Warwick Rockbass Corvette Double Buck

Yesterday I acquired a Warwick Corvette in a trade.

This is a "give it a try" instrument for me. I am not a five string player, I have confined myself to four strings for the past 15 years after a failed experiment.

This bass is well loved. When I got home I have her a good cleaning, restrung her with nickle D'addarios. This is another experiment for me as I have been playing rotosounds for as long as I can remember. They sound pretty good on this bass. It took me a little while to figure out how to adjust the action. I'm still not totally happy with it, but I am confident I can get it to where I want it.

For a Korean made (or maybe China, or Indonesia, or some other place) this bass is very well put together. When I had the strings off, only a few nuts and bolts needed tightening. Other than a scratchy pot, the electronics are in good shape. I am impressed with the pickups. They are loud and I get a nice growl out of them if I dial back the neck pickup just a touch. I am really accustomed to 4 string necks, so moving to a 5 string will take some time. However, this neck is pretty comfortable and doesn't feel like the baseball bat neck I had on my last 5.

Overall I'm impressed. I have a couple of questions for you Warwick fans out there. The volume controls are push/pull- I believe these switch each pick up between series and parallel wiring. Is that correct?

Are Rockbass Corvettes from 2009 made in China?

Is there a tutorial on setting up this style of bass? The bridge on this thing is a monster. I am pretty sure I could get more out this bridge if I knew what I was doing.

If I end up not being a "5 string" guy, I will likely restring this bass EADGC (or maybe EADGB? That seems to make more sense? Opinion?). For now, I'm going to give the 5 a try.

 

Which preamp would you recommmend? Audere?

 

Thanks for passing on that .pdf. That really helped. (Guess I should've googled!)

 

I just spent a few hours with the bass, playing old familiar songs. I am becoming more and more convinced that this bass is amazing. The only draw back is that I am not accustomed to playing a 5 string. However, this is the best sounding 5 string I have ever played. The low B is well defined and isn't lifeless as have heard on other 5 strings.

The bass is set up for a narrower string spacing than my Fender Jag (my #1). I thought that would take some getting used to... But it feels very comfortable.

Why didn't a try a Warwick sooner?

 

I think the one I have is Chinese made. I am not entirely sure how to tell.

I'm not an active pick up guy, but I'm considering the pre amp idea.

 

Once I'm sure this bass is a keeper (which seems likely) I'll explore that preamp. The only question I have in my head is: Can I adjust to 5 string?

 

I've been away from the bass for a few days while I've been visiting family out of town. I've been thinking about scales and chords and how the b string opens up options. This is for a different thread I'm sure, but, I'm curious to see how my playing develops around the "new string".

 

An update (kind of)-

I am slowly adapting to the five string. The low B on this bass is very well defined. This bass is a keeper for sure. I'm still not too sure about adding a preamp, it sounds pretty darn good through my Sansamp BDDI. I have it dialed in with a clean sound. I played it trough a local studios SVT with an 810 and I left with a smile on my face a mile wide. Who knew I would turn into a humbucker guy?