edge of the bass and the bridge translates into another perceived centimeter in neck reach - no two ways about it.
Click to expand...
Apart from some minor variation in the way a bass hangs owing to horn length, bridge placement is the only thing that impacts how far you must reach to the lower frets. The number of frets is objectively irrelevant since it doesn't change the scale length. Think of a line that begins at the bottom strap button on the bass and ends at your left hand, fretting the first fret -- If the bridge is close to the bottom strap button, the line is shorter. A P bass is a good example of this. As the bridge moves up the body and away from the strap button, the line gets longer and you reach farther. I used to own a medium scale Alembic that required a reach similar to most 35" scale basses. Why? Because the bridge was so far up on the body. My current Alembic short scale has a reach that feels similar to a P, even despite the 4" difference in scale, because of the bridge location.
 
#33
Funny I should see this thread today. I was playing my Ibby last night and hung it up to grab my Corvette. Immediately I noticed that the reach to the 1st position felt a bit longer. I thought maybe I was just out of it. :) It wasn't uncomfortable by any means, but it did feel different. Probably helps that I'm built like an ape with long arms and gigantor hands. LOL!
 
#34
Bryan R. Tyler said:
Fret count does not make a bass any longer or shorter.
Click to expand...

With all due respect, can you read again the thread title?

"Do all Warwick necks feel "long"?

I wasn´t talking about the neck actually BEING longer, i was talking about the OP's impression about Warwick necks "feeling" longer. In this case he was talking about a Thumb, and since it sports 26 frets i was just expressing my opinion.

Thank you very much.
 
#35
No need to reread the title- there is a physical reason why Warwicks feel longer. The OP has been around for a while- I'm not going to assume he has no idea about how a neck works.
 
#36
RONQUITO said:
With all due respect, can you read again the thread title?

"Do all Warwick necks feel "long"?

I wasn´t talking about the neck actually BEING longer, i was talking about the OP's impression about Warwick necks "feeling" longer. In this case he was talking about a Thumb, and since it sports 26 frets i was just expressing my opinion.

Thank you very much.
Click to expand...


Bolt on thumbs, like the one he said he tried in the OP, are only 24.
 
#39
Ok I see it now, the stumpy little short horn the Thumb has on top is so short that the strap hanging in a different area than a bass with a long upper horn, so the bass itself winds up positioned towards the left a lot more..

It's a shame, one of the absolute most perfect tones I ever heard was a NT Thumb through an Eden MeTro combo, it was like modern tone personified.
Just my dream tone. But I can't play those things.

And I'm Definitely not Warwick bashing, I just bought my CT today!
I'm looking forward to trying her out. She's getting a fresh new setup from Norio Imai as soon as she arrives.
 
#40
My Stingray neck is 24 in Long where has the neck on my Stingray short scale is a little bit over 22 in. I had the Warwick streamer lx and that felt a mile long. I wish I had actually measured the neck to see how long it actually was. I just didn't think about the fact that the scale is from the bridge to the nut, silly me. And I love the 2023 Streamer lx sound and looks but was hard to play. But I may get another and take the time to get used to it.
 

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