funkle

I used my Stomp again last night at a jazz funk rehearsal. Really glad to hear they have some new synth stuff, could use that for the funk material very happily. What a great unit though, so happy with mine.

Quick update. I have the Lusithand preamp in hand that Nuno sent, very kindly, and will try it out after the ACG. The bass is still with Chris McIntyre and will be probably sorted out next week. I’m impatient to try it out but patience will be rewarded.

Great advice here, mods are really for you only, they hold pretty much zero value for anyone else if it comes to resale time…so if you think you might eventually sell, keep them (having hopefully kept and then replaced the original parts on the bass). An alternative way to look at it is that mods may also commit you more to an instrument.

Lol. Ah well, then you already know which pond to fish in, as it were 😝

Fair enough. No doubt the higher price USA ones have better finishes, hardware, etc. However. Is the cheapest Ray4 bass good enough? Yes, it is…even unmodded…

No, it’s not worth the extra. A modded Ray4 works great for me, and I’ve owned quite a few Stingrays.

Just bought Chris’ G&L L2000e off of him, straightforward communications and he made it easy for me to organise shipping. He dealt gracefully with some niggles afterwards and all in all is a credit to Basschat. Deal with in good confidence!

Bought a Hipshot bridge from them and a very quick and efficient deal with fast postage. Thank you!!

@mhoss32really fascinating. I don’t know how the Lusithand, Jtex, and ACG preamps all exactly compare to the Wal one in terms of the filter cutoff frequency range and the boost/width of boost available on the resonant peak filter for each pickup. It’s not widely advertised info….though you have found out a good deal in your research. I guess I’m about to find out for the ACG. @Kiwi referred to this problem earlier also. I was largely ignorant of this problem when I started out, but am more worried about it now. Though the existence of passive Wals reassures me. I suppose as long as the ACG filter system contains within its range of adjustments the settings I could also get within a Wal Mk 1/2/3, then I should be able to find them. We shall see.

The lower bass was a Pro 2 - passive. The video I posted of Vic was apparently him just through an EBS Comp, and his amp. Nowt else - or so he said in the comments for his video.

Updated the post above in regards to pickup design. It helps to explain why these pickups are so expensive; they are clearly very time intensive.

The hands do matter, hugely. Listen to this guy!!! Passive single pickup Pro. https://www.facebook.com/1465162860/videos/211428481047779/

Phenomenal! Do you happen to have any videos or audio? I haven’t really seen any of his latest pickups/pre on YouTube. I did email Alan and feel things out a little. However, when I looked into possibly ordering from Alan, I ran into two issues. The first is that the top of the line pickups and preamp he offers takes me into £3k+ territory for one of his builds. A bit much for what I had envisioned. This experiment is not cheap, but it’s cheap-er… The second, is that I could not get on aesthetically with his headstocks. And it seemed too much to ask him to alter his headstock for a build - firstly he’s well within his rights to say no, and secondly it is part of his overall aesthetic/vision for his instruments, and I suspect quite personal.

A little bit more about the pickups For those who are interested, I tried to find out as much as I could about the Wal pickups. There are a bunch of good links from way back when on the Music Electronics Forum. Some of you may remember David Schwab, who ran SGD Lutherie, a pickup maker in the US who went bust fairly acrimoniously in 2010ish(?). At any rate, one of his projects was analysing a Wal pickup, with a view to reproducing it. He wrote a lot on that particular forum about Wal pickups. Another maker, Marko Ursin (MPU on Talkbass), who has experience making Wal clone pickups, as well as others, chime in at various points. Plus of course the chap who makes the pickups I ordered. There are quite a few helpful links: https://music-electronics-forum.com/forum/instrumentation/pickup-makers/8142-here-s-an-interesting-pickup https://music-electronics-forum.com/forum/instrumentation/pickup-makers/15856-wal-mk1-pickup-construction https://music-electronics-forum.com/forum/instrumentation/pickup-makers/39281-wal-bass-pickups So here's what they look like on the inside: One of the users on that forum, Belwar, did some very accurate drawings of these pickups: So if anyone else is interested, I'm certain at least Belwar has drawings they could share for accurate production... 8 coils, each row of 4 wired in series and then those two rows in series (Pro Series/Old style) or parallel (Custom Series/New way), with 4 ceramic C8 magnets, stuck together to make it look like a pair of two magnets. The adjustable poles pass through the coils, through the circuit board that holds the coils, and then into the steel keeper bars. Coils are 0.752" in diameter, 0.451" tall and have 10,000 rounds of 42AWG wire. (EDIT 31/1/23: This is more likely 42.5 AWG or 0.06 metric wire, NOT 42 AWG! According to Aaron Armstrong.) Each coil has DC resistance of 2.5k, with each row then being 10k. Belwar took Gauss readings off of pickups he found as well. I quote: 'I measured the gauss readings off the poles of two pickups today. Here they are for posterity (did I even spell that right)? Mk1 Bridge Pickup South Towards Neck Top row of poles from bass to treble side 698, 617, 655, 739 Bottom row of poles from bass to treble side 892, 810, 670, 705 Mk3 Neck Pickup South Towards Neck Top row of poles from bass to treble side 676, 800, 792, 800, 842 Bottom row of poles from bass to treble side 742, 763, 776, 823, 740' Marko Ursin did a great job of showing how to make a multicoil if anyone is interested - http://www.talkbass.com/threads/multicoil-pickup-pictorial.1101377/ or at https://music-electronics-forum.com/forum/instrumentation/pickup-makers/39281-wal-bass-pickups?p=556602#post556602 Now, to put it shortly, I think the chap doing the pickups I ordered is doing them very close to the originals. Not exact, but pretty close. Hope this is all of interest to you all!

I meant to say, I have dropped off the test bed bits off with Chris McIntyre today. He's a gem, very kind to put up with my experimentation. Hopefully he can get it sorted out in the next few weeks. I ended up using the Mark 1 pickup spacing. So between that and the 'Pro' style series wiring, the ACG filter preamp, and avoiding rosewood for the fretboard, it's a real mash-up. I expect the test bed to be a fairly bright sounding instrument, probably a lot brighter than the usual Wals. We'll see. A lot rests on the pickups now. Chris and I have talked through next steps if things work out well. Probably a multi-laminate neck with pao ferro fretboard, maybe consider an ash or mahogany body; we'll see. I am both excited and apprehensive.

@NickA thanks so much. You know, with everyone chipping in so much, I really feel like this is almost a community project. I've been spoiled with offers of help and the preamps etc, it's just great. I now feel a lot better now about pickup spacing, almost relieved to hear it was a bit 'eyeballed'. I was driving over to Chris McIntyre's today, angsting all the way about whether to stick with the Mark 1 pickup spacing or not. As it turns out, the routing on the bass will allow for either Pro or Mark 1 pickup spacing, so I can change it if I want to experiment, but even so, I now feel confident enough to just leave it as it is. Thanks for that. I'll have to work out how your pickup measurements would translate to distance from centre of 12th fret to centre of each pickup, but I think I can do it from what you have generously given. Ah, good to have it confirmed re: Mark 1 wiring. Thank you. I realise I should have been clearer in my description of the pickup wiring. In each row of individual coils, the 4 coils are first wired together in series. The switching will allow the two rows of 4 coils (all in series) to have their outputs then wired together as either series, parallel, or single row (in my case, each front row on its own). You are right, wiring each row of 4 coils together in parallel would not be similar to the originals, and would not work the way we want. It will effectively be the 'Pro' wiring, with a bit more switchability, with a sort of 'Custom' preamp. Maybe on another project I could get the pickups wound like the 'Custom' series - one pair of coils per string - and then get a Lusithand Double NFP Special to buffer them. The ACG EQ-01. I think the amount of tweakability worries me. I have probably overdone it on the coil switching as well. I also suspect, like you, that the the newest (and simplest) ACG preamp ditched a lot of the tweakbility because it was too much. I have a possible fix by using these numbered knobs (https://meisterworks.myshopify.com/en/products/luminlay-knobs-ia?variant=31840127090739) and installing markers like on the Wals. Soft clipping in the Wal preamp. I can't sort that, but I can introduce distortion afterwards with my amp or pedal, I guess....However, I still come back to one of my original points. If the preamp has the magic, then why does a single pickup passive Wal Pro sound so...'Wal-ish'? The answer must be that a lot of the magic is in the pickup itself. I submit the following to you for your consideration: Wish I could figure out how to make video links smaller...they kind of occupy the whole page, apologies.

Does anyone have a Mark 2 and/or a Mark 3 they could measure pickup spacing on? I'm doing the calculations from the Talkbass post I linked to earlier to try and work out all the pickup spacings, but I'm not convinced they are correct from comparing photos of the Mark 1, Mark 2, and Mark 3 side by side. Best way to know is to have someone measure....as it stands I'll have to use either the Pro or the Mark 1 spacing. To clarify, here's how everything looks side by side between the Mark 1/2/3 (from left to right): The Mark 2/3 have the bridge pickup in roughly the same spot I think, with the Mark 1 having it furthest back. The Mark 2 appears to have the front pickup moved further towards the bridge than the Mark 1, and the Mark 3 moves the front pickup closer to the neck than the Mark 1.

Final comment, I promise The Squier CV Jazz I mentioned in an earlier post cost me £250 in 2009. I will never sell it, as it was signed by all my music school teachers, including Jeff Berlin who taught at the time, and it has huge sentimental value to me. Even though I now don’t like the sound of rosewood necks, it will always be with me. The poor thing has been the victim of many modifications over time, and I have learned a lot from doing that. Swapping the neck over made me realise how much tone is in the neck/fretboard. (Basically most of it, in my view) Swapping out the bridge a few times and the tuners made me realise that there was no obvious tonal change to me from doing these mods. Similar for plastic to a bone nut. Adding a John East J-Retro then a J-Tone preamp made it a lot better sounding, even using the stock Chinese pickups. The J-Retro had too much bass baked in, so it was swapped out for the J-Tone. But even this could never add in the highest frequency ‘snap’ I wanted, only found with maple boards. Rosewood boards have treble in a slightly lower spot than maple boards, in my experience. Swapping out the pickups multiple times led me to realise how much they affected tone. But they could never add in the ‘snap’ up high I could hear from maple boarded basses either. They just filtered what was there already in different ways. Nickel vs Steel round wounds was a huge difference. One of the cheapest ‘mods’ you can make with a very high return on investment. It is now the most tricked out Squier going, lol, with many of my other old project mods put into it. But it will never truly sound like anything other than a rosewood boarded Jazz.

Context is probably helpful. Here’s two threads where my mods worked out great: Here’s one thread where it didn’t: Here’s a thread where I genuinely don’t know yet:

I am also extremely guilty of serial modding. However, I will offer some benefits as well as the obvious negatives. As background, it is my view that there are 3 things that make up the majority of a particular instruments’ sound, *for a bolt on instrument with a maple neck*. (Note I did not say they make up *all* of the sound, but the majority of it.) Firstly, the fretboard material. Secondly, the pickups used, and their placement. Thirdly, the preamp. (I will add a fourth, the thickness/amount material in the neck itself, but find it harder to quantify this in comparison to the others). In my view, this means if you like the neck, the sound of the fretboard material, and the shape of the bass, then you can mod to your heart’s content, as essentially tuners/bridge are largely functional/aesthetic changes, and the body material makes only a very modest difference. This can be a lot of fun, as long as you recognise that mods add zero value and big modifications actively reduce the value of an instrument. Changing cheap pickups for better ones generally does make a difference in my view. Changing pickup types (J to P or MM) and placement is huge. Changing preamp, or adding one, also adds colour, though I would rank pickups themselves and their design as more important. It depends a little. Strings are a huge difference as well. You can do very well trying out different string types. Stainless steels have been a revelation to me over nickels. Modding is a lot of fun. I have found I am considerably more committed to the instrument after adapting it to my tastes, at least when it works out. When it doesn’t, I take all the mods off, and sell it and the parts. But I do remember all the time you spend tinkering is time you could be playing. And turning an instrument into something else it is not meant to be is quite difficult/expensive. You’re often better off buying another instrument in that case.