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Warrior Club!!!

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#161
I had that problem with the Bart pre. From what I can tell, it is greatly reduced with the Glock. I actually just plugged it in to check and I don't notice a large volume change. It sounds a tiny bit louder with the neck pup soloed, but I think that's just because the of the tonal change. That's one reason I rarely used the blend on the Bart pre. It was in the middle 99% of the time.
 
#163
I haven't noticed it quite as much elsewhere. there's usually a tone based difference between the neck and bridge pickups, but here the volume is so much different at the far end of the pot's travel going either direction. You can get the desired effect without the volume gain going about 2/3s of the way in either direction and boosting the gain in the pre-amp made it almost as hot as my G&L2500. In fact, I may turn it back down somewhat, although Dan Lakin claims that you're supposed to run the Bart pre-amps wide open for the best sound.
 
#164
Yeah, the whole blend thing is typical of a PASSIVE blend method, which most of our basses are these days. The differential, however, is dependent on the pots and the pickups, because it's a pickup loading issue. For example, on my Nitti, I notice it, but it's not a problem. The "bad news" is, I don't think there's anything you can do about it.
 
#166
I'm actually quite happy with this thing in terms of its appearance. It's strictly keys and heater with no frills and I always feel a little funny with the flaming and other boutique woods.

SpeedwayBand004.jpg
 
#167
The pre-amp on this thing is the goofiest unit i've ever played. I love playing the thing, but the pre-amp is weird. The mid-range toggle switch sounds best at the 500 position and if you drop to either 250, or go up to 800 the volume drops. Crank the mid-range knob and it just sounds like the 500 position. Bass and treble don't do a lot, and going full tilt to either pickup substantially raises the volume. I've never had that happen. Is this normal for these things, or are my electronics screwed up?

I asked the factory about the gain in volume going to a single pickup and they told me that was because it took more juice from the battery to run both pickups. So I put it in passive mode, and it did the same thing.
 
#168
play4zero said:
The pre-amp on this thing is the goofiest unit i've ever played. I love playing the thing, but the pre-amp is weird. The mid-range toggle switch sounds best at the 500 position and if you drop to either 250, or go up to 800 the volume drops. Crank the mid-range knob and it just sounds like the 500 position. Bass and treble don't do a lot, and going full tilt to either pickup substantially raises the volume. I've never had that happen. Is this normal for these things, or are my electronics screwed up?

I asked the factory about the gain in volume going to a single pickup and they told me that was because it took more juice from the battery to run both pickups. So I put it in passive mode, and it did the same thing.
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I don't know if this is related to your problem, but mine had a strange problem when I first got it, and it was related to the trim pots and resistors they put on the bart module... one was supposed to be a gain adjuster and the other was some sort of high end sizzle control.

When I first got mine, it sounded great, but way hot, and those controls didn't seem to do much. Come to find out one wire had a cold solder joint, so I resoldered it. Well, it all worked then, but the tone took a nosedive. I decided to just rip out their little mod and just wire it straight up per the bart web site. Viola. The gain adjustment worked and all my tone was back.

It's a stretch, but if yours also has that funky little circuit in there, I'd recommend replacing it with the standard gain config and see if that helps. Not sure if that could be related to your overall gain/balance issues at all, but it's a thought.

Otherwise, this gain/balance problem sounds EXACTLY like what happens with a J bass when you wire one of the pickups backwards. It has a pretty strong canceling effect. I'd think it'd be really hard to do something like that in one of these basses unless somehow someone (unlikely) messed with the wiring at one of the pickups itself, but it's another thought at least.
 
#169
Thank you. While the bass sounds great with the sounds I get, I think it has much more to offer. I'll take it out to my tech and see if he can figure it out and I'll take your suggestions along. Thanks again for such a prompt response.
 
#170
I tell you, I really love this bass. It's become my primary instrument and once I get the electronics straightened out, it should be even better.

That said, I am not impressed at all with the Warrior factory. I've tried to get answers about when the bass was manufactured and some insight into the pre-amp, even just a model number so I could get the right schematic, and gotten nothing. I've had three different people tell me they'd try and get an answer and then nothing.

I traded a Lakland JO for this thing, one of the Korean ones, and emailed them a question and got an answer back the next day. I'm still glad I traded, but I wish Warrior's CS was as good as Laklands, and there'd be a lot more numbers in this club than there are now. The worst part of it for me is that as a Christian, I expect someone who touts his business as being anointed to walk the walk a lot better than what I've seen so far.
 
#171
play4zero said:
I tell you, I really love this bass. It's become my primary instrument and once I get the electronics straightened out, it should be even better.

That said, I am not impressed at all with the Warrior factory. I've tried to get answers about when the bass was manufactured and some insight into the pre-amp, even just a model number so I could get the right schematic, and gotten nothing. I've had three different people tell me they'd try and get an answer and then nothing.

I traded a Lakland JO for this thing, one of the Korean ones, and emailed them a question and got an answer back the next day. I'm still glad I traded, but I wish Warrior's CS was as good as Laklands, and there'd be a lot more numbers in this club than there are now. The worst part of it for me is that as a Christian, I expect someone who touts his business as being anointed to walk the walk a lot better than what I've seen so far.
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What you have there is a Soldier model. The neck is maple and purpleheart and it looks like you have a nice birds-eye maple board. The body is going to be swamp ash or mahogany. You should be able to see the wood through the truss rod adjustment area. If it has a more brownish color, mahogany...lighter color, swamp ash. The serial number should tell you when it was produced. Most of the time, Warrior puts the year in the front and then the number of the bass after. The serial number could be on the back of the headstock or bass of the neck. It has varied with Warrior over the years. By the looks of it, I am guessing it was built in 2002-2004 range. But, I could be wrong. They would have called it a "fully armed" Soldier at the time because a standard Soldier was passive. Yours, obviously has a preamp in it. Which, I am assuming is a Bart NTMB with mid selector. I do not recall exactly where Warrior set the mid selections. I believe 250, 500 and 800K.

You are right, Warrior has and still does have issues with customer service, QC etc. That said, they still product some nice winners too.
 
#172
rodneyat said:
You are right, Warrior has and still does have issues with customer service, QC etc. That said, they still product some nice winners too.
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+1

I've had to go into the shop to get some questions answered about mine. I'm lucky that I'm so close.

As an observation from my part, and I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that there was not consistent record keeping on the basses throughout the years. They've moved the location of the serial #s on the basses a few times and the style of the #s and, though the basses didn't change much, the model names changed a few times over the years. It makes it hard to keep up with all of the variations. JD knew the history on mine when he saw it and didn't have to look up the serial. Also, FWIW over the years, just about every time I was in the shop there was a different (new) person at the counter looking up/entering information in their system.
 
#173
The serial # is NAMM 079 USA. The guy I talked to said he didn't know when it was made. It's mahogany and very nice and lightweight. I pretty much figured out the basics, but it would be nice, but not necessary, to know when it was made and perhaps who owned it before. It's pretty obvious that they played it a bunch, also.

They would certainly not be the only small American manufacturer to be behind the 8 ball when it comes to getting everything done during the course of a day, my friends at Eden have had their share of woes also. Times are tough and the competition is even tougher.

Thanks for all the help. When the factory doesn't come through, all the more important that the users help one another out with their own knowledge base. As soon as I run this through my tech, I'll post what he found just in case someone else has a similar problem.
 
#174
Bardley said:
+1

I've had to go into the shop to get some questions answered about mine. I'm lucky that I'm so close.

As an observation from my part, and I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that there was not consistent record keeping on the basses throughout the years. They've moved the location of the serial #s on the basses a few times and the style of the #s and, though the basses didn't change much, the model names changed a few times over the years. It makes it hard to keep up with all of the variations. JD knew the history on mine when he saw it and didn't have to look up the serial. Also, FWIW over the years, just about every time I was in the shop there was a different (new) person at the counter looking up/entering information in their system.
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100% true...they have little to no record keeping on the basses. Models are constantly chaging. I think this is the reason they have horrible resale value. There is no easy way to value them because the models keep changing.

How they do the electronics, wiring etc has changed many times. They have had so many different people doing the installation and setup of electronics that there has been no consistency.

Like Bardley said, if you get a chance to actually get in the shop, they may be helpful. If you can get JD to actually give you 30 seconds of his time, he can usually tell you what you have.
 
#175
You're right about the resale values. I have an Alembic with a similar problem.

If you get a Lakland, you know exactly what you're going to get, but I've seen many, many variations on my Elan and who knows what exactly what I'd get if I couldn't play it first. And, when you're talking about major bucks to get the opportunity to find out, better safe than sorry.
 
#176
+1 on the inconsistency of workers. I've known a few people that have worked there doing various jobs over the years. I've heard a rumor that for a while some years back they didn't have a master luthier working. I have no way to confirm that, but it makes sense given that there were some real lemons that went out years ago. Actually, JD's original business partner, Bruce Bennett is still around here working. He worked for Tobias during the Gibson change over era. Bruce said he designed the Warrior bass shape from a friend's concept drawing for a custom bass Bruce was asked to build. Bruce and JD had a falling out and Bruce moved his shop across the street. He's done some incredible work on a friend's bass as well as a few of mine over the years. He had the original Warrior prototype body in his shop. It was a thin mahogany bolt-on body with the older sharp corners in a trans red. It was never finished and they went with neck-thru designs.
I'm not sure how accurate all of that is, but it all fits the time line. Bruce is a nice guy and is known for Bruce Bennett Music Labs and his Brown Sound pedal.

I think there were some real problems just after he left. I'm not sure. I've never really asked.
 
#177
play4zero said:
Thanks for all the help. When the factory doesn't come through, all the more important that the users help one another out with their own knowledge base. As soon as I run this through my tech, I'll post what he found just in case someone else has a similar problem.
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True, and if you want, you can take a macro picture of your elex cavity and I can at least tell you if you have the same (IMHO stupid) circuit I did.
 
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