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How to get a warwick growl without a warwick bass?

#21
There are very different growls in Warwick basses.
For that reason I have (already) six and they sound different, very different, but all bark seriously.
Real growler is Thumb NT 4 or 5 or Buzzard/Stryker.
IMO nothing really compare to those basses, so for that reason at least 10 basses are necessary to cover all bases (ha, ha... this is true)
 
#22
bongostealth said:
If you really want to sound like a Warwick, you will pretty much have to get a Warwick. I own a 6 string Thumb and used to own a 6 string Corvette. Warwicks sound the way they do because of the woods they use. That's why the company motto is "The Sound of Wood".

The Thumb sounds the way it does (1) because of the woods and (2) because of the pickup placement. Because the pickups on the Thumb are closer to the bridge, they have a more nasaly bridgey sound, thus the "growl". Any other "growl" you hear on any other Warwick is because of the woods. The pickups and preamp have a lot to do with it but it's mostly their woods.

Case in point, my Corvette was all bubinga in the body. I replaced the pickups with Nordstrand Big Singles, which are single coil pickups. In a bass with maple or ash wood, the single coil sound would really stand out. However, because of the bubinga and ovangkol on the Corvette, the single coil sound didn't really shine through. The sound of those woods overpowered the singles coils.
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Really?? The growl is 100% percent electronic and metallic....I would suggest that it is against the laws of physics to suggest that wood can cause growl !
 
#24
rymiraflores said:
Really?? The growl is 100% percent electronic and metallic....I would suggest that it is against the laws of physics to suggest that wood can cause growl !
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That's why I used to think. I had a Peavey T-40 that I took the original pickups and preamp out of. I installed a MEC 2-band preamp and MEC Music Man humbuckers. It was the same pickups/electronics that you find in the Warwick $$. While the bass sounded good, it still did not have the warmth and growl of the Warwick $$. My Peavey was all maple as opposed to ovankgol, ash, ekanga, and bubinga that you would find in some Warwicks.

I also made similar adjustments to other basses and essentially, the pickups and electronics only amplified the nature of the bass itself. Therefore, if the bass was made out of cheaper wood, although I had high quality pickups and electronics, the bass could only sound as good as its natural resonance.

Therefore, I concluded that the pickups and electronics can only get you so far.
 
#25
For 700 bucks you can get a wide array of Warwicks. I would suggest a corvette pro line. And all Warwick basses have a certain growl but at the same time sound different. I have owned five and they have all sounded much different but have that classic Warwick growl.
 
#26
bongostealth said:
That's why I used to think. I had a Peavey T-40 that I took the original pickups and preamp out of. I installed a MEC 2-band preamp and MEC Music Man humbuckers. It was the same pickups/electronics that you find in the Warwick $$. While the bass sounded good, it still did not have the warmth and growl of the Warwick $$. My Peavey was all maple as opposed to ovankgol, ash, ekanga, and bubinga that you would find in some Warwicks.

I also made similar adjustments to other basses and essentially, the pickups and electronics only amplified the nature of the bass itself. Therefore, if the bass was made out of cheaper wood, although I had high quality pickups and electronics, the bass could only sound as good as its natural resonance.

Therefore, I concluded that the pickups and electronics can only get you so far.
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Just to clarify two points. T-40s came in ash bodies for trans finishes or poplar for solid. There never was a maple version to the best of my knowledge. Also the pickup positions are drastically different to that of a $$ . Pickup placement + type of pickup definitely plays THE BIGGEST part in character of tone
 
#27
why all so difficult, change pre's, change pups, change that, eq this, eq that, tweak this, need to play a certain way to get a growl, etc..etc.... for god sake just get a thumb and solve all the issues or getting whatever, play whatever certain way just imitate a wick growl.

too expensive? save up? get one used, etc..etc...

neck dive? use a suede back strap. it stays in place, or change the tuners to ultralights.

doh!
 
#34
Check Guitar Center Used Gear and do a nationwide search (have them ship it) or CL or searchtempest.com. You can find decent Warwick Corvettes for $500-700. Don't get the rockbass though. Or add a maple/wenge neck to your current bass and go with 'wick electronics. Might as well get the Corvette for the price of that though ...
 
#35
Get a Warwick. Or boost the low mids on your amp from around 150hz to 300hz and start cutting the lows from about 80hz down. Use your ears as a guide.

I have much dislike for anything Bartolini, but that's just me. It's all subjective - unless it's not.

Ehhhh . . . what the hell was I talking about?
 
#36
I switched out the stock MEC's on my Corvette Standard with Dimazrio Ultra J's. Awesome results, but I had to lower the Ultra J's considerably because the pole pieces stick up and make string volume inconsistent. That's just my experience, though.

Regardless . . . I do quite like the sound of MEC pups, but the price of an upgrade was in "kiss my a#%" territory.

4848277 said:
I haven't actually tried one (yet) but I've read that they are more "middy" than Corvettes. Here's a link on the topic...

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f8/warwick-corvette-vs-warwick-thumb-344859/

You may be able to make a Corvette sound like a Thumb by experimenting with different pickups or preamps. I've never tried this though. I switched pickups on my Corvette because I didn't like the noisy, stock MEC pickups. The change was also cosmetic because the old pickups were pretty beat up.

One thing I have heard about the Warwick Thumb is it suffers from neck dive because the upper body horn is shorter. Generally, basses that have an upper body horn that doesn't extend to the twelfth fret will have neck dive.

Cheers!
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#37
BTW - everyone says that Warwick basses are too heavy, but my Spector Euro 5 and my Stingray 5 both make my Warwick Corvette feel like a lightweight.

And BTW - Spectors in general have GREAT growl, and for me are more versatile. Not as aggresive as the Warwick growl, but still pretty damn tasty. With very little amp fiddling, I never have trouble cutting through a mix. Best damn low B string in existence as well, at least IMO.
 
#38
Yep, wood matters! And so do strings, frets, pickups, locations of pickups, preamps, playing style, amps, cabs, speakers, the room you play in, the recording equipment and sound man settings, the playback devices people use to listen to your recordings and the tone perception of the ears listening to the playback devices. Significantly change any one of those things and you can adjust the sound of your bass in the slightest or most dramatic way.

I'd even argue that you could change everyone of the variables all the way up to the recording equipment and not really notice any real difference in a 5 person rock band mix if you listen to the song on a cheap POS am radio with a single 1" speaker. Likewise, a minor change in only the body or neck wood may be very noticable if it's a solo and played back in a high quality 7.1 surround sound home theater system with a 15" 500watt sub woofer and B&W 5 way floor standing loud speakers.

Tone matching of different basses is all relative and subjective and packed with more variables than you can possibly account for. If you really really like the sound of a Warwick Thumb BO5 bass, buy it. If you really really want something close to that sound and are up to a bass build, go for it. Use as many of the same construction materials, methods and electronics as you can afford to use, that will lessen the variables to a degree. What you'll end up with is a very nice bass that sounds very close to what you want and probably costs nearly as much or more than a used Warwick Thumb BO5.

I own a Thumb BO5 and love it but want something more ergonomic, so someday I'll build a bubinga body wenge/wenge neck brass fret MEC electronic 5 string with a warwick bridge and nut and pickups in the traditional BO5 locations. It should be very close in sound but I doubt it will be spot on and will probably run about $1500 to build.
 
#40
The best example (to my ear) of 'the Warwick growl' appears on the Jamiroquai albums with Stuart Zander on bass (e.g. Emergency on Planet Earth and Travelling without Moving). Good bass playing, too.

I have been totally satisfied with the growl I get from my ash body, maple fingerboard G&L L-1500 for years. I've been especially happy with its tone as the strings (Ernie Ball nickel roundwound 45-65-85-105) get older. I always keep the strings clean. They just sound better as they get older, as does my bass.

So, I recently put Emergency on Planet Earth into my Tascam Bass Trainer to play along with. To my pleasant surprise, I could nail Zander's 'Warwick growl' with easy, minor adjustment to EQ (more of the very-lows + more of the very-highs) and to technique (plucking in about the position of a J-bass neck pickup mostly).

Other bassists whose sound includes 'the Warwick growl' (e.g. P-Nut of 311) should actually try a G&L L-1500. I specifically recommend an ash body, a maple fingerboard, and old EB nickel roundwounds. Mine nails that growly tone, and it's a nicer looking bass than any Warwick I've even seen.
 

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