Building a Wal....ish

[funkle]

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.

 

[funkle]

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.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by funkle

[funkle]

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.   

 

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by funkle

[funkle]

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.  

Edited January 3, 2022 by funkle

[funkle]

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.' 

Edited March 25, 2022 by funkle
errata

[Kiwi]

5 hours ago, funkle said:

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.

The body needs to be fairly soft if those mid frequencies are to be given some emphasis.  Medium to lightweight mahogany is good but finding wood with that weight can be time consuming. Various combinations of alder with cedar or spruce might result in something with more growl and less mod warmth.

 

I agree with the neck construction but some of the laminates need to be of a softer wood for that growl.  Maple and wenge or (in Wal's case) maple and mahogany or (in Ken Smith's case) maple and bubinga.  Stiffness can be achieved with steel or carbon composite rods and a thick ebony fingerboard but the trick is to make it stiff enough.  Too stiff and it starts to sound piano like which isn't really what Wals are about. 

 

5 hours ago, funkle said:

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.   

I would being doing the same in your shoes.  I've found that fingerboards affect mainly how prominent fret noise is.  I really like ebony boards as they tend to be transparent in that frequency range and they allow really low action if thick enough.

 

5 hours ago, funkle said:

(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/)

Paul Reed Smith too - even so far as suggesting a substantial heel block is crucial to sustain.  Love or hate the man but he's done his homework on how to get the best out of a guitar.

 

4 hours ago, funkle said:

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:

 Simply having multi coil pickups in the build probably isn't going to get you there, I think the bandwidth and narrow Q on the filters need special consideration too.  The pickups just need to be flat response and a few conventional designs on the market will probably get you there.  But if you really wanted to push the boat out, maybe sit down with Aaron Armstrong and tap his (and his fathers) expertise on the theory behind Wal multicoils.  He could custom build something.   He did Christian Celinder and Ken Smith's pickups.

[kodiakblair]

7 hours ago, funkle said:

I need to talk about the preamp

Something beginning with the letter L ?

[TrevorR]

Fascinating project, watching with interest!

[bloke_zero]

Watching with interest! I agree with your assumptions so far.

 

I've got a double NFP from Lusithand in a custom MM/P bass and it works really well - great for picking out the top end with the filter and a very robust delivery of the basic pickup sound. Highly recommended.

[LukeFRC]

did you see the thread on here a year or so ago where someone took the fretboard off a Wal to repair it and showed how much carbon was in the neck? 

[funkle]

Loads of things to respond to. Will do so after work. But for now…

 

17 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

did you see the thread on here a year or so ago where someone took the fretboard off a Wal to repair it and showed how much carbon was in the neck? 

 

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. 

[funkle]

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. 

[Jabba_the_gut]

Very interesting! I've been looking at a Lusithand double NFP and Rautia pickup combination for a project too. I really liked the video of the Spector bass which is what started me thinking.....

 

Got a couple of other things to finish first then we'll see. In the meantime, I'll be following this with great interest.

 

Cheers

[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.   

Edited December 7, 2021 by funkle

[funkle]

So.

 

After rather too many words, we have a set of multicoils coming to me from a maker brand new on the scene which are wound like those in the 'Pro series', and for which I will install switches to allow series/parallel operation (and perhaps single rows of coils, wait and see), and an ACG EQ-01 for the preamp.

 

I asked the maker to send me the pickups they had in Musicman shells, because if all else fails I can easily fit other types of pickups in MM shells, and frankly (heresy, I know), the Wal 4 string pickups and the huge surrounds are just plain ugly to me. Sorry, not sorry 😄

 

It's a bit of a strange and hybrid build in some ways when considering the different Wal series. The pickups will be wired like those in the Pro series, but the preamp most similar to those in the Custom series. I hope it will work out; I think it will. 

 

You can see why I am calling it the Wal-ish.... 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by funkle

[funkle]

The test bed

 

Ok, sorry for the delay. 

 

I went around the houses on this one. 

 

At first I had a whole custom build planned out. But I couldn't quite face the money involved for what was going to be a grand experiment. Maruszczyk would have been my choice of 'inexpensive custom' here, and Adrian was extremely accommodating in his emails. They would do whatever I asked without an issue, and for a reasonable price. But it was still around the £2k ish mark, just could not stomach it. Perhaps once I have actually figured out what works and what does not. 

 

Then, in talking to my friendly Talkbasser on a similar quest for a Wal-alike, and who really was quite instrumental in helping me shape my thinking, I gradually worked out that there were a lot of basses out there that could provide an excellent framework for modding. So I sat down to try and work out roughly where Wal Mark 1 pickups would sit on different instruments. Powerpoint to the rescue.... 

 

(The orange lines represent where the coils of the Mark 1 sit. The blue lines are at the nut, fret 12, fret 19, and fret 21, as well as the G string saddle at the bridge.)

 

It was in drawing this up that I realised that the lenses used to take bass photos must have their own curvature/distortion that affects scaling the closer you get to the edges, as I could not always get everything to line up the way it ought. Still it served reasonably as a guide.

 

I haven't shown everything here that was suitable, but the Yamaha TRBX504 was a standout for having a maple/mahogany multi-laminate neck, a mahogany body, rosewood fretboard, decent hardware, and a reliable build quality. The SBMM Ray4 would be decent enough but the pickguard would need completely redesigned. The Cort B4 Element and Cort B4 AS RM both presented incredible value for money, with hardware punching above the price point and multi-laminate necks also. Strangely enough, the Kramer D1 bass (not shown) would also be an excellent choice, with a mahogany body, ebony fretboard, and decent hardware. Too large a nut width for me though.

 

However. All of these solutions left me with a problem, which was getting the routing done and then figuring out how to make it look nice after. And in chewing it over, I realised the only bass in the row up there that would allow me to route out holes for 2 Musicman pickups and still look ok afterwards (just by getting a new pickguard) was a Precision. Which brought me back full circle to @Spoombung's original 'Wal-cision'. 

 

I then realised I still had a Precision body I had routed for a dual P setup sitting in the other room that I was selling. A quick check of the existing rear rout and a quick measure told me that I could stick a Musicman pickup in there no problem and it's in the right spot for the Wal rear pickup. All I would need to do would be is to create a new surround for the rear pickup and route out a space for the neck pickup, and the neck pickup would fit within the outlines of the existing pickguard. A tidy solution.

 

 

 

 

So. Given the ubiquity of Fender parts, bridges, suitable necks, etc, and the fact I have a suitable body sitting here for free, the test bed will be an alder Precision. Not my first choice, but it will serve.

 

As for the neck. Whilst I want to make a custom multi-laminate one, for now, I just need something that fits and is a known quantity tonally. So I bought a secondhand Fender Jazz neck from Facebook marketplace for £100 and stuck it on - this one, except more 'used', lol:

 

 

Secondhand tuners were sourced on the marketplace here and will be with me shortly. Hipshot HB7s that should fit no problem. 

 

I dropped off the body and neck today with Chris McIntyre (formerly of Sei basses), who I am blessed to have as my local luthier. He and I have known each other for a decade, and he is well used to my experimental nature. So he's going to help me out with the routing of the neck pickup, a rear electronics cavity, battery box, side jack hole, pickup switches, and a temporary mount for the electronics to sit on. If things go well, I'll get him to sort out a custom pickguard as well, but for now, I'm just looking to do the minimum to make it a functional test bed. I might ask @Dad3353 to do a custom 3D printed rear pickup surround too, if things go well. 

 

If I can get an alder-bodied, maple-fretboarded, non-laminated necked Fender to sound anywhere like a Wal, then it will be pretty remarkable. I guess this really is the test of how much of the sound is in the electronics, because if I was trying to genuinely clone a Wal, this is definitely not the way to go about it. 😂

Edited December 7, 2021 by funkle

[LukeFRC]

41 minutes ago, funkle said:

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')

The EQ1 is brilliant. Flexible but after a few months very learnable. 
FYI there’s a blend control so you can set where any top end you want to add in comes from- or a blend

[Kiwi]

3 hours ago, funkle said:

I still have the only existing set in the world of alnico Celinder humbucking Jazz pickups.

Aaron made me a replacement pick up set for my ex-Christian Danstrom red J Update way back in 2009 after the neck coil gave out.  At the time I asked him to make a set that was closer to a 70's jazz bass so he put alnico magnets in.

 

3 hours ago, funkle said:

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 he 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. 
  

Passinwind was working on a passive version this time last year but he was waiting on a maker to trial it. 

Re: filters,  I have Noll 3 band semi para eq's in a couple of my basses and I tend to set and forget once I find the right spots to boost/cut.  It's not the kind of set up that lends itself to mid-set tweaks when playing live.  Way too complicated. For live stuff I'd probably go with the Lustihand option (I have customised versions for a guitar project I'm working on).

[funkle]

5 hours ago, Kiwi said:

Aaron made me a replacement pick up set for my ex-Christian Danstrom red J Update way back in 2009 after the neck coil gave out.  At the time I asked him to make a set that was closer to a 70's jazz bass so he put alnico magnets in.

Ha!! I stand corrected. Good to know I’m not the only one. 

 

5 hours ago, Kiwi said:

Re: filters,  I have Noll 3 band semi para eq's in a couple of my basses and I tend to set and forget once I find the right spots to boost/cut.  It's not the kind of set up that lends itself to mid-set tweaks when playing live.  Way too complicated. For live stuff I'd probably go with the Lustihand option (I have customised versions for a guitar project I'm working on).

That Noll semi para 3 band was a serious contender for a bit for this build. It’s a really good idea. I thought of it like the East Uni Pre, but a bit easier to access the controls to adjust where each EQ band ‘sits’. 
 

And the Lusithand setup undoubtedly looks more user friendly than the ACG setup for live purposes. But I have some thoughts about how to try and approach that issue, once I actually get the test bed built and use it for a while. 

[Kiwi]

1 hour ago, funkle said:

That Noll semi para 3 band was a serious contender for a bit for this build. It’s a really good idea. I thought of it like the East Uni Pre, but a bit easier to access the controls to adjust where each EQ band ‘sits’. 

I had Klaus narrow the width of the mid band on one but it's still not narrow enough.  It's why I'm curious about the Lustihand on bass. 

 

If I had the option,  I'd probably put trim pots for bass and treble frequency inside the control cavity.  Maybe attached to and protruding through the lid, the mid control cut/boost along with bass and treble cut/ boost would be left for tweaking on the fly in the normal fashion.  

[eude]

32 minutes ago, Kiwi said:

If I had the option,  I'd probably put trim pots for bass and treble frequency inside the control cavity.  Maybe attached to and protruding through the lid, the mid control cut/boost along with bass and treble cut/ boost would be left for tweaking on the fly in the normal fashion.  

This is where the ACG Filter preamp comes into it's own, the additional treble stack, or high pass filter on the EQ01 gives you the ability to dial in more detail to the sound, which you could lose with just the low pass filters, it just gives you a lot more to play with. This lets you explore more extreme settings without losing articulation. I expect the limitations of the Lustihand preamp and any other straight Wal clones could be a frustration if you were used to the scope available with a 3 band EQ.

[Passinwind]

17 hours ago, funkle said:

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. 
  

Thanks for the mention of my non-commercial DIY option. There's a new one now without the conventional bass and midrange bits as well. It still won't really clone a Wal, as that's never been a design goal for me. But there are at least a couple of guys working off "my" general blueprint (which I borrowed from friends at their request) who might take things more in that direction and might make that a commercial thing. They can de-lurk if and when that comes to pass, I reckon. 😉

 

I recommend the ACG/East ones all the time, and not just for the soldering impaired. Hope it works well for you.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Passinwind

[funkle]

Updated the 'test bed' post. Enjoy!

 

And for info, there is a builder out there making Wal clones, if people want an actual clone. He winds his own pickups, uses the Lusithand preamps, and makes his necks a little bit more conventionally shaped than the 'V' shape. His prices seem to start around $2k and go upwards depending on the options. I guess if you really want something that looks like the real deal, then this would be up your street. It's not for me though. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/Octave-basses-115083543684715/

[Kiwi]

1 hour ago, funkle said:

 

https://www.facebook.com/Octave-basses-115083543684715/

Get one before the cease and desist letters are sent.  But they don't sound like Wals to me. 

[TrevorR]

Right down to copying the bridges…

 

 

 

 

Looks like he’ll make you a Fakenfacker too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by TrevorR