warwickhunt

Adee 'popped' up to Northumberland to buy my Sandberg and a thoroughly nice chap he is to! Cheers Adee, enjoy the Lionel.

I occasionally use my preamp pedal into the effects return or 'pre-in' of a (shared) bass amp thereby utilising it purely as a power amp, I can then take out the anomalies of the bass amp preamps... the speakers are a whole other thing! LOL You could try the SB1 like this and see if the impedance differential makes much difference from the Sumo.

It could be the level going to the power amp (Sumo), it might be the output form the Sumo is inefficient, potentially it could be the speaker inefficiency or simply lack of displacement. Personally I'd see if you can trial the replacement of one of the 3 components... possibly try a different preamp/DI first. If the issue isn't the preamp I'd be wondering if the speakers are giving you enough of what you want.

I don't think going through BD will necessarily make getting an identical bass cheaper! They still have to pay the taxes but also need to make a bit of profit themselves... unless Marusz will give them a healthy discount for a custom order?

@wateroftyne any idea on how it stands now?

Not forgetting any song that might include a drone note on an open string; I regularly play rock/pop songs that rely on a drone.

How does the guitarist manage this? Personally if 90% of songs are played as per recorded but the guitar/bass tuned down a 1/2 step (i.e. bass player in the original band plays in the key of G, you play your G but it will sound F#), I'd go with that and then play the 2 or 3 other songs up a semitone (original is G but you are hearing F# when fingering G and they actually want G... play G# and associated notes). That sounds harder to explain than it is to do! LOL

I've got a pup fixed (removable in 30 seconds) to my DB which NEVER sees the light of day, you're more than welcome to take it off/away and play with it for a day/week/month... Coffee always on stand by.

Hmmmm. In what way does that CoA differentiate between 'that' set of strings and the other 42 packs of identical strings he has in his possession? There's a mug born every day but equally there's a chancer born every week!

Bloody great venue/crowd if that is how it is on any other week.

Superb gig at The Bungalow in Paisley (Glasgow) for INXS UK. Great venue, staff who know their stuff (esp the engineer SJ) and 'fans' who were absolutely busting it. WhatsApp Video 2025-03-16 at 12.05.04.mp4

You can buy a footswitch that when depressed cuts the vocal mic to FOH but can still transmit to all/any IE. Not sure what you call them but our band leader had one; he could step on the switch mid song and let us know if we were going to change next song etc.

As @Chienmortbb says you can select a preset and then open it and see what the EQ shape etc is doing. There's generally nothing radical, just obvious cuts/boosts for the given timbre of instrument or voice.

The overall outline is the same... Warwick copied it! I do find that 80's Streamers are slimmer and whenever I play a Spector it feels like a Warwick that has eaten a few pies. <edit> Reread and I see that you mean the bodies ARE the similarity. I find that the Warwick MEC are a bit punchier but tighter / defined than Spector; the Spector Tonepump can go 'BIG' but sometimes a bit too overpowering.

TBH I've never tried flat EQ on my CQ12, I just used the various presets and they've been pretty close to what is needed. I did need to fiddle quite a bit with an acoustic guitar preset as it was far too nasal but that was likely down to that particular electro-acoustic onboard preamp.

Necks are generally fuller than many basses, the Doug Wimbish model is slimmed down. I've owned US and Czech basses and for the money I'd not buy a USA over a Czech bass; preamp can be changed which is essentially the main difference (nicer figured woods on USA). The Warwick Streamer Stage I is a very similar bass, have you considered trying them both?

Ditto! I have to say that my Creme Lionel VS4 (active/passive) is a superb bass and when I was exclusively playing shorties it ousted my Acinonyx, Longhorn, Hofner Club and JMJ Mustang basses. I'm finding however that I've reverted back to my long scale Streamer or regular Sandberg VS for gigs and none of my shorties are getting any use, so likely time to move some on... will I still keep the Lionel 'just in case'! LOL

...and no body so far has mentioned Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick?

For me it isn't so much the sustain in itself that matters but I have found that basses that lack sustain can also be muddy/indistinct in (over)tone.

My understanding was that it was the resonance of the whole instrument. HOWEVER... that is a whole can of worms explored on every guitar/bass forum ever! Does an amplified instrument need to have any particular properties to sound good/better than another. I certainly think that one of my 4 Sandbergs just feels intrinsically nicer to play (taking strings out of the equation and all set up similar by me) and it likely has the best amplified tone... but am I un/subconsciously playing it different because it 'feels' different? I do know that I've had dozens of vintage Warwick Streamer basses through my hands and some have been better than others; I have a 91 bass at present that I'll not sell on because the amplified tone is like no other.

I have 4 of them (2 long scale, 2 short scale Lionels) and they are superb BUT with 45 years of playing / owning a lot of basses I'd never assume that because 1 (or 4) were great, that they'd all be the equal. I have a vivid memory from maybe 30 years ago of talking to a friend who was the manager of a large retail store and he was describing how he assisted in the unboxing of instruments from a large manufacturer; of 20 USA guitars he might have played unamplified each time, there'd likely be one you felt was great, the rest ranged from 'Meh' to awful. He felt that if an instrument didn't work for you unamplified then there was no point plugging it in.