Warwick German Pro series corvette $$?

I had one of the original German $$ models and it was a fantastic bass. I'd avoid the cheaper RockBass/RockBass Pro stuff and look for a used German one, personally. It's a real pity that Warwick's German made instruments have been hiked so massively in price in recent years. They were always a good £1-2000 bass. But suddenly asking double or more is just pure greed. Obviously the workers were having difficulty affording their new BMW's! Shame.

I just had a cruise through Thomann's listings and can't find any of the "Pro" $$ models. Maybe they've been discontinued? All I could find was Pro Series Corvette standards and bublingas.

 

I thought the "pro" series were made in Korea....they sit between the Rockbass and the German ones

 

Warwicks have hiked in price recently because the company decided to move away from the somewhat mass production-esque style of making them they used to have going on to building every instrument pretty much like it was a custom shop bass. I.e. they pretty much want to be boutique again, like they used to in the 80s. Naturally, as the instruments pretty much look exactly as they used to at first glance, Warwick are still having difficulties of convincing people that spending the extra coin is worth it. Not sure if they will ever be able to get away from the reputation they built for themselves in the 90s.

As for the new "Pro Series", it's supposed to replace the Korean Pro Series and supposedly consists of instruments that are largely built in Germany and then shipped to China for the finishing touches. It has been in the making for quite some time and nobody really seems to know when they will actually show up in stores.

 

From what I gather, Warwick were running at a loss for a while. Supply v demand meant their instruments were going to get prohibitively expensive, so they tried to keep their prices as low as possible. Eventually they admitted defeat and shipped production over to China for their Rockbass series. Then they introduced the Pro series, jacked their prices up on the German models, and made them more boutique. They're trying to get back the boutique vibe of the 80's, but they're too big to be a 'small' company with small company prices now.

Maybe that's why they took this whole environmental approach; a) it's good for image, b) it qualifies them for a whole host of German tax breaks and c) they want to ensure that they stay ahead of the pack in terms of innovation. I guess actually caring about the environment must factor in there somewhere but as a legal professional, I tend to be a bit cynical

Essentially, what's happened now is that they've just renamed their standard Made in Germany models as custom shop models (getting a totally 'stock' instrument won't really cost more - adding custom shop options will) and they've moved the prices on the Pro series (which were made in Korea before) up to reflect their relocation. The 'custom shop' models are basically only made to order (just like Music Man and some other manufacturers do) and then you get a whole bunch of extra options to add on if you want.

I'm not sure how the Pro series work now, maybe they opened a new wing of their main plant? Or have absolutely no options available on them?

Anyway, there's an active, developing thread on the Warwick forum about it, with Florin and a couple of other connected people having their say, take a look: http://forum.warwick.de/showthread.php/20138-No-ordinary-German-instruments

The good thing is now I officially own a custom shop bass

 

Florin (Warwick rep/ forum admin/endorsee) has to say this:

So the Pro basses are different due to outsourcing finishing to other shops around there, no fancy woods or other bells and whistles, I'm guessing more straightforward electronics and so forth. Still, they've got a decent price for a German-made bass.

 

So they scrapped the idea of having production of new Pro Series models finished in China? That is actually kind of cool.

I've actually always kind of wondered how much of a pain it must be to ship something to China for having the final steps done and then shipping it back again. :-/