admiralchew

That’s very kind, thanks! I think Darkglass captured a moment and they’re a premium brand just for bassists. They strike me as being like a boutique Boss or MXR in the sense they can be found in a lot of high street stores but have a bit of mystique in comparison to the usual suspects. They do sound good too. I’ve tried most flavours but I still have the Alpha Omicron and ADAM and the Element is invaluable. The Hyper Luminal was a surprisingly good compressor too. Amos Heller does some great demos. Damnation Audio and Nightowl made two of my favourite overdrives too. I’m not sure if they were based on anything or were new circuits. Frost Giant just came out with their Osiris too, which is a new design.

Agree with @itu especially on Iron Ether. Pladask Elektrisk and Montreal Assembly too. In terms of evolutions and build quality, Sushibox FX do good things with tubes and the Origin Effects guys have been killing it with their BassRigs. I’m also a bit fan of everything Josh Broughton touches. He was involved with the Southampton Utility Knife too, I believe, one of my favourite modulators.

I put mine after everything other than reverb and delay. I really like overdrive into a flanger but sometimes also run octave and envelope into it too. The overdrive just gives it more to play with.

Thank you for the kind messages. @NickA Great story about the professional jazz player asking for a go. Did you let them and what did they think? I’m very fond of Warwick basses too but they are different beasts as I’m sure you know very well. The only other bass getting a look-in at the minute is my Streamer. I did check the database and found it invaluable. It’s amazing how many Wals have been refinished and changed over the years. This one is about 20 years old but is in pristine shape (well, until Wal take a look and tell me otherwise). The previous owner(s) definitely seemed to look after it, and I’m grateful for that. A maple MkII 4-string would be lovely but I’m not so much of a Tool fanatic that I can’t see that this has everything I’d look for in a bass. I’ll never play like Justin Chancellor, Geddy Lee or any other celebrity Wal user, so I won’t try to mimic their Wal basses when this lovely bass is out there. Geddy’s jazz may be a different matter though! @TrevorG I don’t really want to talk exact prices but I bought it in December during the same few weeks that I saw four or five other Wals sell through Bass Direct and Bass Bros (typically they’re on Instagram and never even make the website, and were a mix of MkIs, MkIIs, fretted and fretless) and I’ve seen several more go there and elsewhere in the last couple of months. Prices have been around £6,500-£9,500 and this was in that range. Given that even if you’re on the list and can place an order next week you’re looking at about £8,000 for a base model 4-string, for the right bass the used prices aren’t always crazy. I’m not sure I could want a bass more than this so getting my dream bass now for what I considered a reasonable price (for that bass, rather than a comment on whether such sums are every reasonable) seemed a price worth paying.

Thanks very much!

I’d be worried about a dog using it as a big stick!

Yes, too right. Happily I didn’t pay as much as some of the Wals that have been sold recently in the stores so I insured it for its purchase value. It does mean that I’d struggle to get another though. I also have a non-Wal case for it as walking around with a Wal logo seemed like an invitation for trouble.

Mine too. I had to look it up. I’ll be using that a lot now! Thanks all for the kind words in addition to the vocabulary expanding ones.

Haha, that’s not exactly how I would characterise it - I was selling my flat anyway for non-bass-related reasons - but the commitment to the gas is definitely there. Thanks everybody for the kind comments, and to @TrevorR for the endless resources of Wal knowledge!

I’ve not written a new bass day post before but if I don’t do it for this bass I’ll never do it. I sold my flat at the end of 2022 and my partner and I are now renting somewhere together (i.e. a home that could house two people and bass gear) while we save for a new place together. I figured that this is probably the only time I’m likely to have the cash balance to justify acquiring my dream bass (even if only for a while) so I went for it. Shortly before Christmas, I was lucky enough to have my prayers/wanted ad answered by a kind member of this forum and acquired my holy grail bass: Please meet the newest member of the family, a beautiful Wal Mk III 5-string with shedua facings. It’s absolutely thunderous and everything I hoped it would be: the preamp is a dream, the B string has the smoothness of my Warwick Streamer’s mixed with the raw aggression of a Stingray, and the gorgeous tiger-esque facings seem to move in the light. I’m sure like many folks on here, I’m a big fan of Justin Chancellor’s playing with Tool (I tried quite hard to avoid saying I am a big Tool fan/fan of Tool there) and the preamp gets me in the tonal ballpark (my playing is miles away from his though, sadly). While not really on topic for the NBD post, I was lucky enough to bump into Justin Chancellor when Tool were in London last year. I was entirely starstruck and stunned into incapacitation for a short while before recovering my senses enough to ask him if he wouldn’t mind signing a wedding card I was carrying for my brother and his now wife as they met owing to a mutual Iove of the band. He was very gracious and my partner and I seem to take it in turns to wear my/her hoodie that he gave to me at the show. Anyway, back to the post… If you happen to see me posting basses and pedals in the classifieds over the next few months, this is the reason why. A big thanks to those that helped make this happen, particularly @dyerseve and @TrevorR. May you all get your holy grails in 2023!

I bought a Blackstone overdrive from Ander and the whole thing was a breeze. Communication was good (and very pleasant) and the pedal arrived very quickly in the condition expected. I wouldn't hesitate to recommended Ander as a seller (and a seemingly top bloke).

I forgot about the MXR! I think that’s one of the best and better as a flanger than a chorus. It looks nice too. Great song and great tone.

I really like flangers on bass. I’m currently shifting between an ADA PBF Flanger and a Southampton Utility Knife. I know you’re on the lookout for the former (it took me a while to find but they periodically pop up around the £200-250 mark - good luck In snagging one too!) and it is good. It’s got quite range to it (which can make it a little challenging to dial-in) although, perhaps oddly, I often prefer it in guitar mode to bass mode. The Utility Knife is also excellent, having had design input from Josh Broughton from Broughton Audio, but is also unfortunately tricky to find. I’ve also really liked using the Empress Nebulus, which gets into a similar place as the above but the form factor is a little less attractive, and the Jam Ripply Fall. The one that has got the most use though is the Boss. I think Justin Chancellor still uses a Boss flanger and I can’t think of anyone who uses it more effectively than him!

Awesome! I’m interested to hear how this works out. I picked up a Nomad recently and have been impressed. The finish on the pedal looks great!

Good points. I think the cost of living crisis may push more people who have Wals (and who didn’t pay £12k) to sell them so supply may increase some. I think demand will stay pretty constant though (as you say, those in the market to buy at those prices won’t be affected). Good point about the US. A lot of Wals were already going there.

Well, it took me nine months but I’ve tracked down a Crazy Tube Circuits Locomotive! It seems they were discontinued as soon as I expressed an interest in getting one so getting hold of a reasonably priced one was tricky. I ended up picking a new one up from a shop in Athens. I’ve not used it much yet as I’m moving house and almost everything is in a box but it’s got a good amount of drive in it and I like how it thickens up my sound. I’m still on the hunt for a Cog T-70 and R-1 though! 2023 is meant to be a year for saving so I’ll watch this thread with caution!

I’ll add that I guess if the cost of living crisis really ramps up and the market is flooded with Wals, used prices will go down. However, absent that downward pressure, supply is looking likely to lag demand and there would be little reason for prices to drop.

In the last couple of months I’ve seen around a dozen MkIs for sale. About half were through Bass Bros and Bass Direct and they were priced between £7k and £7.5k. All sold bar one at Bass Bros. There are a couple in the UK on eBay for a bit less but it’s more difficult to ascertain the condition and some interested parties may want the perceived assurance from buying through a shop when paying so much. It does suggest a pretty stable level of pricing (I’m discounting non-UK basses here as import VAT and customs mean they’ll be in a price bracket of their own). This makes sense against the background of Wal basses starting around the £7k mark for a new one (I think, based on posts I’ve read elsewhere); even if you are lucky enough to get on the list and are happy to wait four years from then, you’re unlikely to get one cheaper from Wal. So if you really want a Wal, that’s around the starting price unless you get a good deal from someone that paid less for theirs inflation-adjusted and is happy to share their luck. MkIIs are different because there are fewer for sale and seen less often. A new one is priced similarly to a new MkI, I gather, so the asking prices for those of around £9k-£9.5k include a rarity premium. If you want a Wal because of Justin Chancellor then maybe you’d be willing to pay the extra. Also, if you really want a MkII and there aren’t many in the market, then a scarcity thought process may also be that if you don’t buy one of the few now you’ll never see one and never be able to order one if Wal stop taking orders. That may be a cost that someone is happy to pay, particularly if the risk and wait times can be mitigated by paying 20% more against current new prices (or maybe a lower percentage when weighed against the price that would be paid when placing a new order in a year if inflation continues to bite). MkIIIs are similar to MkIIs in that they are seen less rarely. The MKIII fretless 6 at the Bass Gallery is a rarer beast altogether though as six strings hardly ever come up. I’ve only seen that one for sale. If someone really wants a six string Wal, I think that’s the only one for purchase anywhere other than the private market. Given the alternative is waiting for perhaps five years and paying whatever the asking price of a new Wal is then, then £12.5k, while a lot of money for any object, begins to make a bit more sense. I’m not sure collusion is the reason that prices are so high, at least in the case of Wals generally, I just think that current levels of supply and demand and pricing at the workshop have had a real impact. I agree though that, absent continuous inflation, prices aren’t predetermined to forever go up: I suspect some of the demand is driven by fans of Justin Chancellor but, like with other basses, as fans get older and stop playing, demand will drop for basses like his.

There’s another black MkII for a similar price on Reverb too.

It’s worth messaging them to ask. Guillaume was very responsive and kind with his time (he was answering questions such as “can you make my cat please?” after all).

Yeah, I’m definitely happy with it, and not just for the looks. I’ve been on a bit of a drone/doom journey and this has plenty of dirt. The mix knob makes it quite girthy and then the octave up makes it like an all-encompassing wall of noise. The boost then just gives it something a bit extra, a sparkle perhaps, if something so heavy can sparkle. If I recall correctly, it’s based on a 2019 Guptech design, the Death By Unicorn, that was fashioned after the Life Pedal v2. I’ve not played the v2 but the v3 is stellar. I’m in the process of moving so I’ve not had as much chance as I’d like to explore the A(((ole)))‘s but I like it. I haven’t yet been able to dial in a v3 sound but I’m assuming it’s close to the v2 as it’s in the same ballpark. I’m currently preferring it without a cabsim.