Misdee

The point is that it's all about context. Slap bass can sound great in a song , even when it is very prominent : Without mentioning any names, , it is no coincidence that a lot of high-profile virtuoso players have very limited careers because they can play like demons but they lack the wit and imagination to contextualise their skills effectively in a wider musical context i.e on other peoples songs.

Exactly this. Slap exhibitions are almost always tedious and largely irrelevant. But done well in a musical context it can sound great . There are more examples than you can shake a stick at . As Ubit points out, Freddie Washington's line on Forget Me Nots is a great bass line, and is indeed the hook for the whole track. Here is another more recent slap groove that really works, in my opinion.Nothing fancy but the slap line sounds great and really propels the song :

John Taylor with a Wal Pro on TOTP: Although I remember reading that JT had only borrowed the bass and was not at all keen on it.

I distinctly remember seeing Derek Forbes playing his Wal bass with Propaganda live in concert , but what bass he used on the recordings I have no idea. Anyhow, I think slap bass can sound great. I love a nice bit of slap and I love to do a bit of slapping myself, but I am a bit distraught at how much I have let my own slap chops go to seed a bit in recent years . I have been trying to practice a bit more slapping lately, but quite frankly, it is making me knackered ! I had forgotten ( or never realised) how physically demanding a technique slap can be. I was never Mark King, but by the same token , I was never ready for a cup of tea and a lie down after two songs either. I can feel it in my water that a 1980's revival is just around the corner and if I am right then any self-respecting bass player is going to need to be able to pummel and twang those strings or else get left by the wayside. 🙁 There is good slap and bad slap. In the 70's and 80'S there was a lot of good slap, nowadays less so.

Maybe the BBC should put on an Old Musician Of The Year contest. The winner should be some poor chap in late middle age playing Sultans Of Swing 95% correct on his Fender Strat via video link from his sheltered accommodation . Or someone playing a Jethro Tull medley on a flute whilst balancing on one leg like Ian Anderson and then having a nasty fall and having to use an inhaler.

I use the Diamond BC1 and it is a fabulous bit of kit. I use it on the 9v setting and it copes just fine Makes my bass sound like the ones on my favourite recordings, if that makes sense. I will say that the Diamond is maybe a fairly subtle compressor more for overall tone shaping than aggressive limiting of your signal compared to some other pedals. It all depends what you are after. The Cali 76 and EBS Multicomp are also great choices in terms of tone. Can't go too far wrong with any of those. The opposite end of the spectrum would be something like the MXR M87 , a bit sterile for my taste but lots of control over the actual compression / limiting.

If it helps, the 5 string version has a profile that is fairly un-chunky for a 5 string , if you see what I mean.

I remember playing those basses , sunburst with one passive pickup towards the bridge and little toggle switch. More like a simplified Custom than the original Pro . They were indeed very tasty basses.

The new Wals are proportionately much more expensive than the earlier incarnation, allowing for inflation ect. However, the basses that Paul Herman is building now are of the the very highest quality. I would put them up against the very best available, Fodera, F Bass, whoever. By comparison with similar builders nowadays , Wals prices are o.k. But then again , from another perspective , I remember back in the late 1980's when a Status Graphite Series 2 was a few hundred quid more expensive than a MK1 Wal Custom. The equivalent Status bass is now a few thousand quid cheaper than a MK1 Wal. Status Graphite are also a small independent UK- only manufacturer. What has happened to make Wal basses so much more expensive to make ? Is it rising costs, or bigger profit margins? Or both. Either way is alright with me, by the way. Paul, like anybody else, has the perfect right to charge what he feels his work is worth, the potential customer can decide to pay it or not. The problem for me is that I can't make my mind up what side of the fence I am on regarding this. I am reticent to pay 6 grand for a bass that used to cost the equivalent to £ 2377 in today's money ( including the blue "dogbone" case) back in 1988. But the again I really want one. All the time I keep prevaricating the prices are going up and the wait time is getting longer (so obviously plenty of folks think the price is ok!)

I have never played a 1024x, but I have got a 2024x and it must be said that the neck profile is pretty chunky so the 1024X you tried may well be very similar in profile if not the same. I still find it perfectly playable though, and I have got fairly small hands/short fingers.

I would be hesitant to spend a lot of money on some new "boutique" pickups for a relatively inexpensive bass, and as others have pointed out, the used market is full of bargains. And as Hooky-Lowdown wisely states , don't automatically reject the stock pickups. If you are going to replace them though, don't overlook Fender pickups as an option. Despite the burgeoning market in replacement pickups' implicit suggestion that Fender are somehow inadequate or getting it wrong in some way , I have always found Fender pickups to be very good indeed. Stating the obvious maybe, but they seem to nail that Fender sound pretty well!

Me too. A timeless classic.

I remember seeing the bass player for The Cure playing a Wal Pro bass , and that must be about 40 years ago!

I take your point entirely. On reflection, it would be more appropriate for Paul to do a run of Pro basses and charge more than a standard MK1 Custom , rather than less. I recall that Status Graphite did a run of early -1980's-style basses to mark some anniversary or other a few years ago. If Wal were to follow suit with some Pro basses I bet they would all be sold on pre-order in no time at all. I see why that is very unlikely to happen, though. What I find a bit unsettling in all of this is that the 1980's is now a "vintage" era. How is this possible? That decade was supposed to epitomise modernity. I was young and thin . We had video recorders, walkmans, leg warmers, brass bridges, graphite necks , active electronics. and mass unemployment. How has it come to this? Nowadays I need something as heavy as a vintage Wal to flatten my gut enough to stop the bass pivoting on my belly when I play standing up.😄

I love the fact that Wal have never and hopefully will never start manufacturing a budget model overseas. Lets face it a " budget" UK -made Wal Pro would be 3-4 thousand quid , in all likelihood. That is o.k by me. Didn't Sam Rivers from Limp Bizkit have a Pro - style Custom built a few years back IIRC? I would dearly love a Pro-style bass for so may reasons, not least of all Alan Spenner and Gary Tibbs with Roxy Music. Both were so inspiring to me when I first started playing.

Given the ongoing trend for retro gear, if Wal reissued the Pro Basses they would be fighting customers off with the proverbial unhygienic stick . I know Wal are back-ordered for years already, but maybe they could expand their operation if they had consistent demand for a bass that was slightly simpler to manufacture . I would buy one, that's for sure.

Chiswick has always been choc-a-block with actors and media people in general, still is and probably always will be.

I am really into these early '70'S bass tones, and have been using TI flats on a Fender Precision and 74 Jazz reissue to try and get my own approximation. I had been thinking that buying a valve preamp might be the last piece of the jigsaw, but after reading this thread now I am beginning to wonder if getting a bronze- coloured Ford Granada might be what I need to get the sound I crave.

All just goes to show how a "nasty" sound soloed is necessary to have some cut-through in the final mix.

This isolated bass track sounds pretty "ponky" too, to my ears at least. All the more surprising when you consider that it is LA session ace David Hungate in the early 1980's: Sounds great in the finished track, though.

Dave Richmond is a brilliant bass player, absolutely fantastic. His work with Serge Gainsbourg is especially good: Yes, I know that at least three different bass players claim to have played on this album, but as far as I know, Dave Richmond is the most likely candidate.

Definitely less clicky than the first example, but still some pick-like attack, even if it is fingers. Not dissimilar to Wilton Felder in that respect.

If you listen to the decay of the notes , it sounds like flats to me, especially allowing for the extended frequency range inherent to Alembic basses. Rounds would likely have been much more twangy on that bass. Even allowing for pick/muting technique, it sounds like flats. This example from the same sessions sounds a bit less ambiguous : Alembic were not at all averse to flatwound strings on their basses in this era, and were enthusiastic exponents of Pyramid Gold flats back in their early days . Phil Lesh and also ,I think, Jack Cassidy used flats on their Alembics. Maybe John McVie was still old school enough in the mid-70's to be reluctant to move to roundwounds. I know Chuck Rainey and Willie Weeks, for example, didn't switch to rounds until the early 1980s.

100% pick and flats for John McVie, I'm less sure whether Wilton Felder is using a pick .