NickA

There is really something about being in a row of basses and thumping it out together. That's some fast learning curve you've been on! Glad you're enjoying it! Just back from my own orchestra practice and spent most of the evening counting rests; whilst violins and woodwind screeched through their difficult bits. So looking forward to a jazz session on Wednesday. 😁

Update. We fended off suggestions to to fully restore it or skip it and are paying Bassbags around £350 to fit a decent new 10mm end pin, re-use our spare tail piece and pop the sound post back up, plus other minor things. The orchestra will pay most and the user the remainder. We will fit an old spare set of strings to it ourselves- as Bassbags refused to re-use the Helicore hybrids that lived on my 4/4 for 10 years (one does have a knot in it!) .. that saves us £230 for a new set. Then ... we shall see what manner of beast we really have and whether or not it's worth getting a new bridge and/or strings (a new neck I think not). Got to be better than the 1/2 size B&H plywood thing...... surely. The bassbags recommended solution to our problem was for us to give then £3500 for a nice new bass (an Eastman VB200 I think) which though a bit bland is not a bad bass. They may prove right!! I'm no fan of new Chinese basses, but the Eastman VB503 they have is really rather good; it's also £7500, for which all kinds of good old basses can be had.

I don't doubt it! Does it have special short scale strings? .

I was sorely tempted by one of those Salace basses ( the one that played the theme to the bass chat pod casts in fact). Then tried a Chowny 5 string with a 32.5" scale ( which Mr Chowny said was the shortest you could go with a low B) ... flobby low tension B string, not great. Tried all manner of 5s and could only get on with the full scale ones. How's the acg at the bottom end?

Nice bass. Doesn't sound like a Wal to me. Then again a. Processing and b. Tool don't sound much like they're using a Wal either to me. 😂. Having said which, my Wals do sound quite different from eachother ( frets/ no frets, MK1/mk2, 4-string/ 5 string ) so there's likely a Wal out there that sounds like your stingwal too.

Cut though the mix playing finger style?. Ditch Fender and get a Warwick 😁. ...or anything but a fender. Seriously, brighter, likely round wound, strings. Bit of EQ tweaking; a precision will be just as clear as a Jazz. The jazz will have more tonal variety but no way sound like a p played with a pick.

All great advice above. Just don't buy a "beginner" bass ... They're build a. Cheap and b. For durability ...sound awful and hard to play. My school loaned me a half size Boozey & hawkes plywood thing which put me off playing for 10 years. Buy privately if you can as you will avoid the dealers 10-20%+ mark up. Still, it's also good to go to a dealer and try a few; buying a bass is like buying shoes, some fit some don't... but if you do buy from a dealer be prepared to haggle, their markups often mean there's wiggle room... and that bass you saw on a private sale was pretty good and you might just buy that one .......

Be less like a real Wal then. Most of them are a little wonky. Ps: I find my Wal custom very comfy to play, the mk2 less so. Guess 25 years of familiarity helps. But, yes, the necks seem unecessarily chunky compared to a standard Jazz.

Its definitely old ... and knackered. Could be lovely and I hope it's worth doing up. Too many nice old basses ending up in a skip because the repair cost is greater than the resale price would be once fixed. Not helped by some dealers / luthiers trying to make things perfect, when playable would do fine.

Totally true! I didn't mean to suggest a massive increase in volume simply by adding a bigger amp, jut that a bigger amp might be needed to fully drive bigger speakers! Though the man is right that more cabbage (to make better use of the wattage) may do the trick. When you overdrive a cab, it will distort - too much current going trhough the speaker coil will push the cone beyond it's linear operating point (ie just runs out of room to move) it won't just be quieter than expected but will sound bad too ... though it's the initial "thump" at the start of the note that will get attenuated and bass notes will suffer more than higher frequencies (bass notes move the cones more). However rating in watts is a poor measure of transient handling ability .. so not all 200W cabs are going to be equal. Two 8ohm 200W cabs in parallel will provide a lot more headroom and a better sound than 1x 4 Ohm 200W cab and two 200W 4Ohm cabs in parallel will provide nothing extra (the amp will overload). But also totally true is that a 550W into 4ohm EA doubler and a decent 200W 12" cab really ought to be loud enough for an upright; (my 150W PJB flightcase is NOT lound enough whereas the full 400W flightcase + PB300 is as loud as I've ever needed). Something amiss in the signal path? How ARE those pickups being blended?

For sure it's a bass from Saxony ... but they quote SAXON like it's a brand (like Fender). I was actually in Saxony a few weeks ago .. passing through on the way home from working near Prague. Tried to buy a black coffee in a service station and was told "das haben wir nicht; alles kommt mit milch" ... strange (and irrelevant) but amusing all the same.

How loud do you need ot be? What are you playing and with whom? My 400W PJB rig can be heard over a full symphony orchestra (Christmas Symphonic Rock concert !) and is fine with a drummer, electric gurarist, amplified keyboard and a couple of saxes. Adding more cabs won't increae the volume as the amp wil run out of capability to deliver the current; EA don't seem to support 2Ohm loads so you might damage the amp by trying. Largely I'd agree with downunderwonder, but if you really wnat to be louder, it probably does need a bigger amp - cab efficiency will yield a bit, but it's percentages not whole numbers. NB: the fact that you can manage to drive a 200W 4Ohm cab with a 550W amp at full blast means that the cab manufacturer was conservative in their ratings! Remember that cab ratings are usually based on a continuous sine wave output and the bass gives out a highly variable signal level which might cause the amp output to peak at 550W but with a much lower average power ... hence you can get away with it!

😂😂😂 How very dare you! Bass Direct are not quite in the swing are they. "Saxon" quoted as a brand and a listing of the weight. Surprised they don't mention the neck profile and string spacing 😆. Marks for effort though.

Seems bass direct are determined to get into double basses. And indeed, why not. First the Chinese bass (£3500) and now what claims to be a real genuine nice old bass: https://bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/SAXON_Upright.html Is it really a seven grand bass? If so, what's it doing at bass direct rather than Thwaites, Tofts, Turners etc? Not the first place I'd go double bass shopping, but it seems Tom Martin has had a go at it, so who's to argue.

If so, the low bandwidth of the remaining signal path is filtering it all away. The Wals are totally hiss free (unlike some of my own, high bandwidth, designs which picked up the local taxi firms)

My mk2 was sounding a bit crap yesterday ... Left plugged in and attended a bass bash. Battery was down to 7.9V off load. Still worked, just sounded kind of thuddy. I think the distortion does go up as battery volts go down. For years I cascaded part used batteries into the Wal because I liked the sound. Can't be arsed now so they're both getting new.

That looks kind of ... expensive! So much work gone into it compared to the normal slightly complicated plywood. British version of that Anthony Jackson Fodera? about which they say: "The starting list price for a Anthony Jackson Presentation II is $35,200 and after your $10,000 deposit, you will have a remaining balance of $25,200 plus shipping" ahem.

Well all the very best and hope you keep playing for your own amusement at least. And if we manage another double bass bash one day, please come to listen and advise! Also nice to know I might manage another 22 years! Thread Hijack over!!!