Willcox basses… a VL5… anyone tried one??

[carlsim]

I have seen a VL5 for sale and am interested… anyone played one? Can offer any advice on this ‘LightWave’ technology??

just wondered if anyone had any experience…

[BigRedX]

When they were called "Lightwave" I owned a Sabre FL4-string semi-hollow body with both fretted and fretless necks.

 

I like the Lightwave idea a lot. However one of it's main selling points that you can use lots of different strings was a bit of a non-starter when I discovered just how much set up adjust meant would be required every time I made a major change to the string type, so once I found a set I likes (the first ones I tried after the set that were on mine when I bought it) I stuck with those. Setting up was both a mechanical and electrical procedure - firstly you had to align the pickups with the strings and then tweak the output of each individual string via trim pots inside the control cavity. However once you'd get this right the tonal response from one string to another was very even, so well worth the effort. I didn't much like the action and intonation adjustments thought as they both requires slackening off the string to perform. By the time I'd got my bass set up how I liked it, the stings had been tightened and loosened so much they might as well have been secondhand!

 

However I believe that the bridge/pickup mechanism has gone through at least one more iteration since mine (I had on the Mk2 version) and may be a lot more user friendly now.

 

The version I had also had piezo pickups (called ice-tone IIRC) which added an extra dimension to the tone but also on the hollow body a lot of handling noise, so when I did use this I kept the level low.

 

The final thing to consider its powering it. Again this may have changed with the new models, but mine required an external PSU to charge the battery inside the bass which connected via a non-standard socket. Also because I imported mine directly from the US it came with a 110V charger that required a step-down transformer to make it work. However you could play the instrument whilst charging it so even if you forgot to charge regularly so long as you had the PSU you were OK.

 

Having said all that if I found myself in another band that need fretless bass and I could find a 5-string that looked as nice as my 4-string did, I would definitely get it.

 

If you have any specific questions post here and I'll do my best to answer, bearing in mind that a lot of the quibbles I had with my bass may well have been addressed by now.