Warwick Distortion After Battery Change

[LeroyRT]

Short story about my German Warwick Corvette. Battery died at the beginning of a gig. Replaced the battery and the bass starts distorting like a perfect overdrive tone. I try a new battery. Same. I try another new battery. Same. Should I try another battery brand? Maybe the Duracell ProCells don't like this bass? I'm kind of at a loss. It happens when I play hard especially on the B and E strings. I can play very light and it comes through clear. It's evident something happened when the last battery gave up the ghost.

I'm sure it's the bass and not anything after that as I've gotten the same result through different setups.

 

[kodiakblair]

You could try bumping it up to 18V. No surgery required


It gets a mention in this thread.

Why did Warwick stop with 18V preamps in Thumbs?

 

[LeroyRT]

Thats a great idea and I might do that...after I get this issue resolved.

 

[mmbongo]

It’s probably fine. Your old battery may have been weak for a long time therefore weakening the output. Now you have a fresh battery and full output and you’re overloading whatever you were plugging your bass into. Roll the volume back a little bit and see if that clears it up. If so this is the issue.

 

[kodiakblair]

.after I get this issue resolved.

Couple of fellas in that Warwick link reported going 18v solved the distortion problem.

 

[LeroyRT]

Thats what baffles me. This is the second time I've changed this battery in 4 years. Gigged with it multiple times a week and now it's a problem? I wanna know what changed and what's now broken. There's no way everything is ok with that bass.

 

[Dave3]

I recently had a distortion problem with either my Warwick Thumb or my amp at a gig. After trying changing cables, amp heads, I figured out it was the bass so I replaced the 9 volt battery. Problem Not resolved.
So after some testing at home I found the answer ---- buy a new batch of 9 volt batteries (check the expiration dates on them) and using a battery from this batch. I think the entire batch of batteries from the first group was bad as in zero or very low "juice". I threw that whole batch out. Problem resolved.