Building a Wal....ish

[LukeFRC]

That

looks

mint

[Owen]

Mutter mutter wait for ages for Walalikes and then loads turn up mutter mutter.

[Owen]

Pretty lush though. 

[Andyjr1515]

It looks stunning, @funkle  Great, great job on that body.

[Chopthebass]

Holy crap that looks stunning! 

[funkle]

39 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

It looks stunning, @funkle  Great, great job on that body.

That’s all @Chopthebass. I can take some credit for ideas, or at least some

of them…but execution is all him. He’s a good listener/interpreter 👍

[eude]

2 hours ago, funkle said:

Ok, unexpectedly, got my bass back from my tech quicker than I thought, after getting the body and neck etc back last week. Here’s a teaser. It’s stunning. :

 

 

 

I’m still sorting things like pickups heights, setup, etc. Annoyingly I have worn out the centre detent on the blend control through repeated use, lol. I’ll work around it. 
 

It sounds fantastic with the Lusithand Double NFP and the original Turner pickups transplanted over and Andy’s neck on there. Great pickups and I’m always going to be a fan of this preamp. 
 

Spoiler…It does sound a bit different, but I’m not yet convinced the mahogany body has made a huge difference over using alder. It is different, and it is noticeable, but not the way a different fretboard wood or completely new neck construction was…however I will keep playing and get some Youtube recordings up soon. 

Well that turned out nice!

[benh]

Looks AMAZING. Good lord

[Chopthebass]

2 hours ago, funkle said:

That’s all @Chopthebass. I can take some credit for ideas, or at least some

of them…but execution is all him. He’s a good listener/interpreter 👍

Thanks Pete! It was an enjoyable build! 

[funkle]

Hmm, I’m going to have to get some more tech work done. So there may be a bit more delay. 
 

I’m going to have the pickup screws shortened further - one of the issues with the original body was that I was becoming concerned if the pickups were too close to the strings, even with screwing it all down tightly. I can’t quite get as far down as I want using the current screws, so I’ll need to get some trimming done.
 

For context, the recommended Wal setup is to have strings 5.5 - 6mm away from the pickup, and whilst these particular multicoils have fewer winds, they are still powerful magnets. I can get down to about 4mm but would like to have the extra wiggle room. 
 

The other issue is I have bottomed out how far I can lower my setup, so I’ll need to shim the neck. Such is life I guess, most Wals seem to need a shim, so I’ll match the spec 🤣 

 

I may as well see if I can sort the blend knob when I get pre work done, so I have emailed Nuno about this. I also had a mishap with the volume pot shaft trying to fit another set of knobs, so I’ll sort that too. 
 

Patience….

[Kiwi]

80% of luthiery in my experience is fixing mistakes!

[Andyjr1515]

1 hour ago, funkle said:

Such is life I guess, most Wals seem to need a shim

All of the Wals I've worked on have had an integrated shim (ie an angled shim integrated with (glued onto) the end of a square-cut heel).  I suspect that it is part of the routine final-finishing/set up process.  A much more sound solution than angling the solid heel itself or having a loose shim that can get misplaced.

[bornleft]

Congratulation!

Per David Byrne: Patience is a virtue, but I don't have much time...

The transparency of the finish is what makes it pop!

 

Please explain why it is easier to play than the Wal?  Also, it seems to me, if I was a betting man,

that the reverse engineered pre-amp will not get installed for an A/B test....

[funkle]

It’s easier to play because the neck fits my hand - Jazz nut width etc. Plus the body hangs in the right spot - the upper horn reaches the 12th fret so the first fret is not a long reach and there’s no neck dive. 
 

The other preamp will be installed for an A/B test. It’s still going to be a while. The only way to make it go faster is if you wish to send me money, lol, because then I can pay other people to do faster work. 

[bornleft]

The check is in the mail!

[NickA]

On 20/05/2023 at 18:29, funkle said:

Although I do need to do one quick wiggle on the neck to align it slightly better. But I’ll sort that too. 

Be less like a real Wal then. Most of them are a little wonky.

 

Ps: I find my Wal custom very comfy to play, the mk2 less so.  Guess 25 years of familiarity helps. But, yes, the necks seem unecessarily chunky compared to a standard Jazz.

Edited May 21, 2023 by NickA

[LukeFRC]

9 hours ago, NickA said:

But, yes, the necks seem unecessarily chunky compared to a standard Jazz.

Chunky= stiff 

[bornleft]

4 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

Chunky= stiff 

Huh?

[LukeFRC]

2 hours ago, bornleft said:

Huh?

the chunky neck will be stiffer than a thinner jazz neck. 

Stiffness is part of the "wal recipe" funkle was talking about somewhere in the past 26 pages

[ltank]

Following this whole adventure is incredibly addictive.

 

I'm really curious about what will be the factor that pulls out the 600k and 800k spikes on the spectrum.

[HotelX]

Wow that is a beautiful bass. Is it everything you hoped for?

[funkle]

17 minutes ago, HotelX said:

Wow that is a beautiful bass. Is it everything you hoped for?

Not yet. But I keep iterating closer. And I’ve learned a lot along the way too. So it’s been good. 

[Tom Stafford]

And just as yours arrives so does mine! Here is the lefty StingWal...

 

Gotta say I have to take back what I said about G&B Builds, they did a great job in the end and it plays fantastically.

 

Still just getting to grips with the dialling in of tones, but here are some quick rough takes of the usual Wal tone examples. Schism is Neck and Bridge, Give It Away is just neck pickup. Running into UAD Softube SVTR and being driven a bit, especially with GIA. No other processing - gonna experiment with my Mesa M3 and maybe some pedals etc in the next week or so.

 

Herrick Multicoils

Lusithand Double NFP Special

Mahogany body with walnut top (and a maple veneer in between)

Maple neck w/rosewood fingerboard

Schaller DaVinci machine heads

 

[funkle]

It sounds great. That's a fair bit of processing on there , I would say, though - the SVTR/drive adds a fair bit of colour. 

 

I would say you're in the Wal-ish neighbourhood, though. It's interesting as the Herrick pickups have quite a different recipe to a Wal - steel poles & neodymium magnets scatter wound with 42 AWG plain enamel wire. Resistance  = 16- 20KOhm. (Or so their website says... it also says you can get other pickups on request.).

 

Can I ask @Tom Stafford, what pickups did you request from Herrick?

[Tom Stafford]

Just requested standard ones! What is the Wal recipe? Am sure its here in this thread somewhere

 

Will try and do a straight DI sound demo as well at some point

 

Also gonna get the Herrick surrounds for the pick ups for the complete Wal look...