In the Beginning

I learnt on, and am still playing, a loaner Yamaha BB300 4-string. Don't get me wrong, this is a very nice P-bass to start out on, and has met every (limited) challenge thrown at it in the time I've had the pleasure of it's company, yet there comes a time when your bass playing horizons start to widen.

I am fortunate to be allowed to play in our church band where we are covering a wide range of styles, from traditional rock/pop to funk, reggae, C&W and R&B. Playing with musicians of a high standard really lifts your own level.

For quite a while I had been thinking of taking the step up to a 5-string bass. For a very long time I had my heart set on a Warwick Corvette $$. Two features attracted me to the $$. The first is the use of fabulous woods in the construction. The second reason, the tonal range achieved through blending the humbucking pickups.

After much searching, both locally in Australia and offshore, I finally came to the realisation that this instrument was way out of my reach. To get the combinations I wanted would have been prohibitively expensive. So I started looking around at kits. It was then that I stumbled upon Warmoth and discovered that I might be able to achieve an instrument that not only my heart desires, but my head is prepared to pay for.

The words on the forums were overwhelmingly positive, about Warmoth’s product, so I thought, in the words of one of the great philosophers of our time, Jeremy Clarkson (look him up!), “How hard can it be?”