funkle

The preamp Right, here we go. Although the 'Pro' series had what might be considered a more conventional preamp, I really cannot see making a Wal-alike without having a 'filter based' preamp. Bit of a misnomer as all preamps filter the sound, but it's the convention we have when talking about these instruments, so I'll stick to it. That decision made, this really only leaves a few choices. 1. @Passinwind has an open source hybrid filter pre which people can build. I lack the skills to do so, so have not. https://www.talkbass.com/threads/the-passinwind-open-source-preamp.1259692/ 2. Lusithand Devices (https://www.facebook.com/Lusithand/) have a filter based preamp to accommodate conventional one pickup or two pickup setups. These are the Single or Dual NFP preamps. They also make the 'Special' version of these, which is the only commercially available preamp I know of which can do the buffering necessary to accommodate 'New Way' or 'humbucker set per single string' wiring, with all of the resulting outputs. The controls are straightforward and even simpler than a typical Wal and it looks well made. If I decide to go with pickups that match the Mark 2/3 rather than the Pro, I would buy one of these, the 'Dual Special NFP'. However I ended up with... 3. AC Guitars - the venerable ACG EQ01. https://www.acguitars.co.uk/acg-eq01-filter-pre-amp/. This is well known, has been through several iterations (most recently reducing the range of frequencies that can be selected, I think), is made by John East, and has a lot of flexibility built into it, perhaps too much. Being able to adjust the amount of resonant frequency dialled in as well as the frequency the LPF is set at is going to be a lot of knob twiddling for sure. It also has an entirely separate HPF section (for whichever pickup is set as the 'treble' pickup'). It may be difficult to easily replicate sounds when the knobs have no markings, something I will have to address. It happened to be the preamp I got a hold of first, and having this more or less decided what kind of pickup design I would go for, because I sure cannot buffer 4 outputs per pickup individually with this preamp. None of these clone a Wal. But the last two I would expect to put me in the ball park. EDIT: @Aidan63 has kindly reminded me of another manufacturer of filter based preamps, and he has offered to let me borrow one on trial for the project. Let's see if I can make time to make it happen! 4. The JTEX Distiller - https://www.jtex.ca/distiller - I briefly researched these early on but forgot about them after I had already bought the ACG. I have seen some chat about these here on Basschat and they seem to be well regarded. I can't comment much more beyond saying they seemed more based on the Alembic style of this type of preamp rather than the Wal.

Ok, back from work now. I will respond to points made and then continue my discourse. I am gratified by the interest and comments so far. I really don’t know how successful I am going to be, but the journey is of interest. @Kiwimade a number of points which I’m having trouble multi-quoting, so will respond to them in order as best as I can. Apologies for length. 1. The body. This is a decision I will need to make at some point when/if I outgrow the test bed. The Pro series were ash and the Custom series were mahogany with a choice of facings. I think I can recognisably hear a ‘Wal sound’ that is consistent between them, even whilst recognising the Pro sounds perhaps a bit brighter and the Mark 2 more mid complex. I therefore agree the body is going to have some importance, but am going to approach this as one of my last steps, and even then only if need be. I will prioritise pickups, pre, and neck before I consider a change in body wood. Which, by the way, will be alder, because that is what I have to hand. It’s not my first choice, but it’s free, partly routed, and already painted. 2. The neck. I consider it moderately probable that I will need to get a multi laminate neck made after initial testing with a cheap one. If/when that happens, it will be as reasonable an approximation of the modern Wal necks as I can get, taking into account my own tastes, and ditching the ugly headstock and the uncomfortable ‘V’ shape. And nut width. Lol. It will be Jazz nut width and fairly deep front to back. It would be a multi-laminate of maple/mahogany. There will be no carbon rods and the fretboard will either be pao ferro or ebony, because acoustically, I like these, and I have a ton of maple FB basses already. Wal uses ebony for fretless, but not pao ferro. 3. Multicoil pickups and which ones to use. This is my greatest source of worry in the project. The pickups are in my view the biggest contributor to the Wal sound. Wals are recognisably ‘Wal sounding’ even with a single passive pickup with no EQ. Although the pickups are said to be very even/flat sounding, they still bear some kind of sonic imprint, otherwise, my statement above could not be true. The Rautia multicoils in the Spector struck me as being pretty even, but definitely not very ‘Wal sounding’. Yet it may be they are the most sensible choice, given their flatness. I decided not, but may live to regret that. The Bassculture Walbuckers definitely had something about them that does remind me of the Wal sound, and that was in a bass with a fairly conventional EQ set flat, and the pickups not being in the right spots either. However I couldn’t get a response from Hotwire to actually buy them. Perhaps I should have tried Bassculture directly. The pickups I ended up ordering sound absolutely bang on for the ‘Flea’ Wal sound, but I may run the risk of having too much voicing baked into what is meant to be a relatively flat pickup. Only time will tell. I think the clip provided by the maker is an accurate depiction for what I might expect out of a single pickup in the MM sweet spot and responding to strings played fairly hard. Maybe I’m fooling myself. However, given I want that particular sound, if it ends up being baked in there, I can live with that, I think. I have had Aaron Armstrong wind me custom pickups in the past. I still have the only existing set in the world of alnico Celinder humbucking Jazz pickups. All others are ceramic. They sound great. Alan Cringean developed his own ACG multicoil pickups with Aaron, and undoubtedly the needed skills are there if I want them. However I have a feeling Aaron might object to cloning a Wal pickup exactly, which is more or less what I would ask him to do. It might also end up even more expensive than the ones I have already found, no mean feat, lol. 4. The preamp and voicing of this. Agree it is also a key component. More on this in a moment.

Loads of things to respond to. Will do so after work. But for now… Yes. I think that was a Wal Pro. I think they stopped doing the carbon rods in the Mark 1/2/3 as the guys at Wal judged them to be unnecessary over and above their existing neck construction. Personally I don’t trust carbon rods give more stability, I think you need to use good quality wood. Have definitely seen stable maple necks with no rods and unstable ones with them in.

I nearly forgot, pickup positioning. After a lot of trawling the net, I had a set of measurements from a friendly Talkbasser, but they couldn't tell me what model their friend had measured, nor could they determine the exact method of measurement (from centre or edge of 12th fret to centre of pickup?). They had neck - 12th fret to the center of the pickup - 295mm, and bridge - 12th fret to center of the pickup - 380mm. Ultimately, I was able to measure a Wal Mark 1 myself. From centre of the 12th fret to the centre of the front pickup, it was 297mm, and for the same measurement for the rear pickup, 383mm. EDIT 25/3/22: I re-measured and was off slightly - From centre of the 12th fret to the centre of the front pickup, it was 299mm, and for the same measurement for the rear pickup, 384mm. This seemed pretty close to what my friendly Talkbasser had, so I assumed their friend measured a Mark 1. Now, to adjust for the Mark 2 and Mark 3 spacings, they are subtly different. This post in the Talkbass Wal club (https://www.talkbass.com/threads/wal-bass-club.367800/page-316#post-18986378) gives relative measurements between the Mark 1/2/3 basses, and so it is possible to adjust spacing from the measurements I have to match this. I have copied the key quote from the post below: 'I just found my notes of my measurements of my 4strings. Measured from the edge of the bridge to the row of pickup poles closest to the neck: Mk1 = 140 mm Mk2 = 130 mm Mk3 = 132.3 mm Then measured forward poles on front pickup to rearward poles on rear pickup (pickup spacing): Mk1 = 111 mm Mk2 = 103 mm Mk3 = 103 mm So in actuality, the Mk2 4 string pickups are closest to the bridge. The Mk3 not too much different, but even tho the two basses have the same spacing, that means both pickups on the Mk3 are about 2.3mm further away from the bridge than the Mk2.' I don't know about the Pro series, but suspect it may be like a Mark 1 in terms of spacing. I'm probably going to end up with the Wal Mark 1 spacing for convenience/certainty. If anyone knows about how the Wal Mark 1 and the Pro compare in terms of spacing, I'd love to add that information here. EDIT 21/12/21: @Rich measured his Wal Pro 2e for the pickup spacing - 'Sorry I'm a bit late to the party...my Pro 2E measures as follows: From centre of the 12th fret to the centre of the front pickup, 295/296mm. For the same measurement for the rear pickup, 379mm.'

So, now we come to the difficult questions. 1. Where to get the pickups 2. Where to get the preamp 3. What are we going to put them into to test them out? Pickups There are really only a few choices for these. The multicoil pickups with a single coil per string in 2 rows are so time consuming to make that they are invariably expensive. I found a few makers: Rautia Guitars - https://www.rautiaguitars.net/multi-coil-bass-pickups.html - without a doubt the most range of choices in terms of casing used, etc etc. He has a current 3 month backlog of orders, so I ended up going with someone else, but he makes excellent Aria replacement pickups which are well regarded and I have no reason to believe these pickups would be any different. This is the sound of his multicoils in a Spector: Hotwire - https://hotwire-bass.de/hotwire-pickups-en - I believe their Walbuckers are made for them by Bassculture. Sadly Hotwire did not respond to my emails. Nonetheless I think they sound rather good - here are the Bassculture Walbuckers in a Maruszczyk Jazzus: Josh Parkin Guitars - https://www.joshparkinguitars.co.uk/custom-pickups - emails to Josh revealed that he avoided cloning the Wal pickups exactly, so whilst inspired by their design, he did not wish to copy it. Herrick Pickups - I know they make multicoils, but because I ended up finding another solution I did not end up speaking to them at all. At least not yet, lol. I must admit I find their website very hard to navigate. And not least, various Talkbassers who make their own pickups. Through this thread - https://www.talkbass.com/threads/magnets-copper-wire-a-pickup-building-thread.1374810/ - I found a few folks out there winding their own pickups in an attempt to make a Wal clone. In fact, I ended up buying some pickups from one of them to test out, in what is a giant leap of faith. I won't say who yet, as they aren't geared up for mass production and are still setting up shop, as it were. However I have a very promising sound clip of just one of their pickups in a 'low end instrument', an SBMM Ray4, into a very basic preamp set flat, which is promising: Basschat Sample.mp3 So, I have the nucleus of a build, with what is likely the most important components in it. Very expensive - cost is same as for the Rautia pickup set - about £360. No wonder people don't try out multiple sets of multi-coil pickups, ha.... I need to talk about the preamp and the test bed I want to put it all into, but for tonight, I am running out of steam. Will try and post more tomorrow.

I also need to lay out some of the assumptions I have made for the project. You may disagree with them, but like the 'tonewoods' and 'does the fretboard wood matter' debates, I'd prefer it if you kept the debate to yourself, because I don't wish the thread to degenerate into an argument that no-one wins. I don't mind factual corrections of technical things I have gotten wrong here - in fact I welcome it - but please help me to keep the thread civil. Assumption 1: Everything on the instrument contributes to the sound, but the contributions are unequal. Assumption 2: In the case of the Wals, it seems to me that the pickup type and wiring with the correct pickup positioning contributes most of the sound, very much in tandem with the preamp. This is then followed by the choice of neck and fretboard woods and very stiff neck construction. The body, a little bit. Everything else, much less important. (I'm of the Roger Sadowsky view, where he thinks the majority of the tone of an instrument is in the neck. I present to you https://www.sadowsky.com/wood-and-sound-in-amplified-guitars-and-basses/) The usefulness of setting out these assumptions is that they are testable. If I can get one part right but the sound isn't 100%, then I can swap or make other parts to help test the theory. I should also mention that as a rule I do not like the sound of basses with rosewood necks. Wals appear to be the obvious exception here. But it highly likely this instrument will not have a rosewood neck. In fact, because it's so expensive to even test this out, it's going to have a pretty standard Jazz neck with a much less stiff construction than the typical Wal neck, at least to start off with.

The goal. Or possible goals. As a first example. I love the tones here: This is on a Wal Pro IIe, which has the multicoil pickups wired differently than on later Mark 1/2/3 basses. (Note: Edited 19/12 after Nuno and I chatted again) Nuno at Lusithand has some thoughts that the Mark 1's are most likely wired like the Mark 2/3 series basses, but may possibly have had similar pickup wiring to the Pro series. He cannot prove this one way or the other. For now we assume the Mark 1 to be wired like the Mark 2/3. Veijo Rautia has a rather nifty diagram on his website (https://www.rautiaguitars.net/multi-coil-bass-pickups.html) which shows how the pickup was internally wired in this 'old way' as he calls it: Essentially each of the coils is wired in series in each row, and then those individual rows are wired in parallel to each other. The outputs of these are then fed into, in the Pro series, a preamp which is much more similar to modern Bass/Mid/Treble preamps than the 'Filter Based' preamp of the Wal Mark 1/2/3. There is no buffering of coil pairs 'per string' as seen in the later Wals. The platform that this is all built into is a multi-laminate maple, hornbeam, and mukalunga neck with a rosewood fretboard, and an ash body. The second possible goal: This is nearly self explanatory. This entire album is covered in the wonderful sounds of a Mark 2, with a set of pickups wired completely differently internally to the Pro series. This pickup has the coils wired in series with each other 'per string' and then the outputs sent out in parallel to a preamp which buffers and boosts the significantly lower output this design generates. That then feeds the famous 'filter based preamp', which works quite differently to 'conventional' bass/mid/treble type preamps. The platform this is all built into is different again, this time a multi-laminate neck of mahogany and maple with a rosewood fretboard on to a body of mahogany with, in Flea's case, flame maple facings. Again, Rautia have a very nifty diagram for the pickup: I can hear people who love Justin Chancellor and Tool speaking to their screens at this point, but I've never really listened to them or referenced them, so I won't go into that further. Same for Geddy Lee and his tones with a Wal, never listened to him much so not really my goal here. So that lays out some references for what I might like to at least aim for.

Hi all You all know me well, I seem to never be able to stop tinkering. My latest project is something of interest to perhaps some of you. This thread is going to be partly a narrative, and partly a way for me to try and share what I have discovered in trying to get 'the Wal sound' without getting the Wal look. Oh, and not spending either 4 years waiting for a new build or paying £8k on the second-hand market for one is something of an incentive, as well. Anyway. I love the sound of Wals in various forms, but the looks have always been rather Marmite for me. The Wals without the upper horn elongation have always been unergonomic for me to try and play as well. I'd much rather put something together that works for me, which essentially means I'm going to end up with something Fender-shaped, most likely. @Spoombung's Wal was a particular inspiration to me - the only one I've ever seen with Precision body: (I hope he doesn't mind me using the picture he posted in another thread. It's a nice shot though.) I feel like in trying to work this out I have ended up speaking to a lot of instrument, pickup and preamp makers. I will reference them as I go along, but mention and thanks needs to be given to Nuno at Lusithand Devices, Veijo Rautia of Rautia Guitars, Alan Cringean at AC Guitars, Josh at Joshua Parkin Guitars, and more than few Talkbassers who I ended up PM'ing privately. I also need to thank a friendly Glasgow bassist for amongst other things, letting me measure his Wal Mark 1 for the pickup spacing. Neither can I forget @TrevorR and his rather wonderful blog at https://walbasshistory.blogspot.com/, which has been immensely helpful. So I shall begin.

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/exact-placement-of-wal-bass-pickups.919396/#post-25905226

I was going to say, I'd choose option 1, but then you did! Great experiment.

That was me.

An update on this project. After a long time of using the bass, I came eventually to the conclusion that it probably needed a preamp to get the most out of the system, partly to buffer the pickups, and partly to shape the resulting sounds of the pickups together or solo'd. Ultimately, I realised that this would require me to route out a complete electronics cavity at the back, as well as shell out for a decent pre, and I felt I had spent all I wanted to. After a while of living with it, having the rear pickup reversed was the better compromise, but I think I ended up still having the coils too close to the bridge to be useful without a preamp. I just ended up swapping the problem from the DG strings to the EA strings, which was better, but just a bit annoying. I ended up with the maple neck on another bass with flats, which I now adore. I parted out all the nice bits of hardware and pickups too. The body is still with me....which is good, because I now have another project which it will be perfect for, which I did not anticipate. More on that later, will be starting a new thread. I guess I cannot stop fettling with basses, much to my chagrin. My previous recommendations stand - a P-J or P-MM is probably more convenient, easier to get right, and easier to get the pickups in the right spots to work better than a P-P. But if I was going to do another P-P. now I know what I would change, and what works well. I hope that this narrative has been helpful to others, perhaps as a warning, lol.

@pierregansemanis there a benefit to ordering through a dealer as opposed to ordering direct from Adrian? Price, etc?

The spalted maple looks pretty nice in the 2 tone blue as well. Mmm.

So I’m a good 6 years late to the buzz around these basses. Lol However I have been intrigued by the possibility of building a Wal-alike (in as much as it is possible) without paying Wal or even ACG prices. This Talkbass thread caught my eye. https://www.talkbass.com/threads/nbd-maruszczyk-jazzus-custom-walbucker-w-noll.1536870/ And the video showing the bass within that thread *really* caught my interest. The Noll TCM 3P preamp in the video is intriguing. I’m not yet sure about committing to a filter preamp like the ACG EQ01, which is the obvious alternative, though the ACG and the Walbuckers would probably nail the Wal sound. But the video above definitely gets into Wal territory as it is. So now I find myself using the configurator…. I think I have what I want just about pinned down. Maybe spalted maple instead of the flame maple. Just have to work out the preamp…an ACG pre is going to be a bit of a wait to get and is a totally different way of working…though would probably get me closest to the Wal sound. Hmm.

Just chiming back in to say I love this thing. Used it in a studio on Tuesday and it made recording an absolute pleasure. The studio owner was tickled by it too, a fun toy for him to check out.

I just picked one of these up secondhand. I went from 'I'll try it out and see if I like it' to absolutely adoring it in about 2 seconds flat. I really really like this thing. It really helps me with something I have sometimes struggled with when playing through headphones, which is playing a bit too hard because I'm not getting the 'feeling' of the note. I tried it even when I was playing through my amp. I often play lower volume jazz gigs....I loved it when playing low volume too. It adds to the experience. Works a peach with my 5 string as well as the 4. The low B is mighty indeed using this. Can only recommend picking one of these up. I will be using this next week in the studio when I go to do some DI recordings. I'm going to leave my own amp at home; there will be no need for it now.

Just sold Matt a pickguard, smooth transaction, can definitely recommend! Pete