Bass Gear Review

Reviewer	Rick B
Experience	7 years
Email	rick5slick@aol.com
Review date	August 14 2003
Manufacturer	Warrior
Model	Armed Soldier
Price	2470, I paid $1500
Item owned for	1-6 months

Bass type	5 string fretted
Neck join	Bolt-On
Neck construction	3 piece Flame Maple/Purpleheart/Flame Maple
Fingerboard	Ebony, 24 frets, 34" scale
Body	1 piece Swamp ash.
Finish	See through Purpleheart finish (mixture of deep purple and deep red)

Pickups	2 Bartolini soapbars
Hardware	Gotoh tuners, Black finish
Electronics	3 band, semi parametric mids

WOW! This bass is amazing. I recently went around and spent about 130 hours playing all the high end instruments I could get my hands on in every music store I could get to. I really like the Pedullas, Modulus, some Warwicks, and a few other basses. I had heard about Warrior in the Victor Wooten chat room. I called up the company and asked to speak to someone about purchasing a bass, I was then transferred to the owner of the company (wow). We talked and he said that he had one from the Winter NAMM show that he would give me a good deal on if I wanted it (they sell for $2470 and he sold me it for $1500). He told me that if I didn't like it he would let me send it back and he'd build me one for just a little bit more depending on what else I wanted (we never decided on how much more it would be). I got the bass almost a month ago and WOW! This baby is soooo beautiful. Then I grabbed it and started playing, the action is the lowest I've ever seen. That combined with the shallow neck and the just right string spacing made it the easiest bass I've ever played, heck I gained a little speed just because of it. Now the test, I went and plugged it into a cheap Peavey half-stack and whoa. With the amp flat the sound was awesome. If you boost the mids at 500 hz (the middle setting for the mid frequency selector) you could cut through any band. I boosted the bass and oomph talk about bottom. Then just for the heck of it I turned the pan to the bridge pickup dropped the mids and bass all the way and boosted the treble all the way. Suprisingly this bass still sounded good, not brittle at all. I have yet to hear a sound I couldn't get almost exactly off of the bass alone, no need for amp eq. The slap on this bass is awesome but the actioin needs to be raised a little to get it loud enough. This is a tradeoff between ease of fingerstyle and volume of slap. But even once raised the bass is so easy to play. The only sound this bass isn't for is that real grinding Musicman with a pick and an SVT sound. Sounds good but not as raw sounding. Other than that this bass is amazing. My favorite thing about it on the gig is it's lightweight, the bass weighs about as much as my 2 music folders put together. J.D. and Mark are great guys, and Julius (the guy who's there when everyone else is gone) does one hell of a job on the frets.

Construction	100%
(This bass is built by hand and is built with care.)
Appearance	100%
(It is the most beautiful bass and the sword on the 12th fret is great and the
flame maple neck is beautiful)
Playability	100%
(will make anyone faster.)
Sound	98%
(Everything but that grinding MM pick tone, but it is AMAZING!!!!)
Customer Service	100%
(Talk with the owner and a LIFETIME WARRANTY.)
Value	100%
(More than worth the 2470 )
Overall	100%
(Definitely check one out these guys are the best.)