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Thoughts on Warwick "upgrade"

T

talldude42

Jan 4, 2021
33
11
#1
Hey all! I recently picked up a Warwick corvette 4 string with passive Mac pickups. It needed some work; one of the tuners is missing, pickups don't work (looks like one of the wires needs to be soldered back on), and needs a good cleaning.

Original plan was to fix it up and resell but I'm kind of in love with it. Always liked the look of them and this one has the babinga body and made in Germany.

Looking for thoughts on what people prefer, the standard pickups that are on there or should I add an active preamp with a selector to switch between the active preamp and passive? I know slot of that is going to be personal preference but wondering if the active preamp is a good idea and desirable.
 
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#4
The Corvette comes in an active version too (with MEC preamp) so putting one in your passive bass makes total sense. As to which one, there are a ton of options. I just put a darkglass tone capsule in a bass and it's a pretty cool pre. It doesn't have a "highs" knob but uses a high-mids instead. I've used a bartolini preamp which is cool too. Both are configured with an active/passive switch, and the bartolini has two frequencies to chooses from on the mids knob.

I'd put the pre in first, then make a decision about keeping or swapping the pickups.
 
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#5
I've been playing bass for over 10yrs , but never really dug deep into the electronics aspect of it all. I always thought my Ibanez sound gear 305 that I've had for a long time Sounded awesome great until I played it through an swr tube amp with aluminum coned subs. Didn't seem to matter what it did go the eq, I was just so thick and bassie tone with very little high end output it just sounded bad. My 506 sounds good through the same amp but obviously that has a different on board preamp.

Point I'm getting at is, I'm looking at these on board preamps and I've come across preamp pedals. And then there is the eq on the amp itself. Is there such a thing of having to much adjustment lol!!??? I like the idea of being able to adjust my level on the bass and not have to bend over to make changes or run back to my amp if I'm gigging. Is there a benefit of one over the other?
 
#6
I've been playing bass for over 10yrs , but never really dug deep into the electronics aspect of it all. I always thought my Ibanez sound gear 305 that I've had for a long time Sounded awesome great until I played it through an swr tube amp with aluminum coned subs. Didn't seem to matter what it did go the eq, I was just so thick and bassie tone with very little high end output it just sounded bad. My 506 sounds good through the same amp but obviously that has a different on board preamp.

Point I'm getting at is, I'm looking at these on board preamps and I've come across preamp pedals. And then there is the eq on the amp itself. Is there such a thing of having to much adjustment lol!!??? I like the idea of being able to adjust my level on the bass and not have to bend over to make changes or run back to my amp if I'm gigging. Is there a benefit of one over the other?
 
#7
I once had a bubinga Corvette 4 with the active MEC pups and preamp. I did not like their overly "active" sound with harsh peaky highs at all.

So I had a luthier swap out the pickups for passive Seymour Duncan STK-J2 Hot Stack jazz-style humbuckers and a passive control setup. The tone just opened up, blossomed, and was amazing. Organically growly, phat, loud, and just wonderful.

So that might be a way to go as well.
 

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