It was a nice idea...

[avionix543]

Well guys... I got some bad news today. It seems that after initailly agreeing to build my CS Infinity on Friday, the Custom Shop changed their mind this morning and said they can't build it afterall. So, after some serious thought about the situation, I decided I couldn't compromise on what I thought my sound should be and have chosen not to pursue it any farther. Instead, I'm recovering a long-lost gem from years ago and have picked up a Thumb BO5 just like my first Warwick way back when. Maybe next time, eh? ~M~

 

[Ian]

How come ? What specs do they not like ?

 

[avionix543]

The body was going to be bubinga pommele with macassar ebony top. They told DBG they'd only do an ash body. Not exactly the same as bubinga, imo.

 

[Grgzilla]

Better to have loved & lost than,naaa,that's a crock.
I'd rather have a Streamette,Infity SN & a Thumb BO anyway,wait a second,that's what ya have now Mick. :shock: :wink:

 

[LX]

makkasar.....one day i will have a makassar thumb nt!!

 

[Grgzilla]

makkasar.....one day i will have a makassar thumb nt!!

Not with a bubinga body under that macassar ebony top ya wont. :wink: j/k.

 

[M Maverick]

Well Warwick is changing many things as of 2007. Maybe then it will be possible to build a bass with a Bubinga Pommele body and a different top. I would write to them again. Most of the time they reply "not possible at this time". You might want to ask them when it will be possible. Too bad though, I would have loved to see that bass.

 

[avionix543]

Me too... ~M~

 

[Vinnie]

:cry: :cry:

 

[sethsbase]

Consider this; an alarming number of people choose the woods for their ideal custom bass based on how they think the woods will LOOK. I'm not saying you did this, but I am saying a lot of people do...

The custom shop is very concerned with how their products will SOUND, and part of that is using wood combinations that make sense... hard woods combining with softer woods for balance of tone.

Combining Ebony with Bubinga Pommele, while it would LOOK exotic, would be a bass utterly devoid of usable tone... it would be very strident-sounding, and it would have nearly NO low end to it. Imagine sucking even MORE low end out of a thumb bass. It would be a table with strings. Ebony is hard, heavy, and RARE. The custom shop guys probably looked at your order and said, "there is no way this bass will sound good, and we won't put the Warwick name on it if we don't think it will sound good".

Having hung out with these guys, I think this is what happened. And in my humble opinion, I think I agree with them. No offense meant in any way.

 

[odominguez]

Consider this; an alarming number of people choose the woods for their ideal custom bass based on how they think the woods will LOOK. I'm not saying you did this, but I am saying a lot of people do...

The custom shop is very concerned with how their products will SOUND, and part of that is using wood combinations that make sense... hard woods combining with softer woods for balance of tone.

Combining Ebony with Bubinga Pommele, while it would LOOK exotic, would be a bass utterly devoid of usable tone... it would be very strident-sounding, and it would have nearly NO low end to it. Imagine sucking even MORE low end out of a thumb bass. It would be a table with strings. Ebony is hard, heavy, and RARE. The custom shop guys probably looked at your order and said, "there is no way this bass will sound good, and we won't put the Warwick name on it if we don't think it will sound good".

Having hung out with these guys, I think this is what happened. And in my humble opinion, I think I agree with them. No offense meant in any way.

I couldn't have said it better myself Seth.

 

[Ian]

Seth, what you describe is only for a potential bubinga body with ebony top, right?

Cause my CS bass will probably have a bubinga pommelé body with an ebony fretboard... I don't want it to be devoid of low-end ! :shock:

 

[avionix543]

Consider this; an alarming number of people choose the woods for their ideal custom bass based on how they think the woods will LOOK. I'm not saying you did this, but I am saying a lot of people do...

The custom shop is very concerned with how their products will SOUND, and part of that is using wood combinations that make sense... hard woods combining with softer woods for balance of tone.

Combining Ebony with Bubinga Pommele, while it would LOOK exotic, would be a bass utterly devoid of usable tone... it would be very strident-sounding, and it would have nearly NO low end to it. Imagine sucking even MORE low end out of a thumb bass. It would be a table with strings. Ebony is hard, heavy, and RARE. The custom shop guys probably looked at your order and said, "there is no way this bass will sound good, and we won't put the Warwick name on it if we don't think it will sound good".

Having hung out with these guys, I think this is what happened. And in my humble opinion, I think I agree with them. No offense meant in any way.

I couldn't have said it better myself Seth.

What a revelation! I distinctly remember discussing this project with both of you before I placed the order and heard nothing of your opinions. I fully accept the logic of your argument in that I don't know everything about building basses and the CS crew has the upper hand in that matter. I also accept and admit that this project was 50/50 looks and sound. However, given that I came to you both with questions about the feasibility and practicality of the bass, I would have appreciated your honest opinions at that time moreso than after the fact. Considering that my experience in getting information out of the Custom Shop is akin to extracting blood from a stone and once I did get the answer, all it said was, "NO", I have to ask - no offense intended - are you posting here primarily to inform, or primarily to sell? If the honest opinion comes out only after the sale is negated, then the opinions expressed beforehand weren't necessarily genuine, imo. FYI- Integrity is very important to me, gentlemen, in fact primary to my decisions about which organisations I conduct business with currently and in the future. ~M~

 

[odominguez]

Consider this; an alarming number of people choose the woods for their ideal custom bass based on how they think the woods will LOOK. I'm not saying you did this, but I am saying a lot of people do...

The custom shop is very concerned with how their products will SOUND, and part of that is using wood combinations that make sense... hard woods combining with softer woods for balance of tone.

Combining Ebony with Bubinga Pommele, while it would LOOK exotic, would be a bass utterly devoid of usable tone... it would be very strident-sounding, and it would have nearly NO low end to it. Imagine sucking even MORE low end out of a thumb bass. It would be a table with strings. Ebony is hard, heavy, and RARE. The custom shop guys probably looked at your order and said, "there is no way this bass will sound good, and we won't put the Warwick name on it if we don't think it will sound good".

Having hung out with these guys, I think this is what happened. And in my humble opinion, I think I agree with them. No offense meant in any way.

I couldn't have said it better myself Seth.

What a revelation! I distinctly remember discussing this project with both of you before I placed the order and heard nothing of your opinions. I fully accept the logic of your argument in that I don't know everything about building basses and the CS crew has the upper hand in that matter. I also accept and admit that this project was 50/50 looks and sound. However, given that I came to you both with questions about the feasibility and practicality of the bass, I would have appreciated your honest opinions at that time moreso than after the fact. Considering that my experience in getting information out of the Custom Shop is akin to extracting blood from a stone and once I did get the answer, all it said was, "NO", I have to ask - no offense intended - are you posting here primarily to inform, or primarily to sell? If the honest opinion comes out only after the sale is negated, then the opinions expressed beforehand weren't necessarily genuine, imo. FYI- Integrity is very important to me, gentlemen, in fact primary to my decisions about which organisations I conduct business with currently and in the future. ~M~

That's a valid point. When someone comes to me asking me if a wood combinationis possible, all I can say is "Yes, we have them, and I will send those specs to the custom shop to see what they say. Or no, we don't have those woods." And maybe, in the case of this instruments, you were looking for that kind of sound. Normally, I try not to judge someone's ideas when it comes to creating a custom shop instrument. I never said anything about the sound of the instrument, all that I sent you through private messages was that I was gonna send those specifications to the custom shop to check with them what features were possible and which were not possible for us to do at the time.

My job here is to make sure no one's questions gets lost and stays without an answer. In this case, as much as I may know about wood combinations and how they sound, the luthiers in Germany are the ones who decide which instruments are a valid creation. Sometimes I don't know exactly who two woods are going to sound together and that's when this happens, I sent those specs to the custom shop and got the same answer that you got.

When I agreed to Seth's post, that's what I referring to: the fact that the people at the custom shop normally have a reason as to why not to develop an instrument, and considering how experienced they are, we should trust their judgement.

If for any reason you feel offended in any way by my previous post, I apologize, since that was not the reason why wrote it.

 

[sethsbase]

First, some information:

Bubinga, Ebony, Afzalia, Cocobolo, Ovangkol, Wenge, Rosewood; these are some more dense woods that project a lot of tight, focused, high mids; the "sharper" sounding woods. Warwick has made a reputation by including these woods somewhere in the construction of most of their basses. Cherry is another somewhat dense wood, and used to appear more in Warwicks.

Maple and Walnut are pretty balanced woods... they put out a fairly even range of sound (consider the popularity of maple).

Swamp Ash, Poplar, and Alder are probably the most common of the not-so-dense woods; these woods are more porous; they trap low-end and low-mid frequencies, and they have more of a "boom" or "rumble" to them. They sound "fat", and don't have a lot of definition.

Consider this: the Thumb BO has the following specs:

Body: Ovangkol
Neck: Ovangkol
Fingerboard: Wenge

you know what it sounds like.

The 2006 Limited Edition "Dirty Blonde" Thumb BO has THESE specs:

Body: Swamp Ash with a Poplar top
Neck: Maple
Fingerboard: Ebony

I can't think of two basses that sound more different. Speaking just from the perspective of the woods, the Thumb is engineered to project a ton of midrange, while the woods for the Dirty Blonde have been selected to naturally SCOOP most of the midrange out; the Ash/Poplar combo provides big, fat, boomy low end, while the maple/ebony neck adds some top-end snap. It's a very "clean"sounding bass, with almost NONE of (oh, I'm going to say it...) "that Warwick Growl". I call the Dirty Blonde the "Warwick for people who hate Warwicks".

Anyway, when selecting woods for your bass, you want to pick woods that COMPLIMENT each other sonically, then consider factors like looks, weight, and cost.

Now, on a more personal note, Mike... I've gone back through our correspondence, and nowhere in any of it did you mention your preferred choices for woods. All we talked about were twin J pickups and piezo pickups. I'm sorry if you feel slighted, but I really was trying to help you out to the best of my ability. If you'd asked about woods, I'd have been happy to put in my two cents about that as well.

The custom shop isn't making decisions on a whim, and neither are Ollie and I; there's just a lot to consider.

 

[avionix543]

A 'table with strings' might not be the most tactful way to refer to the sonic characteristics of someone's idea of the perfect bass, regardless of what it would actually sound like. :? ~M~

 

[odominguez]

I understand your disappointment with how your idea was shut down. I read your private message and I understand all the things you had to go through. We try to give our customers the best information when they're about to buy a new instrument, and I'm sorry that yours stayed just as an idea instead of an actual instrument.

 

[avionix543]

no worries. I've settled up with Seth too so I'd say we're square. I'll be putting the brakes on any further projects til I hear back from DBG about this. ~M~