NickA

I've seen that. Marketing I guess. Bet you'd never tell the difference. Ps:. There's a thread here somewhere in which one of our number went into a Newcastle music store and insisted on trying every precision in the shop from expensive US made all the way to squires. They did NOT buy the most expensive. Try that in Wunjo or the Gallery and you could try all the £1000s costing genuine 60s and 70s models too. Best done blind-fold probaby

In the end, fenders are just planks of wood from a factory. 1970 or 2022, much the same wood, much the same production method and they don't really change with age. They used to reckon that a Stradivarius violin was better than the best modern one, on the basis of 18th century slow grown wood, supposedly higher levels of craftsmanship and some aging property in which evaporation of resins and long term subjection to vibration somehow improved the wood. But in blind tests no one can tell the difference. None of which applies to a 70s fender anyway - just not old enough surely. Buy a high end fender copy from the likes of Sadowski or Sandberg. I'd include Iimelight but their quality control seems poor; some of their brand new instruments are badly scratched and dented. 😉 Dons tin hat.

Don't. Anchor thumb and use different fingers to get different notes. Move thumb when you run out of fingers ... or anticipate running out of fingers further on in the tune. Whilst many famous bass players have made a living out of shifting their whole hand up and down ( aka the "bunch of bananas" technique ) it's seriously limiting. 124 in the lower positions is a good method and more comfortable than 1f1f ... Just more intellectually challenging!😁 Ps: I've been playing the cello for 51 years .. still hurts.

I was a cellist long before I bought any basses. My dad was a pro cellist so I got free lessons ( and free cellos ) from an early age. It is NOTHING like playing the bass. It feels tiny and there are a million ways of fingering everything. articulation and vibrato are really important. And fifths tuning with 6 semitones to cover with all four fingers ( plus a thumb on occasion) in each pposition I'd advise a teacher .. else you might miss learning all the finger extension ppossibilities one finger one "fret" won't hack it. You might find a good old cello at eg thecelloroom.com. but a Jay Heide or Eastman Chinese made one, set up by a UK dealer ( eg Tim Toft or my local bloke David at Bassbags.co.uk ) would be lower risk. I think 25% of the cello price on a bow is perhaps a bit much once you get a decent cello; my cello ( used to be my mum's ) is about £10k worth, my best bow cost £1300 and I used a £200 one for years. My dad's cello is worth £10ks but he never spent more than £2k on a bow ( but he is from Yorkshire).

Stone fox chase! The sole reason I bought a harmonica and the only thing I can play! In truth I'd hoped to manage Parchman Farm ... But much too hard.

Check out the thread about Kala u basses. Don't exactly look or feel like a double bass and won't get you closer to being able to play one .... But sound wise! Shockingly realistic. I guess it depends on whether you want to sound like a double bass or feel like you're playing one. I tried a stagg and it was ok. Tried an alembic one that was almost in the "uncanny alley" of almost being right. Also played an NXT and, double bass like or not, it was a lovely thing to play.

The John East version of the pick attack is simply a hi pass feed forward from the pickups to the volume stage. However, being Mr East, you can adjust how much of each pickup is fed forward, the hp frequency of the filter and the feed forward gain ! The Wal one is just a simple hp boost I think. My hearing is age compromised enough to prevent me hearing the pick attack on my fretless, but it's clearly doing something (around 5kHz according to my spectrum analyser) and I can hear it on the fretted one.

I asked Vic : Sounds totally different from my MK2. Some heavy eq and/or effects in there .. or is that what it sounds like in the raw? Bright strings part of it I guess. he told me: "SWR head, EBS Multi Comp and Ged 2112. Daddario EXL170s." The "Wal" sound is very setup dependent and that GED 2112 changes the sound quite a bit. But the pro2 sounds good. Certainly not "just" the electronics.

I was in Paul Herman's workshop, just pre Covid, and saw the trays of tiny wound coils ready to be hand assembled into the pickups. Electrical jewelry ... some had gold plated pole pieces, which just seems silly to me. At least eight of those tiny coils in every pickup. They don't exactly knock those out in a chinese factory. PS: I like the sound of the twin pickup pro bass (the lower one) in those clips a lot more than that of the passive pro1 re-issue (the red one). What is the lower bass? A pro2 or a pro2e? That clip in the very original post was a guy called Vic Montello; he had a couple of Wals and used to post on the FB page a lot; that black one is a pro2e, but he plays it though a bank of stuff to make it sound as much as possible like Geddy Lee ... not in my view a very typical Wal sound, but he's very into it (along with weird pro Trump american politics ....... ).

1 2 4 on double bass, up to the octave; then 1 2 3 or thumb 1 2 3. But hand rotations are also used to get an extra semi-tone without moving the thumb (in fact there is a whole alternative double bass technique that uses rotations in every position). Something similar to double bass 124 on electric bass would be a good idea (and recommended by several good on line bass teachers) but electric basses dont have that natural break at the heel of the neck telling you / forcing you to change technique; so I struggle to work out when to change from 124 to 123(4) ... too confusing for my little brain; so one finger per fret all the way up - but I will do a back extension to get an extra semitone in without moving my thumb ... comes from also being a 'cellist, where we have to cover 6 semi-tones per position with only four fingers (tiny scale length) Anyway to the OP, unless you have tiny hands, one finger per fret is simpler because if you try to use double bass 124 technique you will have to change to 123(4) at some point anyway. Stick with it - it's a smaller reach than 124 on a double bass!

Hi Yes I have a mk 1 and a mk 2 (though the mk 2 has 5 strings and hence different pickups to the mk 1). On MY mk2, the bridge pickup is closer to the bridge than on the mk1! Anyway, from the centre of the D-string bridge saddle (which is set to give a perfect octave at fret 12) to the pickup pole piece heads: Bridge pickup lowest: mk1: 45mm . mk2: 40mm Bridge pickup highest mk1: 71mm. mk2: 65mm Neck pickup lowest: mk1: 130mm. mk2: 125mm Neck pickup highest: mk1: 156mm. mk2: 150mm Judging by various mis-alignments on both my Wals, I have a theory that Pete Stevens did a lot of stuff by eye - so every bass could be a bit different! Paul Herman, I think, is micron accurate in his builds. Concerning much earlier queries; I can confirm that both the mk1 (1986) and mk2 (1991) have the same "new" pickup wiring. Ie there is one wire per coil pair arriving in the control cavity. Those "coil pairs" are then summed together for each pickup (with a bit of tone shaping I think, judging by the R and C on the input to the summation op amp) before the signal is send to the filter circuit. I can't read those R & C values and not taking the amps out just to find out .. not today anyway. Finally "switches to allow series/parallel operation (and perhaps single rows of coils, wait and see), and an ACG EQ-01 for the preamp." a) Yes, I sometimes wish my Wals had those switches. Single coil would sound better for harmonics and slap I think (though can't confirm) but surely at the expense of hum. Series parallel? I take it you mean series or parallel connection of the "coil pairs" rather than of the individual poles. The Wal electronics "sum" all the pickup coils together via a buffer circuit, so effectively everything is in series and the coils don't load eachother; you might get a different sound if the coils did load eachother a bit (ie parallel wired before any bufferring / summation), but I can't see that would be a good thing. Different from a Fender where the pickups load eachother and the output is some sort of "average" of both pickups rather than a sum. Presumably you're not planning that level of switchability! b) I have an ACG-eq-01 in a bitsa jazz bass I had made years back (and adapted endlessly). It was supposed to have "elements" of wal-ness about it (it doesn't really). There is a big difference between the Wal and ACG electronics - apart from the ACG being so adjustable it's quite hard to find and replicate the setting you want (hence the new DFM? version). The main thing though is that the Wal electronics soft clip (ie distort a bit) when pushed hard, this is a core Wal tone for me and IMHO key to the sound of the fretless basses. The ACG does not distort at all, until it clips (nastily) .. it is totally linear, so just doesn't do the Wal soft distortion thing. I guess (and it's been discussed at length) that this is due to Wal using ancient lossy op amps from the 70s instead of nice new FET based ones!! Good luck.

My word. Quite a freebie. Have to hope the guy who abandoned it doesn't read basschat. Lots in common between Travis beans and Kramer's: "Kramer and Bean parted ways in 1975, with the former starting Kramer Guitars. The first series of Kramer guitars were redesigned aluminum-necked instruments but utilizing wooden inserts along the back of the neck to cut down on weight and provide a more traditional feel; these modifications also avoided patent infringement of Travis Bean's original neck design" If it was a Travis bean it would be worth £5k. As it's the Kramer "not a copy honest guv" must still be worth £1k or more.

The East electronics will work with any pickups, the sound you get is exactly what the pickups make - no deliberate shaping, distortion or other colouration. My delanos are pretty high output and I only get clipping if the 9V battery is going flat. John East says you can use 18v power if you need more headroom. About pickups ... There are so many out there it's impossible to choose. I've only long term experience of: Kent Armstrong = rich and dark. Delano's = bright and punchy, bit brash. MEC = rather thin, need a bass and treble boost. Wal = unobtainable! Tried a few at bassbashes notably, Sims = ok, nothing special, but highly configurable. EMG = clear and clean. And these (I think) which were amazing https://www.riograndepickups.com/thunderbass-bridge Good reports of nordstrand blades and bassculture WalBuckers https://hotwire-bass.de/hotwire-pickups-en from people trying to build Wal clones. If you wanted that Fat, rich, punchy humbucker sound. There are lots of sound clips on the Thoman website, from which I chose the Delano's for my jazz bass ( but hadn't tried the Rio Grande thunders back then).

Lots of people love Bart's; I find them rich but a bit dull and free of sparkle. Plus one for East electronics. Sound aside, they'e beautifully made and easy to install and adjust.

I know. I could have afforded one at £250 in 1984, but was itching for a "custom" like Mick Karn's, and those were beyond reach at £750 ( and even at £500 2nd hand I'd have needed a bank loan). It was 1998 before I landed a custom .. could have been playing a pro1 for 14 years.

Must admit, I very rarely use the pull out eq or "pick attack" knobs on mine - just for messing about really. But presumably the buffering of the pickups and the active pickup mixing help the tone a bit. less with modern high impedance amps and less of an issue when you only have the one pickup. Plus the active low pass filtering has more roll off I think. Be good to have a head to head comparison.

Yes. It will be fine. The issue with cabs / combos is that the bass notes push the speaker cone further than its designed to go. Amps themselves, especially pre-amps, no problems.

Highest price ive seen for a pro1 was £3900 but that was a slab body reissue one, this is an original pro1, so worth more, but fretless so worth less. Also neck pickup where most of the reissues have a bridge pickup and hence sound "more Wal". Fretless tend to sell slower and cost less, but it's not a huge job to add frets ( vandalism though it is imho ), shouldn't knock more than £500 off the price. £2600 +25% = £3250. Probably a fair enough price. Someone will now try to flip it at £5000 plus on the basis of the Wal sticker. That neck btw:. Having consulted my Wal pals ... It's from an early wal pro bass, so from a different and older bass. Apparently people used to buy them with two necks ( fretted and fretless ) so there are a few knocking about.

and you can slip one in your back pocket to boot.

Played with a bloke playing a hollow fretted Kala u bass with the rubber strings on the other week. It sounded "nearly" like a double bass ..much more than a fretless electric bass does. It genuinely did sound like a real one except when compared to my real real one, upon which the difference was immediately apparent. But given the difference in price, size, effort to play, it was quite upsettingly decent. Had a go playing it ... flummoxed by the teeny weeny scale length and miniscule distance between frets. But I'm used to full scale electrics and a 4/4 dB. Visual impact is a bit odd in a jazz band.

Congrats. The core Wal tone is there in that one pickup. Check out Geert Maesschalk's posts on the "Wal lovers of the world" Facebook page. Plus many iconic Wal bass lines (early Percy Jones for instance) were laid down with an ash bodied pro bass. Nice maple facings too. Shame about the thumb rest. So, pray tell .. how much does a passive pro 1 reissue Wal cost these days? ( They were £250 on Denmark St in 1984, but one sold in the states via reverb for £3900 recently ).

Bargain of sorts. Bloke in the states just coughed up $11900, plus import duty, for a MK2 off ebay Madness. One pickup is likely all you need for the classic Wal sound, but I use the neck pickup more and more on mine. The subject of this thread is also weird in that it's solid walnut, not the usual mahogany plus fancy face wood.

Mine only suffers feedback if I do up my " sound clamp" pickup too tightly (too much pickup gain, I think). The pjb combos are pretty directional and "non-boomy" too which helps. I guess the other option is a phase reverser ( built into lots of dB specific amps .. but not mine); not needed one so far. But yes there are sometimes non bass sounds coming through the bass amp ... that huge front picks up quite a bit of the other instruments.