slowburnaz

While one customer that I know of the asked for my pickups in their Octave bass some while ago, he normally puts his own in-house pickups and preamps in them.

What can I say? I like ‘em thicc

That's probably what they're referring to... steel pole pieces and steel "keepers" (chassis?) with magnets charging those, rather than something like Alnico rod magnets as poles. Like Wal did/does with their pickups, as Pete mentioned early on in this thread: It's also how I do mine, with the English voicing versions having the thicker mild steel keepers and ceramic magnets that charge the and the pole screws (Original voicing construction is the same, but with shorter/thinner keepers and magnets, different wind count and wire gauge):

Chris from Turner Pickups here... The "old" pickups were wired internally such that each vertical row of 4 coils were all in series, effectively creating a single "coil" (just made of 4 small ones). Then the 2 rows each had their own pair of leads, so the usual series/parallel options were available, like a normal humbucker. The "new" pickups, which are used in modern Wals (Mk 1, 2, 3), are wired such that the 2 cols under a string are wired in series (RWRP so it's a small humbucker). Each of these coil pairs have their own output, and all of these outputs are buffered and summed in each low pass filter. I make my multicoil pickups in the "new" configuration, my "SEP" variant. I also make a modified version of the "old" configuration that allows for Series, "Standard P", "Reverse P", and Parallel wirings (my "SPPP" variant). The advantage here being that all wirings are humbucking. See below... SEP Variant SPPP Variant

I don’t notice a volume drop in person… I kinda wonder if that’s just a matter of what’s reproducible on YT frequency-wise.

For what it’s worth, here’s a fretless with my pickups and a Lusithand (though these are the coil pair per output versions): Fretless demo starts at around 3:35.

Hope you’re enjoying the pickups! While the pickups with rings will fit into the same route (standard MM shape), they’re physically different in order to accommodate the mounting rings. So, the rings alone aren’t compatible with the pickups that have the MM covers.

Might actually be Grade 1 or Grade 5 (though there's not a huge difference in magnet strength between 5 and 8) ceramics :-)... I'd love to have an actual Wal pickup in my hands that I could tear apart (nicely tear apart.. ;-)) and could get some gauss measurements on those magnets they use. Might be happening soon... working on that.

I just recorded this without the amp sim stuff... just a little compression: https://on.soundcloud.com/TJULR I tend to play with a pretty heavy hand, too.

Some of the grit from the clip I made with the Underhill could partially be coming from the amp simulation. I listed the signal path in the description of the clip on SoundCloud, but essentially it’s this: Bass -> Axe I/O Solo -> Amplitube 4 Bass 1 Complete Rig (all defaults) -> T-Racks 5 White 2A Compressor w/ gain dialed down a bit from default to 30 I typically record clips with this simple setup to give a more “realistic” example of how things will sound for most players who will most likely be running through an amp of some sort. If anyone’s interested, I can also post a similar sample with the amp sim stuff disabled and only the compression on.

Makes you wonder what Wal does currently… Do they have huge stash of those in a secret vault somewhere? 🙂

Heh... so, the "SPPP" variant that this was recorded with is the successor to the "SPSC" variant that Pete has in his Wal-ish. The series and parallel modes are the the same for both variants. The difference is in the other available switching options: the SPSC variant allowed for choosing either single row of 4 coils to effectively make a "single coil". The SPPP variant allows for either a "standard P" or "reverse P" option... think neck-side E and A coils in series with the bridge-side D and G coils (or vice versa). This clip was all in series mode.

Maybe, maybe not. I know of a service that will place surface mounted parts for you, as well as make your PCB boards, for a pretty darn reasonable price.

If you really want pickup details... I mean if you really want them, there's always this option: https://reverb.com/item/66243723-wal-bass-pickup-pre-1988?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=66243723&fbclid=IwAR34zp3dIF8vOvh9buvRim_EEVM1FiK9UxoIMU6ox6VvM28Ft2ikQgPocJA 😬😬🤑

I believe that the string-to-string spacing at the bridge is 18mm, rather than the 19mm you have listed here.