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Another Wal style conversion


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Posted (edited)

I got the Schecter P4 Exotic a couple of years back and while I loved the way it played and the look I realised that P bass sound wasn’t for me.

 

After watching @funkle’s post on building a Wal-ish I decided I wanted to build my own. It’s something I’d looked at before but always seemed like a massive leap of faith with the lack of demos, all the content showing off the Lusithand NFP and Turner Pickups pushed me over the edge.

 

Here’s some of the process so far:

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The original Schecter P4 Exotic. 
 

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Prepping for incision, getting centre lines and working out how much needed routing out.

 

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A little improvising and got it routed, regretted forgetting the dust extractor for the router though…
 

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A new pick guard and some extremely deep pickup cavities to house the Turner English voiced multicoil pickups.

 

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Test fit before I attached the neck and started connecting wires.

 

The journey has hit a blocker there sadly as I seem to have misplaced my flathead screwdriver bits to connect the preamp and pickups. Hopefully should get that all finished up this weekend though 🙌

 

Edited by MrDinsdale
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Just had one of those “hang on a minute” moments regarding the missing flat head screwdriver bits when I woke up this morning. It struck me odd on reflection that they were missing despite the lack of empty spaces where they should live…

 

Checked this morning and as suspected I had a suspicious number of similarly sized bits.

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My daughter had turned them all round at some point and I was too tired to work it out last night 😂

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IMG_9515.thumb.jpeg.54c6949fe09a79340b9d3747b4439633.jpeg


All wired up and strung with some fresh Newtone strings, looks excellent but needs a little time under tension to settle before I get it set up properly I think. Not a problem as I forgot to charge a 9v battery in preparation. It’s clearly been a while since I’ve played an active bass 🥲

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It’s my daughter’s 4th birthday today so there’s no way of me squeezing in a decent session without some major eye rolls from my partner.

 

I did manage 5 mins though and it sounds delightful! Really punchy and full sounding, chords or droning stuff sounds really clear, much less muddy compared to my jazz.

 

The filters are gonna take a little getting used to, intuitive but still unfamiliar. It’s odd being able to fine tune both pickups rather than a more typical tone that shapes the overall sound.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted (edited)

Haven’t had chance to record any demos yet, it’s been far too hectic here.

 

Can’t stop playing it though, sounds incredible. I’m not sure how much of that sound is due to the multicoil design or just the high build quality but whatever it is works.

 

The preamp is great too, the filters give a ton of flexibility. One thing I’ve noticed is that there no/little audible difference until you hit around 50% of the filters. Not sure if that’s more to do with my setup or if it’s something others have noticed with the NPF Special? EDIT: just tried the controls bypassed and the filters are far more noticeable without other EQ in the signal chain etc.

 

Ive mostly been playing into the Katana GO or into a combination of the JF Capo, EAE Mother and EAE Model feT and it’s sounded great no matter what. Last night though I was having a play direct to the interface without any preamps, comps or IRs etc and it completely blew me away.
 

I will post a video demo at some point when I get time but currently I’m just having too much fun noodling!

Edited by MrDinsdale
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Posted (edited)

I definitely notice significant changes for the Double NFP and Double NFP Special throughout the entire range of the filter pot turns. 

Edited by funkle
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55 minutes ago, funkle said:

I definitely notice significant changes for the Double NFP and Double NFP Special throughout the entire range of the filter pot turns. 


Yeah, I take that back, I think it was a combination of preamps, cab sims/LPFs and other stuff that made it harder to hear the difference.

Looking forward to trying to get a demo together where I can dig a little deeper rather than just playing around.

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