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NickA

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  1. Lots of bells and whistles for £320!
  2. These are over £5k new...and they don't worsen with age. Not sure if this is a "Panormo" or a "101" model, but £5300 at bassbags anyway. I had a play on one in Tim Tofts and was quite impressed; even toned and easy to play. An old European bass would have more character perhaps, but with this you'd get no maintenance issues and a known quantity. Whatever, £3.5k is a bargain and a massive step up if you're currently playing a laminated bass. Basses etc do take ages to sell privately. I currently have a cello to sell and it's been on musical chairs for 4months at 75% of the dealer price ...and almost no interest. Patience! ... or get a dealier to sell it on commission.
  3. Maybe not the right thread. Try the "Wal Lovers of the World" Facebook pages, someone there will have a pro2 or pro2e ( whichever yours is) and be able to read the part number. Or ask Paul at Electric Wood; they're really helpful to Wal owners; they've not made a pro2 in decades, but happy to mend them.
  4. But they've ganged up all the coils inside the pickup. Hopefully in series, otherwise the coils will load eachother and rob you of high frequencies. Not Wal like, but likely still pretty good.
  5. I had one on loan from Turners for weeks. I had to pay them £40 for insurance and they kept my own bass for "evaluation" and as security. They were in no rush for me to return it. I got to play it at home and take it to orchestra a few times ... well worth £40. Didn't buy it, the price differential was still too much for the difference in quality.
  6. Excellent. My bass is evidently worth a fortune 😁.
  7. For second hand basses .....it's the wild west out there. There are no rules. Dealers charge what they can get away with. But all prices are negotiable and knowledgeable buyers keep things in check. You try lots, you decide which ones you like and if you're willing to pay the price you can get it for. It's more like buying a house than an electric bass. Unfashionable things (Eflat necks, long scale) / cheaper construction ( flat back, blockless ) / not being pretty ...all bring the price down without affecting the sound. Anything with a "name" does the opposite ..but I guess known builder basses are out your price range anyway ( out of mine!). Rattles and buzzes or distorted fronts are NOT worth saving money on as they cost a fortune to fix. The insurance value is usually the most that a similar one has sold for...ever, plus a bit; so based on the most you'd have to pay for a replacement if it was written off or stolen. Not so far from what you would have to pay a dealer but a lot more than you could sell it for yourself. Dealer mark ups are generally 20% or so. But they will almost always find "work" that needs doing before they can put it in their showroom, "work" being expensive. My big German bass was insurance valued at £7.5k. I've seen apparently similar basses for much less, but having tried some others at dealers, I'd have to go to £10k-£12k to get one I like more than mine....but have only been offered around £5k in px and told it would sell "if brought up to scratch" for £6.5k. Go figure. Excellent post 👍...like the man says, go out and try lots
  8. Mustabin nicked 🙂 my MK1 was £830 from our lgs in 1998.. and it's a bit bashed too. They were out of fashion for quite a while.
  9. It always seemed pointless to me to have two pickups and only one filter for both ...or even one EQ for both...you can tweak the whole bass on the amp. It was one thing that attracted me to Wals and to trying to make my own dual filter amps for a jazz bass since about 1989. Skelf and John East nailed it so I gave up trying 🙂 That clip of an ACG equipped Wal is pretty good. Maybe even better if the poles were buffered and summed ..I guess they're in some series / parallel arrangement as the acg01 only has the one input per pickup That the Wal pre-amp distorts when you play hard is a nice expressive feature, that the ACG 01 doesn't is also good, just different.
  10. I have an acg-eq-01 in a jazz bass ( the dfm wasn't available except in an ACG bass) hoping for the flexibility of a Wal. It's not very Wal like as it's super clean sounding ( plus wrong pickups in the wrong places etc). As for flexibility, oh yes, in spades. A bit too much perhaps, so tweakable it's sometimes hard to get back to a sound I like once I turn one of the 8 knobs. Kind of interested in how my Wal would sound with the ACG amp in it .....
  11. Surely they have their reasons. Maybe they just chose an unfortunate headstock shape and are now too embarassed to change it. Looks like the B will just pop off the nut mid gig ... and every time you tune it you'll be wearing the brass nut away on one side. Here's how to do it properly - straight pull on every string (or would be if Pete had been more careful with cutting the slots in the nut)
  12. The only bass I've tried that had a b string I like is my Mk2 Wal ( though it has other issues that make it less perfect). Mr Chowny told me, at a bass bash, that you can go down to 32.5" and still get a good B ( hence the Chowny nt5 )... He's wrong, it wasn't great. But I'm not sure it's scale length that matters, as stingray and fender 5s have the same scale as the Wal but the b sounds "flobby" ..yet I've heard ( but not played) a few Warwick 5ers that really do sound great all the way down and a medium scale ACG 6 string that sounds great. Get the pickups right and the scale is maybe less important?
  13. Just buy it. Weird looks but superb do almost anything bass. Sonically comparable to a Wal which would be 5x or more the price...just doesn't look as nice. If you don't like it, I'll buy it off you at cost 😉
  14. Setup is a good start, but you reach a ceiling, beyond which a better bass is the only way. At least these days you can check out options on tinterweb whereas back in 1988 when I bought mine there was a lot of phone calling and going round places to find anything. Still be prepped to travel a fair bit tho. You get more bass for your money and more character from used, but also more worries. Nowhere I know near Norwich. Depending on budget... Bassbags in Heanor (twixt derby and Sheffield) good for brand new low end to mid end...plenty of stock up to £7000 or so all impeccably set up plus good (if possibly a little biased towards spending a bit more) advice. No snobbery if you wanted a shiny black bass set up for psychobilly... The double bass rooms in Hastings, good for miscellaneous old basses from very little up to £6k or so. Some lovely stuff, but the setup is maybe not perfect. Also in Hastings is Gallery Strings ( where mine came from in 1988). So a weekend in Hastings has to be on the cards! Also: little dealers, mostly repair but often have nice stuff for sale: Tim Bachelar in Leicester Lawrence Dixon in London Finally: The "big dealers" lots of basses from a few £k to " price on application". They have more than is listed on their websites, so you still have to call ahead. The Contrabass Shoppe in Walton on Thames - big stock; must be very expensive as nothing has a stated price! Thwaites near Watford ( though I went in with a £10k budget and was told most of their stock in that range was out on rental to shows and orchestras!) T&G Martin near Banbury...make superb basses in house and sell quality 2nd hand hand. Total experts, but cagey on stock and prices. Turners near Nottingham... big showroom, big prices. Tim Toft in Stone ( I actually like these people as they have a really good on site workshop) stock not huge tho. Thomann & Cresswell's ...avoid. cheap crap, badly set up.
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