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Who has WARWICKS with non-MEC pickups?

#161
:hyper: thought i'd give anyone a quick good remedy for improving warwick 2 band active or passive configs w/o modifying your ax: try dunlop's mxr80 direct box (clean channel) plugged into your amp or board. the overide preset position warms up my nt thumb fretted & my fretless corvette basses incredibly plus there is a midrange control to further effectively modify your sound. this is also a great fix for boosting your gain on passive fretless warwicks. (b.t.w. i find the mxr far superior in sound to the sansamp as a direct box. tho many musicians love the sans, i prefer the mxr because it doesn't add a tunnel-like echo which to me falsifies the sound of tubes. also the sans has no mid control.:hiding:)
 
#162
I have a Warwick Corvette passive. Looking for an pickup upgrade and I will like it to stay passive at the moment.

Any good pickup will be a good upgrade for the Stock MEC?

Someone mention delano pickup to me on warwick but i never see a warwick with delano before so not sure will they be good. But I know delano pickup is great because i used them on my P/MM bass.

I was thinking about Duncan Bassline jazz pickup for the corvette? Are they a good replacement?

Some sound clips for the warwick corevette on different pickup will be great.
 
#163
badboy:eyebrow::
i have nordstrand nj4's on my corvette passive fretless which are excellent tho they have no more gain & a little less growl than my original mec's, they do have tighter/cleaner lows & more highs. still i like the original pups plus a dunlop mxr80 best of all because you achieve a lot of gain & clarity & punch across the lows-mids & highs + lose no growl.:D
 
#164
Hey, guys, anyone who may be reading,

I'm kinda new to all this pickup stuff, I understand the basics, but haven't really had too much time to mess around with or had much exposure to too many types of pickups. I've got a Corvette Standard 5-string, with the stock MEC passive pickups. Now, I'm not terribly distraught over the tone, any Warwick sounds great, but I had a bass with actives in it before I got my Vette, and I loved the tone and volume that the actives had.

Can anyone just give me kind of a brief overview of a few of the "better," or more popular pickup types/brands? Which are better suited to this type of music as opposed to this type of music? Which are best for this type of bass, etc etc? I'm in a band that plays mostly metal, a little hardcore/rock type stuff, but mostly metal. And I just want to kind of bring up my tone a bit, make it a little more "crisp" is the way I describe it. Keep that low end, but put a little more bite into it, more highs and whatnot, you guys know what I mean.

Thanks in advance.
 
#165
Hey guys I have a 1998 Warwick Thumb Bolt On and I was just wondering how I can add more versatility in my Wick'? Should I change the preamp or pickups?
If so, what kind of preamp or pickups? I still would like to have the famous Warwick growl, but still have versatility. I was thinking maybe an Aguilar preamp would do. I've been hearing different things like EMG's are good,they suck, they sound pretty much the same as MEC's, and I've heard the same thing with Bartolini and Basslines.

Help would greatly be appreciated.:)
 
#167
The_Orlonater said:
Hey guys I have a 1998 Warwick Thumb Bolt On and I was just wondering how I can add more versatility in my Wick'? Should I change the preamp or pickups?
If so, what kind of preamp or pickups? I still would like to have the famous Warwick growl, but still have versatility. I was thinking maybe an Aguilar preamp would do. I've been hearing different things like EMG's are good,they suck, they sound pretty much the same as MEC's, and I've heard the same thing with Bartolini and Basslines.

Help would greatly be appreciated.:)
Click to expand...

Last year, I had the tech at my local Guitar Center install EMG's BQC-Controls in my 2000 Thumb 5 Bolt-on. I was going to have him install MEC's 3-band preamp, but he suggested EMG. His reasons were that the EMG preamp was substantially less expensive, quiet and offers more versatile tone shaping. WAS HE EVER SO ON THE MONEY!!!! THE DIFFERENCE IS BEYOND NIGHT AND DAY!! I HAVEN'T EVEN SCRATCHED THE SURFACE IN FINDING THE NUMBER OF TONES AVAILABLE!! The major features of the BQC-Controls are the variable mid control and the adjustable high frequency cross-over controls. I am still using the MEC pickups. Again, the transformation is beyond words!!



A Groove is a Terrible Thing to Waste! :cool:
 
#168
The quickest way to change the sound of a Wick for the better is to take out the preamp first and replace it with an Aguilar, SD, EMG, etc...

You will not lose your growl, but rather get more of it. I like SD for rock, but never tried anything else.
 
#169
I put Bartolini dual - inline coil J's and a Bartolini 3-band 18V preamp in my Thumb NT.

Here are the reasons why:

  • While I feel the MEC are a more aggressive pickup, the Bartolini is a more natural sounding pup, yet maintains the growl of the woods used.

  • The Bartolini is passive vs. the active MEC, which requires a battery at all times. The MEC active is an "enhanced" tone - it is good at emphasizing the Warwick growl, but to me, active vs. passive is like digital vs. analog...

  • Because the Bartolini pickups I use are dual-inline coils, they are dead quiet - no buzz from lights, etc. Very necessary at my church!

  • The preamp is just as quiet, which I can't say for the MEC pre that was in there originally.

  • The Bartolini pre is very powerful at bringing out the growl when you want that enhanced emphasis - there's even two selectable mid frequencies and you can change capacitor values to really dial in the tone you want...

A word of warning: The bartolini pre has a dual concentric Volume-Volume pot. I prefer to have a Volume-Blend, but AFAIK, only MEC makes a Volume/Blend/Pull Switch pot, so I had to swap the Bartolini pot for the pot that was in my Thumb. Problem is, the value of the MEC pot is 25k, for active pups. This means my Barts in passive mode have way lower output than when I have active mode with the gain trimmer turned up. My solution will be to order the 250k stacked-switching pot from Warwick in Germany.

The other problem: The Warwick knobs won't fit Bartolini (or most other) concentric pots, so I also had to swap out the Tone stack for the MEC, again with wrong value, so I need to replace that one as well...

Sounds like a pain, but do I feel it's worth it? You bet ya! I love my Bartolinis! :D

BTW, I put a 2-band 9V Bartolini pre in my Steamer Std., which has MEC Vintage Humbuckers (passive) and the improvement is incredible - one time I really like the active sound as much as passive!
 
#170
Currently I have an EMG-MMCS in my '89 Streamer Ltd. Edition. The bass had quite a bit of mid-emphasis with the stock Bartolini MM combined with the pickup placement. The MMCS has a bit more lows and highs, and I'm very happy with the tone. I'm running it on 18 V and with the stock EMG volume + tone controls.
 
#175
I recently bought a Corvette Proline (4 string) from ebay and I'm a little surprised by the relatively "dull" tone compared to the Musicman SUB that I sold to get this.

I'm looking for a bit more punch and growl and I'm wondering if changing the pickups or the preamp will help. Since Im short on cash, which would have the greatest effect, changing the preamp or changing the pickups?

As far as pickups go, I've been looking at the Seymour Duncan/Basslines offering but I'm a little confused at the many models they have. I've heard that the AJB model is a great replacement in the Stage Streamer II models so I thought that might be the go. Unfortunately I can only find the 5 string version around. Would this fit a 4 string?

I've also had a read through this thread and the Delano J-style pickups with the big polepieces have me intrigued as I think this would look great on the proline. What are they like sonically? Are they an aggressive pickup?
 
#176
Hey! I've got a SD stc-3a preamp on my streamer stage one V with stock MEC soapbars and it doesn't sound bad. BUT...I have a friend that proposed to trade pickups with me. He has bartolinis in his bass (it's the same bass but from the 90's). Do you think the bartolinis with a SD preamp would be a good match? What should I expect from them? I wouldn't mind a similar tone but a little fatter.
 
#177
I've got a Passive Warwick Corvette Standard and I am planning to change the pickups. I want to keep the bass passive. What do you recommend?

I have been looking at Lollar, Nordstrom, and Delano. What differences will I notice between these? I know the Lollars should get more of a vintage tone. Not as sure what to expect from the various Nordstroms and Delanos available.
 
#179
I have a set of Bartolini J bass 9J1 L/S that I am going to install into my Warwick Thumb BO. I was wondering if I could hook them up to the MEC preamp, or should I get the Bart 2 band pre. I like how quiet my Thumb is right now with the MEC but I was told I would get a much better sound with the Barts. Opinions please.

Thanks

Jason
 
#180
Im sorry to disagree with a few people, i may be wrong, but i feel all this growl in a warwick comes from the pickup placement and not so much the woods..

I've played the expensive thumb 5 NT and the rock bass by warwick basses. Both had that characteristic growl, but the rockbass was made of a maple neck with rosewood or ebony fretboard..!! while the better warwicks use wenge and ovangkol...
 

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