Building a Wal....ish

[funkle]

@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. 

Edited January 5, 2022 by funkle

[HotelX]

Interested to see how this turns out

[funkle]

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. 

[funkle]

Checked in with Chris again. He’s away but will be back soon and my job first in the list. 

[funkle]

I just got the bass back today. I would upload some photos but the server photo size problem still seems to be getting sorted out, so I can't...I have a lot of photos on the server I can't delete.  It looks rad, lol...especially given it's a real 'test bed' bass. 

 

My first impression is that the bass as a whole is going to take a while for me to get to grips with. The pickups sound fantastic, I think slightly brighter sounding than Wal pickups, but a very broad palette, and the ACG-EQ01 is perhaps more confusing to get to grips with than I first thought. I will need to spend a while with it before I do any recording, but the range of tones even from a single pickup is very broad, and two pickups with all the switching options is quite a lot of options.

 

Of course, some of the brightness may well be that it's a maple-fretboarded bass wearing steel strings and the pickups are simply translating that accurately...whereas every Wal Mark 1/2/3 is either rosewood or ebony.  

 

I'll post up some clips once I get my head around everything. 

Edited March 1, 2022 by funkle

[Richard R]

Looking forward to seeing and hearing this. 😀 

[funkle]

Quick teaser of the look of the test bed currently...

 

The black knobs were just what I had laying around. I kind of like them though, oddly. The pickup ring covers are temporary as well until we see what I do with the test bed.

 

 

Somebody had done something crazy with the previous string retainer, so we had to invent one of our own to cover the strange diagonal alignment of it. I like it.

 

 

 

[LukeFRC]

And how does the test bed sound?!

[funkle]

I’m still working it all out! I had to phone @skelfyesterday to work out properly how the treble stack works, he was very kind in his guidance and now I have a better handle on it. I thought the pickups were super bright until he guided me - that the treble stack there is boost only on the top ring…whoops…I thought the centre detent was ‘neutral’.

 

I know everyone is dying to hear recordings. Will try to do some ASAP. In the whole it sounds Wal-ish, but I think less middy and grunty. Although I figured out yesterday a Flea-ish BSSM sound I was happy with. The sounds from each pickup alone are wide ranging with adjustable resonance and the HPF, trying to blend them is a whole other level of experimentation. 
 

Parallel on the pickups sounds very even and clear, ‘single coil’ (or rather single row) is Jazz Bass ish, and series on each pickup is monstrously loud with a huge bass boost and a nice thickening of the top end. Adding the treble back in on top of that is pretty amazing. 
 

I generally have the feeling that these pickups are in the right territory but that to get the BSSM sound needs just a little harmonic distortion in the chain somewhere. I will I think borrow my friend’s Wal and record that too in order to properly compare, if he’ll let me. 
 

I am reluctant to say more because I want to tweak the setup, play with it a lot, perhaps try nickel strings instead of steels, and I might even swap the neck over from my sole remaining Jazz with a rosewood neck to see what that sounds like, for contrast. 
 

Tiny adjustments of the filters give big changes. It’s going to be tricky to try and give a comprehensive recording, because everything seems finicky right now. Probably I will find a few settings I like the best and record those. 

Edited March 3, 2022 by funkle

[LukeFRC]

If you use much of the treble stack The blend control for the treble stack (on the board) is fairly powerful tone shaper. 

[funkle]

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

If you use much of the treble stack The blend control for the treble stack (on the board) is fairly powerful tone shaper. 

No joke there. I think it’s great, now that the person using it has a clue…lol.

 

Incidentally, my friend with a Wal has kindly agreed to lend it to me to record. I’ll have to sort that out too, but it will be useful. I recall it as being much darker and ‘dirtier’ sounding when pushed than my current effort. That may be a theme we come back to. 

[LukeFRC]

5 hours ago, funkle said:

No joke there. I think it’s great, now that the person using it has a clue…lol.

 

Incidentally, my friend with a Wal has kindly agreed to lend it to me to record. I’ll have to sort that out too, but it will be useful. I recall it as being much darker and ‘dirtier’ sounding when pushed than my current effort. That may be a theme we come back to. 

I found the treble stack really poor sounding till I realised I could change the internal trim pot - for me the treble off the neck pickup fitted better than the bridge.

I’ve not had anything more than quick try of Wals but to my ears the preamp was less hifi whereas John East designed stuff has a certain clean clear tone going on

[funkle]

7 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

I found the treble stack really poor sounding till I realised I could change the internal trim pot - for me the treble off the neck pickup fitted better than the bridge.

I’ve not had anything more than quick try of Wals but to my ears the preamp was less hifi whereas John East designed stuff has a certain clean clear tone going on

 

Huh. I only tried treble off the neck pickup briefly. Not sure what else to say about it yet.

 

The ACG preamp is clean and clear. The Wal preamp isn't for sure...

[bloke_zero]

20 years ago I spent a lot of time building a moog like modular synth. The guy who's modules I built for it had done some work with Bob Moog and seemed like a good fit, but more modern. So it was cleaner, much more transparent and more stable. All these years later I'm not sure that is better! I have an old SH-101 which is cheap, noisy and dirty - I often prefer that sound for bass.

[funkle]

Ok, I made some progress last few days.

 

I spent until 02.00 last night, literally hours, playing through headphones and tweaking. 
 

I *think* these pickups are the right ones - clean, clear, and even up the spectrum, though amazingly when I put them through a frequency analyser not much happening above 3k. They sound brighter than that - I was really surprised. Anyway @skelftells me that’s what Wal pickups are like too, so I believe him, and hope that I won’t end up having to try out another manufacturer’s pickup, it’s expensive.

I will compare to the real deal soon when I borrow my friend’s Wal, but unfiltered, the pickups don’t have the resonant peak or character of a typical passive pickup. I think this is probably as it should be; once they interact with a filter that causes a resonant peak, they gain character.
 

So, if a Wal is similar, I reckon using the passive tone knob on a Wal Pro would help to give the flat pickups a little character, and using a LPF on a Mark 1/2/3 gives a lot of character, depending on the setting. 
 

The ACG EQ-01 is really clever. I like it, and now I can see better how to use it. I can dial in a reasonable Flea sound from BSSM with it, if I play hard (just like Flea) and get the filters just right. I think the ability to roll back in treble after the pickup HPF filtering is really clever. A little goes a long way. 
 

However, I have still felt the overall sound to be very clean, clear, and open; too clean. That’s exactly what I should expect, I guess, the ACG system is designed to be transparent, the pickups are flat, and the maple neck takes out a lot of mids. 
 

So, one breakthrough last night was trying different kinds of distortion to make the signal dirtier. I suppose I’m trying to emulate the effect @NickA(and @skelfas well, in a long and very helpful telephone conversation) have both advised about - the distortion caused by the EQ circuit built into the Mark 1/2/3 basses. 

Anyway, long story short, the best form of distortion that caused the sound I wanted to hear was using Amplitube SVX and loading up a B15 to give some tube saturation. Fairly mild, but the effects were beautiful. I tried lots of other effects in my DAW, but that one was the best. The resulting sound got really really close the Flea BSSM sound. 
 

However, I made another experiment today. I realised that my preference for a maple fretboard is probably working against me, and I swapped around another Jazz neck I have with a rosewood fretboard on to the bass, and have spent a while messing around. 
 

Bam. Instantly a ton more growly mids,  a less clean and clear sound, and playing hard with the filters set right sounds much ‘dirtier’. I’m really happy. Rosewood seems to be just right here, not surprising I guess. 
 

(It looks like my dislike of rosewood on other Fender style basses may depend on the kind of pickup used. It sounds too middy/not enough treble to me with Jazz or Precision pickups, but I hear no lack of treble here with this system, and the mids sound wonderful. Where’s that helping of humble pie gone….)

 

The final bit of experimenting I want to try this weekend is to use the new rosewood boarded test bed through my DAW into the B15 emulation, for the tube distortion. I am hoping that will be basically perfect. We will see. 

I am hoping the recipe here will be convincing to others too. We shall see. 

I have some leave coming up in a week or two. My plan is to borrow my friend’s Wal and do some recording then for you all. 
 

Edited March 6, 2022 by funkle

[funkle]

I forgot to say as well. As far as I am concerned series mode on both pickups is the straight up bomb. Parallel is fine as is single coil, but series just sounds so meaty. Again, not too surprising given what we are aiming for here. 

[funkle]

And also, for laughs….this thread, which can also show how much is the players hands and signal path….

 

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/wal-tone-for-320-the-answer-is.1475984/

[NickA]

2 hours ago, funkle said:

And also, for laughs….this thread

..which even on my tinny speakered android tablet tells me that the Wal sounds best.  Shall listen again through "the big hifi".  Though really that's not a sound I'd try to get out of a Wal ... they being, as you say, quite dark by nature.  Beats me why flea would choose one to get a brash twangy noise .. just use the Modulus or a Stingray?

[Kiwi]

6 hours ago, funkle said:

So, one breakthrough last night was trying different kinds of distortion to make the signal dirtier. I suppose I’m trying to emulate the effect @NickA(and @skelfas well, in a long and very helpful telephone conversation) have both advised about - the distortion caused by the EQ circuit built into the Mark 1/2/3 basses. 

@Passinwind this is what we were discussing, also.

[funkle]

You know, every day I learn from new mistakes. It's a sobering part of this project, but part of the package, I guess.

 

I made a couple today that I am sorting. 

 

Mistake 1, wrong strings.

 

I borrowed my friend's Wal Mark 1, an extremely generous act on his part. I have been setting it up (again a generous act of permission from my friend to allow me to do so), and learning about its engineering in the process. Turns out it is strung with Ernie Ball Slinkies (Nickels). I had thought it was strung with steels the last time I played it, so assumed I would do the same for my build. I stuck some Slinkies I had around on my bass and, lo and behold, more of the mids I was needing. *slaps forehead*

 

Mistake 2, pickup height.

 

In re-setting up the Wal I am now comparing to, I lowered the action significantly. I then wondered why it sounded very different to when I was round at his house - he has a combo without a tweeter, whereas I have a FRFR 1x12 with a horn, I wondered if it was that, I wondered if it was something about the pre, the room I was in, etc. I finally clued in that I had not lowered the pickups to match the newly lowered strings. I followed a recommendation for Wal setup from Paul Herman, quoted by a Talkbasser - see  https://www.talkbass.com/threads/wal-bass-club.367800/page-186#post-15677637 - essentially make sure the pickup polepieces are about 6mm below the fretted string at 21st fret ish - and suddenly the beautiful Wal sound returned. 

 

I realised then that I have not messed with the pickup height at all on my own 'Wal-ish' and that I am likely missing a key step out of my own set-up here. Thus making all my hard efforts to date and constant tinkering a bit less reliable. Aargh. 

 

I emailed the maker of my pickups and he has his own set of these pickup set at about 3mm below the open unfretted strings. I may need to play with that more tonight and I wonder even if I should try it lower. More experimentation. I don't have much depth to the rout for the pickup and it could be a limiting factor. 

 

I have days off next week and am gearing up to try and be ready to record properly then. Hence all the activity this week as I try and make as much as I can as similar as I can, and experiment.  

 

  

 

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by funkle

[funkle]

Does anyone know if the preamp in the Wal Mark 1/2/3 gives any shape to the sound when set flat, or is it genuinely flat?

 

If it is flat, then these pickups are very mid-prominent pickups. (Let me just say I own a Stingray clone and a G&L L2000e to give weight to that statement...) 

[LukeFRC]

1 hour ago, funkle said:

I may need to play with that more tonight and I wonder even if I should try it lower. More experimentation. I don't have much depth to the rout for the pickup and it could be a limiting factor

For testing purpose raising the strings will give you the same test without routing the body. Be a pig to play but hopefully tell you if you do need to rout lower…

[funkle]

8 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

For testing purpose raising the strings will give you the same test without routing the body. Be a pig to play but hopefully tell you if you do need to rout lower…

 

Was thinking the same....the thought of deepening the routes is not pleasant 

[NickA]

3 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

For testing purpose raising the strings will give you the same test

Until you fret a note!

 

Don't know if the Wal pre is flat.   There is nothing in there to boost mids especially, but a bit of input capacitance can interact with pickup inductance to make a big difference to frequency response ( a mid / high bulge followed by a steep higher frequency roll off) and the Wal pre does have a bank of RC before the buffer/coil summation op amp.  Net effect is a bass with lots of mids, but short of dismantling one of my basses and slapping an LCR meter on it, don't really know why.

 

My solution to this whole conundrum was ...just buy a Wal!

[Richard R]

11 hours ago, NickA said:

My solution to this whole conundrum was ...just buy a Wal!

But where's the fun in that? Especially for us spectators. 😉