Building a Wal....ish

[Owen]

I am not sure how I feel about wandering into a forum I don't come to as often and finding this juicy project. Are there others in here? Should they all not be in the Build Diaries forum? How can I be expected to keep track of EVERYTHING like this?

[bloke_zero]

I kind of agree, but build diaries seems to be more about wood and tasty pictures - this is like the tech aspects before a build? (I hope!)

[Owen]

It should all be in one place so that I can feel properly inadequate about my skillset without having to browse through multiple forums!

[funkle]

Lol. Fair point. Maybe I posted in the wrong place….happy for a mod to move if they think it more appropriate in Build Diaries…

[Owen]

It does look like a cracking project though!

[funkle]

19 minutes ago, owen said:

It does look like a cracking project though!

I certainly hope so, it’s not a cheap experiment…but it will hopefully help out others.
 

Have been thinking about how to try and do recordings and video of all the resulting configurations without it taking forever or killing the listeners with boredom. Since it’s going to have series/parallel/single row coil switching and have an EQ that I am not terribly familiar with which provides a huge amount of tweakability, it’s going to be a challenge. 

 

Then there’s the question of recording through DI or going through a cabinet for a little more of the ‘room feel’. 
 

I’ll probably work up some short riffs in various styles and tweak slowly, recording as I go. 
 

[Lfalex v1.1]

On 10/12/2021 at 12:35, funkle said:

 

 

Then there’s the question of recording through DI or going through a cabinet for a little more of the ‘room feel’. 
 

I’ll probably work up some short riffs in various styles and tweak slowly, recording as I go. 
 

DI alone would probably be good enough for "Tonal Analysis". People generally adjust amp (or instrument) EQ to compensate, not rely on the core tone of the bass itself. 

(Personally, I'd probably try DI recording and playback through headphones,  then try it out with an amp)

[funkle]

Sounds about right to me. I’ll DI it for recordings to share here. 

[funkle]

Finally.

 

Customs is pretty slow at the moment. I know the pickups hit the UK around Dec 7th.

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by funkle

[funkle]

Ok, the pickups arrived. Finally!
 

Very nice. The packing surprised me as this chap is just starting out, but he has some nicely branded packing already, lol. 
 

 

 

And here’s what they look like. 
 

 

 

Pretty cool looking pickups, right? The wiring instructions should come in handy as well. 

 

They come with a choice of insert colours. I chose black. Silver, gold, black, bamboo, and others I cannot recall currently, I think.

 

My only concern of not having completely flat/flush pickup covers is getting gunk in the design in the top and finding it difficult to clean them out. Wait and see I guess! 
 

So now I need to drop these off with Chris. Not sure if there’s time to do that and get the test bass back before Christmas, sadly. Will go as fast as I can.

[Kiwi]

I think I might have seen these posted on the Lustihand FB page.

[funkle]

You’re right @Kiwi - I’m pretty sure Nuno has a set of these. 

[Lfalex v1.1]

13 hours ago, funkle said:

Ok, the pickups arrived. Finally!
 

Very nice. The packing surprised me as this chap is just starting out, but he has some nicely branded packing already, lol. 
 

 

 

And here’s what they look like. 
 

 

 

My only concern of not having completely flat/flush pickup covers is getting gunk in the design in the top and finding it difficult to clean them out. Wait and see I guess!

 

Exactly my first thoughts. I'd fill them up with dead skin pretty quickly...

[funkle]

So I had a really interesting day.

 

Chris McIntyre has already closed up shop for Christmas. So I have to wait a little before I can continue this experiment. 

 

However, two things came together very serendipitously. 

 

Firstly, the chap making the pickups has a second set of them on the way to me. He felt there was an issue with the base plate (fairly minor, I would have said), but he wanted to sort it, so he wound an entirely new set and sent them out to me, out of his own pocket. This is pretty legendary customer service. 

 

Secondly, Nuno at Lusithand reached out to me after he caught this thread, and offered to send me a Double NFP to try out, and send back if I preferred the ACG. I took him up on the offer. The preamps he makes look great and sound good from what I've heard on Youtube; I scored the ACG first and so went with it, but now have the chance to compare both directly. 

 

This has all got me thinking I might be able to find a second bass to mod with the second set of the same pickups and use the Double NFP in that. Then I could conveniently compare the two set-ups reasonably directly. How cool would that be?

 

The problem is going to be other variables changing between the builds, if I do decide to do it. I'd be changing more than one thing at a time, so the best I would be able to say is 'this particular build sounds like this'. 

 

I think I'm going to do it anyway, though. I think it would be great fun.

 

I have found after further examination that a secondhand Cort would likely fit the bill very well, if I can lay my hands on one. The GB74JJ would be ideal, as it has good hardware, a battery box and control cavity routed already, will be built well, and has decent woods (ash body/maple neck + maple FB). Plus new pickup routes in the correct Wal locations would I think obliterate the existing ones and give a reasonably good cosmetic effect without too much work.

 

If I went the route of getting another Precision body and modding it, I'd probably have to wait a bit before I could collect all the bits I want secondhand (neck, bridge, tuners) to make it as economic as a secondhand Cort. 

 

I really do need to have a good think about how to test this all out well for recording purposes. 

Edited December 18, 2021 by funkle

[Andyjr1515]

Like @owen , somehow only just found this thread.

Absolutely fascinating.  A lot of info - I'll set some time aside and read through it all again tomorrow

[Owen]

I feel your pain Andy.

[Owen]

Having said that, Andy you have your own behemoth thread in here about new necks. I do understand that neither are building from scratch, but again, they kind of are. Is it time to rethink forum boundries? Am I thinking too hard about this?

 

The concept of having two basses with A/B setups is very attractive. I recently had a bass which sounded STONKING, but did not feel like what I like to feel. But I could hear what the electronics were doing in it so I do not think that the different structures would make the whole thing invalid at all.

[funkle]

7 hours ago, owen said:

The concept of having two basses with A/B setups is very attractive. I recently had a bass which sounded STONKING, but did not feel like what I like to feel. But I could hear what the electronics were doing in it so I do not think that the different structures would make the whole thing invalid at all.

I agree @owen. But we must be clear, this is effectively saying that electronics make up the majority of the sound of an instrument. Which I think is true, though neck/fretboard construction and woods would be right up there with pickups/preamp for me. 
 

Not everyone will agree though. We must be careful, I don’t want this thread to descend into the classic debates of ‘does neck/fretboard wood matter’ and ‘does body wood matter’. As I’ve said before, for the purposes of this thread, my answers for both of those questions are: 

 

1. Yes, quite a bit (particularly in the high end as @Kiwihas pointed out)

 

2. Only a very small amount (which I know e.g. @Kiwi would disagree with)

 

Assuming I am right, which I recognise is a large assumption, if both basses have maple necks and maple fretboards, and the same pickups, but differ in the body wood and preamp, I would hope to still have some kind of meaningful comparison.
 

But I know the ideal comparison is still to use the same test bed bass for both preamps. 

Edited December 19, 2021 by funkle

[TrevorR]

If you want Paul from Wal’s view there are some thoughts in here…

http://walbasshistory.blogspot.com/2016/10/wal-woods-part-2-bodies.html

 

He does ascribe some tonal differences with different woods but also a warning to be realistic, “The standard bodies all have a central Mahogany core and the facings add character to the overall tone. So regardless of facing choice there is a consistency running through by using the same core timber. As a general rule, the harder facings such as wenge/padauk (wenge being slightly harder) tend to be slightly brighter and punchier giving more attack and reflection - often selected for fretted basses. At the other end of the scale are the softer/less dense timbers like American Walnut, which is favourite for fretless instruments and players who prefer a rounder less aggressive sound."

 

 "Yes, in general, but to counter the theory we’ve had some great sounding hard faced (like wenge) fretless basses through here – more aggressive sounding though. Also, you mustn’t forget that the density and grain structure can vary even from one end of a single board to the other. There can be a lot of variables even on two basses with exactly the same spec."

 

[Kiwi]

On 19/12/2021 at 15:57, funkle said:

2. Only a very small amount (which I know e.g. @Kiwi would disagree with)

Not necessarily, it really depends on construction and how much of the structure of the instrument relies on body wood and how solid the neck joint is.  I also used to have two Smith BSR5GN basses with identical through body necks, the body wood on was was mahogany core + quilted maple top and back, the other was flame maple core + walnut top and back.  The wings shouldn't have made much of a difference but they had to have been the only reason that the two instruments responded differently.

[funkle]

A lot of my assumptions about necks and fretboard and how they affect tone rests on two things.

One, I really have no idea of neck through builds differ to bolt on in terms of impact on sound. I just have not played enough neck throughs to form a judgement. Roger Sadowsky says of neck throughs that the tone comes less from the neck and more from the body in that case when compared to bolt ons. I assume he’s right. @Kiwi 
 

Two, I really have no experience that I can decently recall of using basses without maple necks. So using wenge as the main neck wood, or mahogany, I honestly am not sure how that influences the tone over using maple, or how those neck woods interact with different fretboard woods. I don’t have enough experience to comment on it that well. I assume it’s pretty important, but just do not know. 
 

@TrevorRI agree that generalisations about body and facing wood are difficult given the differences between cuts, where they come from on the tree, etc. I also agree that when Ian and Pete built basses, using a largely consistent formula would allow them to hear the likely modest differences between builds easily, because the main change they would make between builds was the facings.
 

I stand by my original assumption about the overall relative importance of body woods and facings, though. My main logic remains that there is a recognisable ‘Wal sound’ even when the body is made of what should be really quite different sounding woods (ash vs. mahogany, never even mind the facings) and when there is only a single pickup used even with no EQ installed. The ‘Wal sound’ must therefore largely come from the pickups.  

Edited December 21, 2021 by funkle

[Bass Culture]

I've owned a number of neck-throughs and bolt-ones over the years and, for me, very generally, I'd say bolt-ons have a naturally slightly more 'compressed' character.  I guess this ties in with the oft-cited observation that neck-throughs have more sustain (generally said in such a way as to imply that that, in itself, is some sort of holy grail characteristic).  For me, I actually prefer bolt-ons, for this reason.  As well as the simple, pragmatic consideration that they are more easily repaired if the neck ends up critically damaged for some reason.  I think Wal's have this sound characteristic of bolt-ons generally too.  That said, they are probably often recorded with added compression anyway, so who knows?!

 

Of my Zoots, I have two that sound totally different acoustically - one with swamp ash body and rosewood fingerboard and the other with a mahogany body and ebony fingerboard.  Plug them in and twiddle some knobs though and I can get them to sound within a gnat's whisker of each other.  Go figure. [And yes, this does beg the question of why I now own 4 - soon to be 5 - custom Zoots!  And why I've spec'ed them all differently too, when I try and set them up to sound the same, more or less!...But, my, they're pretty. ]

Edited December 21, 2021 by Bass Culture

[Andyjr1515]

 

 

On 18/12/2021 at 21:35, Andyjr1515 said:

Like @owen , somehow only just found this thread.

Absolutely fascinating.  A lot of info - I'll set some time aside and read through it all again tomorrow

 

Done that now (twice) and even more fascinated! 

 

On 06/12/2021 at 17:08, 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? 

 

 

That was me

 

It was a neck repair/mod and rebody for @Fishman 's Pro 1e neck/plate and pickup.  The thread is here:

 https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/443139-finished-a-very-special-save

 

 

It's a bit of a tortuous thread (all of mine are  ) so you will be relieved to know that the bit where I take the fretboard off is on the first page  

 

And yes - all components (including the player's finger-end hardness) make a contribution to the sound, but the lion's share on a Wal is, in my own experience, influenced by the pickup(s) and EQ.

 

 

 

I'm loving this thread 

 

[Owen]

34 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

And yes - all components (including the player's finger-end hardness) make a contribution to the sound,

 

Ain't that the truth. When I am not match fit on DB (all the time these days) I have to use Super Glue to prevent blisters. Until it beds in, the sound is radically different. My wife is a harpist and she cannot use it because the sound changes so much.

[Rich]

On 05/12/2021 at 22:16, funkle said:

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. 

 

...

 

I don't know about the Pro series, but suspect it may be like a Mark 1 in terms of 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 December 21, 2021 by Rich