Peak Wal?

[NickA]

Chancellor and Lee's sound are almost entirely due to their effects chains surely.  My Wals sound nothing like theirs... though I can "do" Jones and Jaco on the fretless one (easy mwah and harmonics)

 

Bit of a mystery why rush &tool fans pay top dollar for Wals; tho as they only want red and black Wals ( rush) or maple faced mk2s (tool) , we can sumise that they're not buying them for the sound.

 

 

Hopefully the passing of the peak prices will get people actually playing them again .... though there's a lot more competition these days and the under 35s are still ( inexplicably ) obsessed with fenders.

 

...and never mind the price of Wals, the most expensive bass at the gallery is a beat up precision.

 

 

Edited February 8 by NickA

[Russ]

1 hour ago, chriswareham said:

 

In an interview, Justin Chancellor says he switched from a Stingray to a Wal when he joined Tool and started to record the Aenima album. The weird thing is, the bass sounds on the demos for that album recorded with Justin's predecessor Paul D'Amour sound almost identical to me tone wise - and that was all Stingray.

Some of the album is Stingray too - Forty-Six & Two is all Stingray, and I think Third Eye is too. 

 

It's kinda the reverse of Blood Sugar Sex Magik by RHCP - everyone at the time assumed the whole album was Stingray, but almost all of it was recorded with a Wal (with the exception of two songs where Flea played a 5-string Stingray). That's another quintessentially Wal-sounding album... 

[NickA]

3 minutes ago, Russ said:

That's another quintessentially Wal-sounding album..

Indeed some of that sounds like unprocessed MK2 played rather hard.

[Russ]

1 hour ago, NickA said:

Indeed some of that sounds like unprocessed MK2 played rather hard.

I think you're right. Looks like a Mk2 in the Suck My Kiss video. 

 

Another player who was a prolific user of Wals back in the day is Jonas Hellborg, before he went off doing his Status and Warwick things. There’s some footage of him on YouTube back in 2020 at NAMM playing a Mk3 through EBS gear and he sounded fantastic. 

 

Has Hellborg’s endorsement deal with Warwick run its course? They don’t have his bass or his signature amps on their website anymore. 

Edited February 9 by Russ

[Misdee]

Jonas' signature Status bass was designed to sound as close as possible to his Wal, apparently.

 

I think Wal basses most certainly do have a unique tone, and I have yet to hear any of the would-be imitators nail that sound. Just because a bass has a filter preamp that doesn't mean that it will sound like a Wal. It might sound good in it's own right, but Wal basses have got their own sonic identity.

 

Alembic basses, by way of contrast, use a filter preamp and have a wonderful tone of their own, but they sound nothing like a Wal. Construction ( as well as electronics) also plays a significant role in the overall tone of the instrument.

 

Wal basses have got that fat midrange that is so useful for a bass guitar. It's a beautiful thing, for sure.

 

 

[Misdee]

On 06/02/2024 at 10:28, cetera said:

I still have my 80's Mk1 fretless which isn't going anywhere....

However, I sold my 9.5 condition 'Geddy spec' black & gold Wal Mk1 fretted last year for £11K 😎

 

It wasn't leaving the storage facility as I was worried about it getting damaged or worse..... and I wanted the money for family travel & life experiences. I don't see used prices for similar getting any higher so I think I timed my sale well....

They say the best deals are when everyone walks away happy and this sounds like one of those occasions.

 

11k? I expect you treated yourself to fish and chips that night.😊

[Russ]

12 minutes ago, Misdee said:

Jonas' signature Status bass was designed to sound as close as possible to his Wal, apparently.

 

I think Wal basses most certainly do have a unique tone, and I have yet to hear any of the would-be imitators nail that sound. Just because a bass has a filter preamp that doesn't mean that it will sound like a Wal. It might sound good in it's own right, but Wal basses have got their own sonic identity.

 

Alembic basses, by way of contrast, use a filter preamp and have a wonderful tone of their own, but they sound nothing like a Wal. Construction ( as well as electronics) also plays a significant role in the overall tone of the instrument.

 

Wal basses have got that fat midrange that is so useful for a bass guitar. It's a beautiful thing, for sure.

 

 

I recall that his signature Status had crazy 36V electronics, with four batteries! I loved the design, with the downsized body - shame it was during Status' wooden neck phase (which they appear to have gone back to), would have loved to have seen one with a graphite neck. 

[Misdee]

On 08/02/2024 at 16:59, drTStingray said:

I haven’t seen Alan Spenner or Percy Jones mentioned but they got/get a specific sound and were probably amongst the most prominent of players of Wals. Alan Spenner can be heard on many Roximusic tracks but the Wal sound appears on the late 70s ones such as Avalon and Jealous Guy. Percy Jones is on the Brand X stuff and got a very distinctive sound. I was lucky enough to see both of them live in the late 70s/early 80s and they sounded excellent. 
 

I followed Alan Spenner’s career from the late 60s - he was a Precision player until getting the Wal in the mid 70s. Whilst he sounded good on a Precision the Wal made his playing really come to life as you could actually hear the detail of his playing. Leo Lyons also used one on a mid 80s live performance with one of the several reformed versions of Ten Years After - this one with the original line up - same effect - you could hear the detail of his playing and it was a fuller sound compared with his customary Jazz. 
 

Stingrays get reasonably close to Wals in the right hands but the Wal really scores with the ‘Q’ control - in fact the Scott’s Bass Lessons feature on them discusses this - it is the stand out difference between a Wal and anything else and also features on those Alan Spenner tracks (PS is it just me or is Scott appearing with basses which are more and more wrecked looking - they all appear to need a decent repaint in my view - just look decidedly tatty and old fashioned 😀😉)

 

I would still like a Wal (I prefer the detailed and full sound rather than the current fad for bass sounds where much is inaudible or even worse, plodding in the background). However some of the prices are eye watering - we have the sh*te exchange rate to blame for that, as it’s quite attractive for Americans to buy them - silly political choices eh…….. 

Alan Spenner really featured the characteristic sound of a Wal bass on those Roxy albums. I'd love to get a definitive answer on whether he used rounds or flats on that bass. It's very difficult to tell. Anyhow, it sounds great, and what a player he was. Died tragically young and I think if he had lived longer he would have got the widespread recognition and respect he deserved. A superb musician.

 

I have to respectfully disagree that a Stingray can approach the tone of a Wal; I have long thought the two of being the antithesis of one another.  The Stingray has got that baked-in zing  and a hollowness in the mids that is it's calling card. I think what they do have in common is that both basses  sound big and hefty. In their own respective ways they've  got an inherently beefy tone.

 

 

Edited February 10 by Misdee

[Misdee]

5 minutes ago, Russ said:

I recall that his signature Status had crazy 36V electronics, with four batteries! I loved the design, with the downsized body - shame it was during Status' wooden neck phase (which they appear to have gone back to), would have loved to have seen one with a graphite neck. 

Rob went on to make a few with graphite necks as special orders.

[NickA]

The stingray has a near overlap with a Wal.  We did a head to head between an old fretless ray and my Wal MK1 at the last em bass bash.  Pretty similar if we turned the Wal to bridge pickup.  So Wals can do stingray but stingrays can only do some Wal. There was also a fretted Wal pro2e there, which was different again.

 

Ps: I was in the Wal workshop a few years back; their test amp is a massive Hellborg one. The connection runs deep. Jonas still posts on the Wal Facebook page now and then too.

[matski]

On 03/02/2024 at 15:11, W1_Pro said:

a very breathtaking £14K odd (although I imagine that last one once belonged to someone famous)

According to the Gallery's website that one is the Wal used by Nick Beggs for 'Too Shy'. I'm not convinced that that claim to fame is worth the extortionate markup.

 

[Russ]

One of Maruszczyk's latest creations, a Jazzus with Turner multicoils and a Lusithand preamp. Pretty much nails the Wal tone to my ears. 

 

[Russ]

1 hour ago, matski said:

According to the Gallery's website that one is the Wal used by Nick Beggs for 'Too Shy'. I'm not convinced that that claim to fame is worth the extortionate markup.

 

That's not that much more than older non-Pro Wals go for these days, to be fair. And you get that extra bit of New Romantic cachet. A lot of Gen-X'ers who grew up with that music now have "spare" money for stuff like that!

 

Scott Devine paid a similarly extortionate sum for a Wal that was used in the Do They Know It's Christmas video.  

[Cairobill]

There was a very nice fretless 5 string on Facebook which was around 5K which languished for weeks. It eventually got picked up by Bassbros and flipped for about 6K, which is a lot less than the fivers tend to go for. I thought the price drop was interesting - it could be a sign that Wal mania has cooled off somewhat?

Something weird happened over Covid. There were Wals in the 4K bracket here and there around 2020 and then everything went completely insane by 2022.  We all saw it happen with any decent quality (esp vintage 80s) brand.

As far as Wals go, the present lack of interest in coughing up a fortune for an interesting (but clearly flawed in my book) bass is unsurprising given interest rates etc but given they are a finite resource and well-heeled buyers covet them, maybe it will tick up again. Not sure...

On a personal note I'm rather ambivalent about fretted Wals but I love the fretless Wals. I started out a Karn head and saw Stump a few times in the late 80s with the brilliant Kev Hopper aka @Spoombung doing his thing. Just wonderful fretless basses. 

Edited February 12 by Cairobill

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, Cairobill said:

On a personal note I'm rather ambivalent about fretted Wals but I love the fretless Wals. I started out a Karn head and saw Stump a few times in the late 80s with the brilliant Kev Hopper aka @Spoombung doing his thing. Just wonderful fretless basses.

 

Interesting what is supposed to be the classic Wal sound. Kev's Wal is hardly a typical model and Mick Karn did most of his best known work using a Travis Bean.

[drTStingray]

Alan Spenner’s sound on Roxymusic albums (eg Avalon) is a classic Wal sound - makes use of the Q control (see also the Scotts Bass Lessons feature on them and on Flea - they also conclude the Q control gets that unique sound).

 

Otherwise, to me, they sound very Stingrayish (dual pick up version) or Sabre-like - perhaps a little more powerful. 
 

Re @Misdee query regarding Alan Spenner’s Wal, I saw him playing a gig at the beginning of the 80s with the Kokomo line up - during the gig he played a couple of solos one of which was slapped - I would say, from the sound, he was using roundwound strings. Also they covered a couple of Rose Royce songs and he got that Alembic type of sound famous on those later songs. From the mid 70s few people in the U.K. were interested in a flatwound bass sound (I don’t even remember them being readily available in shops) although its almost certain Bernard Edwards’ Stingray had the GHS flats which these shipped with until 1978 production (went to GHS rounds). His bass was/is a 77. 

Edited February 12 by drTStingray

[40hz]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

Interesting what is supposed to be the classic Wal sound. Kev's Wal is hardly a typical model and Mick Karn did most of his best known work using a Travis Bean.

Power Windows by Rush. To me, Geddy gets the purest approximation of a Wal sound on record.

[Cairobill]

I came to Japan when Tin Drum came out and only ever listened to that last album at the time....so def Wal. Not sure if Kev was modding his Wal in the late 80s? I do recall a lot of 'sproing'/clatter/zoink and perhaps a tonne of 'pick attack'  All pretty Wal-esque to me

 

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Interesting what is supposed to be the classic Wal sound. Kev's Wal is hardly a typical model and Mick Karn did most of his best known work using a Travis Bean.

 

Edited February 12 by Cairobill

[Chris2112]

On 10/02/2024 at 16:19, Russ said:

I recall that his signature Status had crazy 36V electronics, with four batteries! I loved the design, with the downsized body - shame it was during Status' wooden neck phase (which they appear to have gone back to), would have loved to have seen one with a graphite neck. 

 

I'm sure he could have had one with a graphite neck if he had wanted. It must be the case that he preferred wooden necks, although that odd semi-hollow six string he had made had a graphite neck and he never seemed to do much with it. That one ended up on sale on this forum and was around for a while before it sold. There were a few Hellborg basses made with graphite necks in later years although none with the 36v preamp as far as I know.

 

Indeed I'd never heard anything about his Status signature bass being designed to sound like a Wal. Surely, multicoil pickups and a filter preamp would be needed for that. The famed 36v preamp was inspired by his love of a Neve desk with a boatload of headroom. The Status pickups were very clear and rich sounding. Even though his Warwick signature sounded fantastic, his tone with the Status basses when he was playing live with Shawn Lane and Jeff Super in the mid 90's was by far his best. Some of the best bass tone ever put to record, I think. 

 

 

 

[Misdee]

13 hours ago, matski said:

According to the Gallery's website that one is the Wal used by Nick Beggs for 'Too Shy'. I'm not convinced that that claim to fame is worth the extortionate markup.

 

That bass has been doing the rounds for years. I tried to buy it from someone in Norfolk in about 1995 from a classified advert in Melody Maker (those were the days...) but it had already sold. It was £500-ish, if I remember correctly. There was no mention of it being Nick Beggs old bass at that time, though. It's only subsequently that came to light.

[Misdee]

26 minutes ago, Chris2112 said:

 

I'm sure he could have had one with a graphite neck if he had wanted. It must be the case that he preferred wooden necks, although that odd semi-hollow six string he had made had a graphite neck and he never seemed to do much with it. That one ended up on sale on this forum and was around for a while before it sold. There were a few Hellborg basses made with graphite necks in later years although none with the 36v preamp as far as I know.

 

Indeed I'd never heard anything about his Status signature bass being designed to sound like a Wal. Surely, multicoil pickups and a filter preamp would be needed for that. The famed 36v preamp was inspired by his love of a Neve desk with a boatload of headroom. The Status pickups were very clear and rich sounding. Even though his Warwick signature sounded fantastic, his tone with the Status basses when he was playing live with Shawn Lane and Jeff Super in the mid 90's was by far his best. Some of the best bass tone ever put to record, I think. 

 

 

 

Rob made  Jonas' bass from Utile and included the switchable parametric sweepable mid control to try give the bass a similar tone to his Wal. Can't remember if it was Rob or Jonas who mentioned it, but it's was one of the other.

[Misdee]

16 hours ago, drTStingray said:

Alan Spenner’s sound on Roxymusic albums (eg Avalon) is a classic Wal sound - makes use of the Q control (see also the Scotts Bass Lessons feature on them and on Flea - they also conclude the Q control gets that unique sound).

 

Otherwise, to me, they sound very Stingrayish (dual pick up version) or Sabre-like - perhaps a little more powerful. 
 

Re @Misdee query regarding Alan Spenner’s Wal, I saw him playing a gig at the beginning of the 80s with the Kokomo line up - during the gig he played a couple of solos one of which was slapped - I would say, from the sound, he was using roundwound strings. Also they covered a couple of Rose Royce songs and he got that Alembic type of sound famous on those later songs. From the mid 70s few people in the U.K. were interested in a flatwound bass sound (I don’t even remember them being readily available in shops) although its almost certain Bernard Edwards’ Stingray had the GHS flats which these shipped with until 1978 production (went to GHS rounds). His bass was/is a 77. 

I remember only too well how unwanted flat wound bass strings were back in the day. Most shops had Rotosound Jazz Bass flats in stock, from what I remember, just on the off chance a masochist walked in off the street wanting to restring his bass. I bought a set out of curiosity and found them completely unplayable. I didn't buy another set of flats for 30 years until I finally relented and got some Thomastiks about ten years ago.

 

I can easily envisage Alan Spenner using old rounds and making them sound akin to flats in certain situations, either intentionally or otherwise.

 

Re Bernard Edwards and the flats on his Stingray, he definitely changed to round wounds on that bass, I think after the second Chic album.

Edited February 13 by Misdee

[three]

On 10/02/2024 at 18:12, NickA said:

The stingray has a near overlap with a Wal.  We did a head to head between an old fretless ray and my Wal MK1 at the last em bass bash.  Pretty similar if we turned the Wal to bridge pickup.  So Wals can do stingray but stingrays can only do some Wal. There was also a fretted Wal pro2e there, which was different again.

 

Ps: I was in the Wal workshop a few years back; their test amp is a massive Hellborg one. The connection runs deep. Jonas still posts on the Wal Facebook page now and then too.

I’d no idea re: Wal and the Hellborg power amp. Fascinating and I wonder if it remains in place? I’ve had quite a few of these amps and still have one. Massively heavy and according to a well known studio tech, the most over-built power amp he’d seen. That said, they are not at all a transparent amp - there’s a gritty baked-in tone that surprised me initially, to the extent that I thought it was a fault. Four or five units later, it’s evident that the grit is designed-in. I wonder whether this has any influence on the calibration of contemporary Wal electronics? Back on topic, i’ve watched in awe at the stratospheric price increases. I’ve owned a few Wals and played a lot (I’m a fan of the tone and the v profile, especially on the earlier basses) but found them a little uncomfortable, and in some respects a bit agricultural. The prices in the ‘90s - relative to other basses - seemed about right to me

[Misdee]

29 minutes ago, three said:

I’d no idea re: Wal and the Hellborg power amp. Fascinating and I wonder if it remains in place? I’ve had quite a few of these amps and still have one. Massively heavy and according to a well known studio tech, the most over-built power amp he’d seen. That said, they are not at all a transparent amp - there’s a gritty baked-in tone that surprised me initially, to the extent that I thought it was a fault. Four or five units later, it’s evident that the grit is designed-in. I wonder whether this has any influence on the calibration of contemporary Wal electronics? Back on topic, i’ve watched in awe at the stratospheric price increases. I’ve owned a few Wals and played a lot (I’m a fan of the tone and the v profile, especially on the earlier basses) but found them a little uncomfortable, and in some respects a bit agricultural. The prices in the ‘90s - relative to other basses - seemed about right to me

The Hellborg amp at Wal headquarters back in the day isn't the Warwick-era version. It's a short-lived mid-1980's combo that I seem to remember was made in Italy. They had that amp in the workshop at High Wycombe back in the '80's. Jonas' had a signature bass made by an Italian company at that time too, might well have been the same company.

Edited February 13 by Misdee

[three]

2 minutes ago, Misdee said:

The Hellborg amp at Wal headquarters back in the day wasn't the Warwick-era version. It was a short-lived mid-1980's combo that I seem to remember was made in Italy.  Jonas' had a signature bass made by an Italian company at that time too, might well have been the same company.

Thanks, I'd made assumptions that I shouldn't have made!