Warwick Streamer 4 Active Dual HB Reviews 4

Color is sort of amber-clear oil finish with chrome hardware. Neck is very dark, a nice contrast with the lighter body wood, which looks like ash but is much heavier than most ash basses. Frets are brass. I use it in small eclectic ensembles where the dual humbuckers [and other elements] produce a deep mellow tone no matter what the control settings might be.

Including a trade-in, it cost a whole pile of Yanqui Greebaques. It's a German Wick, and therefor price is ridiculous ! I got it from Parkway Music, the best music shop around ... owned and run by local players. It's not THEIR fault Wicks are pricey ... they treat you very well !

http://www.parkwaymusic.com

I like that it produces deep tones all across the range ... IOW it has a deep, kinda 'anti-modern' voice. It's also very well balanced on the strap, what with the heavy body and 2+2 headstock. I like th dual acting truss rod cuz I tune DGCF, which results in rather low string tension. Some basses with single acting rods cannot be played at DGCF in the humid season, due to totally zero neck relief at low tension. This one is no problem at all. It's also fairly compact, so it fits any bag or case you you like [for bass]. Finally, I like the covered pole PUs. Later Wicks have bare poles on their humbuckers. At low string tension I sometimes hit the string on the PU, and covered poles don't make the huge noise you get from bare poles.

It's pretty heavy for its size. I'm glad it's not any bigger ! The 2-band MEC EQ uses stacked pots to combine the bass and treble controls. Stacked pots are vulnerable to damage, and I find them awkward to use anyway.

Everything fits right and looks right. It was pretty old when I got it, and it has no problems. Wicks are well made. Not only does it have the dual acting truss rod that allows use of almost any strings at any tuning, but once it's set up it hardly ever need much seasonal tweaking. The neck is made of 3 pieces and is very stable. It's a bolt-on neck, with truss rod access at the top.

If you're lightly built, it may be a poor choice for 4-hour stand-up gigs ... unless your breaks are really loooong .... It manages to be conservaive looking yet offers a complete break from the 'Leo looking' basses, and it has the Olde Skool tone like the old Leo basses, so it's a great alternative. It's prolly not a great ergonomic solution for slapmeisters, cuz it's got a 24 fret neck and not too much space between the neck and the PU's ... but it's a really great fingerstyle ax ... especially if you get to sit down ! I do wish it had a 3-band EQ ... but it's a very effective 2-band. Unfortunately, that means if you boost your mids by cutting BOTH the bass and treble, then you noticeably cut your maximum output. Better to cut at your rig, where you can cut the deep lows but not the low mids. On this 2-band you can't seperate them like that :-( So ... this ax offers cool tone, but it's definitely NOT a control freak's dream. Fortunately, it doesn't require endless knob twiddling to find a fave tone ! Since it plays well, sounds cool, and is reliable, it's worth a '4' [ignoring that it's kinda pricey in the US cuz it's a German import].

Golem rated this unit 4 on 2010-08-30.

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