slowburnaz

3 hours ago, MrDinsdale said:

Heck, the Turner multicoils just arrived today and they’re hefty! Here’s a DiMarzio Model P for reference. 
 

 

Build quality is fantastic on these!

What can I say?  I like ‘em thicc 

2 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

is that that the pole pieces are steel and the magnets are at the bottom (like a Dimarzio P pickup) as opposed to where the pole pieces are the magnet (fender style) ?

 

That's probably what they're referring to...  steel pole pieces and steel "keepers" (chassis?) with magnets charging those, rather than something like Alnico rod magnets as poles.

Like Wal did/does with their pickups, as Pete mentioned early on in this thread: 

It's also how I do mine, with the English voicing versions having the thicker mild steel keepers and ceramic magnets that charge the and the pole screws (Original voicing construction is the same, but with shorter/thinner keepers and magnets, different wind count and wire gauge):

On 21/02/2024 at 10:46, Bass Culture said:

New wiring and old wiring are referred to in the Turner (I think, could be Herrick though) multicoil (I.e. 'Wal-type) pickup blurb and, I think, the Lusithand preamp copy too. I assumed it referred to Wal's wiring as these products are presented as very close alternatives to the Wal components on which they are obviously based. Funkle also refers to new wiring in his epic Building a Wal-a-like thread. Maybe I've misunderstood though, and these alternative wiring options apply to these new items only and not the Wal originals?  

Chris from Turner Pickups here...

The "old" pickups were wired internally such that each vertical row of 4 coils were all in series, effectively creating a single "coil" (just made of 4 small ones).  Then the 2 rows each had their own pair of leads, so the usual series/parallel options were available, like a normal humbucker.

The "new" pickups, which are used in modern Wals (Mk 1, 2, 3), are wired such that the 2 cols under a string are wired in series (RWRP so it's a small humbucker).  Each of these coil pairs have their own output, and all of these outputs are buffered and summed in each low pass filter.

I make my multicoil pickups in the "new" configuration, my "SEP" variant.
I also make a modified version of the "old" configuration that allows for Series, "Standard P", "Reverse P", and Parallel wirings (my "SPPP" variant).  The advantage here being that all wirings are humbucking.

See below...

SEP Variant

SPPP Variant

4 hours ago, JPJ said:

Two beautiful basses but I gravitate towards the fretless. It seems there are some really usable tones in this combination of pre and pickups, but in terms of a comparison to Wal, they should 'cleaner' to me, without that signature Wal distortion. Also, there seemed to be a noticeable volume difference between the various filter positions that I don't get with my Overwater filter pre? 

 

I don’t notice a volume drop in person… I kinda wonder if that’s just a matter of what’s reproducible on YT frequency-wise.

On 16/10/2023 at 14:58, NickA said:

The Walish is a nice bass, no doubt. I agree it has a clearer "more open" sound than the Wal. ...a better sound in many ways.

 

The Wals being made today are replicas of those designed in the 80s.  Paul Herman isn't rocking the boat by making something different or updated ..if Wal and Pete were around today, to design a MK4, I wonder how that would sound!  I guess, eventually Paul will run out of ancient op-amps and then we might find out.

 

I'd love to hear how a fretless Walish would sound too as, to me, fretted Wals are knd of missing the point and a bit ordinary by comparison.  I've one of each and it's the fretless that's really special.

 

As for neck through basses ... My all ovangkol neck thro Warwick is a totally different beast. All twang and clarity with endless sustain.  Presumably the bolt on neck and its inherent lossiness is part of the Wal sound.

For what it’s worth, here’s a fretless with my pickups and a Lusithand (though these are the coil pair per output versions):  

Fretless demo starts at around 3:35.

15 hours ago, ltank said:

 

I guess you could get the mounting ring from Chris turner. I recently bought a pair of SEP multicoils from him and I got the mounting rings along with them. It seems like you could fit any MM style pickup in it, but I don't know if slot depth could become a problem. But I could be very wrong..

Hope you’re enjoying the pickups!

While the pickups with rings will fit into the same route (standard MM shape), they’re physically different in order to accommodate the mounting rings.  So, the rings alone aren’t compatible with the pickups that have the MM covers.

35 minutes ago, funkle said:

The Wal recipe is 42.5 AWG (actually metric equivalent) wire, 10,000 winds per coil, C8 ceramic magnets, steel keepers. Not neodymium magnets at all..and the wire is different too. 
 

Straight DI sound would be great. 
 

(Everyone thinks it’s 42 AWG, but this in fact not right.)

Might actually be Grade 1 or Grade 5 (though there's not a huge difference in magnet strength between 5 and 8) ceramics :-)...  I'd love to have an actual Wal pickup in my hands that I could tear apart (nicely tear apart..  ;-)) and could get some gauss measurements on those magnets they use.  Might be happening soon...  working on that.

I just recorded this without the amp sim stuff...  just a little compression:  https://on.soundcloud.com/TJULR

I tend to play with a pretty heavy hand, too.

49 minutes ago, funkle said:

Yes, I think they do have a huge stash. 

 

I don’t think there’s a full consensus yet. My take is:

 

The ACG is for a clean and clear sound which allows a ton of adjustability, including control of treble boost/brightness. Seemed power efficient to me when I used it. 

 

The Lusithand gives grit and allows mainly mid control, though Nuno is going to change the EQ range on the front pickup to go down to 100Hz, but it has no bright switch. Also seemed power efficient. 

 

The Underhill I have no experience of but actually seems to give some grit I wasn’t expecting in sound clips and has a good deal of adjustability, including an adjustable bright switch. It sounds viable in a Wal project to me. No idea on power efficiency. 
 

The final pre is the mystery maker clone pre I have, which is a modern clone of the Wal preamp, based on the schematics in this thread. I will report on how it sounds as soon as I can, and will comment on power then as well. 

Some of the grit from the clip I made with the Underhill could partially be coming from the amp simulation.  I listed the signal path in the description of the clip on SoundCloud, but essentially it’s this:

Bass -> Axe I/O Solo -> Amplitube 4 Bass 1 Complete Rig (all defaults) -> T-Racks 5 White 2A Compressor w/ gain dialed down a bit from default to 30

I typically record clips with this simple setup to give a more “realistic” example of how things will sound for most players who will most likely be running through an amp of some sort.

If anyone’s interested, I can also post a similar sample with the amp sim stuff disabled and only the compression on.

6 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

It would be hard these days to find a IC with as low slew rate and supposedly “bad” performance as the one they use. 

Makes you wonder what Wal does currently…

Do they have huge stash of those in a secret vault somewhere? 🙂

24 minutes ago, funkle said:

@bloke_zero Chris ( @slowburnaz) has a clip of the Underhill filter pre with a single MM pickup - 

 

https://on.soundcloud.com/sv82Q

 

Sounds great to me. 
 

Chris is getting a wider range of pickups now…I’m going to need him to explain all of the models!

Heh...  so, the "SPPP" variant that this was recorded with is the successor to the "SPSC" variant that Pete has in his Wal-ish.  The series and parallel modes are the the same for both variants.  The difference is in the other available switching options:  the SPSC variant allowed for choosing either single row of 4 coils to effectively make a "single coil".  The SPPP variant allows for either a "standard P" or "reverse P" option... think neck-side E and A coils in series with the bridge-side D and G coils (or vice versa). 

This clip was all in series mode.

7 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

I got some circuit boards made up and posted to me from China for less than the price of some etchant… so for one off things it can be doable.

 

Using the surface mounted parts however suggest more involved production! 

Maybe, maybe not.  I know of a service that will place surface mounted parts for you, as well as make your PCB boards, for a pretty darn reasonable price.

If you really want pickup details...  I mean if you really want them, there's always this option: https://reverb.com/item/66243723-wal-bass-pickup-pre-1988?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=66243723&fbclid=IwAR34zp3dIF8vOvh9buvRim_EEVM1FiK9UxoIMU6ox6VvM28Ft2ikQgPocJA


😬😬🤑

48 minutes ago, PLB said:

A long time has passed since this, about 15 years or more and thanks to this thread I found the files on an old hard disk... I thought I had lost it.

Today I would like to share it with all of you and also be able to count on your knowledge to make the necessary adjustments so that this model is closer to the original.

Once these adjustments are finished I will share the cad files with all of you.

The following images show the data that I would like to verify.

I believe that the string-to-string spacing at the bridge is 18mm, rather than the 19mm you have listed here.

Man, that’s looking really nice!

On 23/12/2022 at 09:04, Russ said:

The ones in my bass are the 10-coil, one humbucker per string models. Those are the ones that are the closest match to the Wal pickups. They have six wires coming out of each pickups - one for each pair of coils, and an earth wire.

 

The preamp is the Lusithand Double NFP Special - this is designed specifically for those pickups, with up to six inputs for each filter. Nuno (Lusithand's main man) also makes a version that works with regular pickups (the regular Double NFP, without the "special").

 

Herrick are now the only pickup company that are making pickups for the Special preamp - Rautia Guitars used to as well (they called it "new style" wiring), but they've recently closed their doors, and Turner's Wal-style pickups have more regular output wiring. Have a chat with Martin Herrick before you order - let him know what you're after and he'll help you out. He's very responsive to questions and I'll happily use him again. I have an idea for another project - I came across a kit guitar company that offers a Dingwall-style multiscale bass, and I was thinking of getting one and getting it kitted out with the Herrick/Lusithand setup. 

Chris from Turner Pickups here…. I also make multicoils that have the separate outputs per coil pair.  
 

I make two main versions these days:  the SEP variant (separate outputs for each arch coil pair) and a SPPP variant (wired like 2 split coils, and can be switched to Series/Parallel/standard “P”/reverse “P”)

19 hours ago, funkle said:

Well, I was today years old when I heard about the Underhill Bass Preamp, which has switchable modules, including a low pass filter module. 

 

https://www.underhillbass.com/about-4

 

The filter module page is here - https://www.underhillbass.com/copy-of-pd1-dual-preamp-1

 

No experience with it, but may be of interest to others looking at different makes of filter preamps. 

 

EDIT - found a review. https://www.talkbass.com/threads/review-underhill-dual-filter-onboard-preamp.1564526/

Ooooh...  very cool!

8 minutes ago, funkle said:

Thanks Chris, I’ll go check the sound samples.

 

I will say I think running the signal chain through Amplitube adds some lovely and very gentle harmonic distortion, which to my ears mimics very well what happens with your pickups + Lusithand preamp together.
 

However, the pickups on their own are very clean, as the demonstration with the ACG preamp shows well, no additional colouration from the preamp there. I might gently suggest the recording chain you are using might have a just a touch too much colour in it…perhaps worth having multiple samples, some with Amplitube and some without? 

 

And brilliant, you have your website up and running now…well done, reckon you should get some interest. 😝 

Duly noted ;-).

I'll get some other samples up there, for sure.  The intention was to try and give a sample of what it might sound like through an actual amp, as I've always felt that straight up direct recordings aren't what I'll really ever hear in a live situation.  But yeah, a direct sample would serve as a more pure example.  I'll get on that, asap :-).

1 hour ago, funkle said:

The pickup maker who made the pickups I am using has already offered to wind me a set as you describe just like the Mark 1/2/3, and Aaron Armstrong can do this as well, after checking. It may eventually be another test, although if I can get ‘close enough’ this way I will be impressed. If I go that way, I would definitely get the Double NFP Special. 
 

I do wonder how much difference the ‘Pro’ vs ‘Custom’ pickup wiring makes. Has anyone quantified it?@slowburnaz. @garfo

Well, I can say there's definitely a difference.  However, quantifying just what that difference is (as with anything "sounds-like"-related) is a pretty subjective exercise.  To give you a better answer, I'd need to do some swapping around in my test bass.  I do have a couple sound samples of the multicoils up on my website, one of each wiring scheme...  though these are both of a single pickup in the standard MM position, and the signal includes some simple amp modeling (Legacy Bass 1 Complete Rig preset in Amplitube 4).

This is making me think that providing some hard data, like a view of the overall frequency response, might come in handy....  I'll look into making something like that available.

From a technical standpoint, I'd say the "separate" version is akin to having 4 of the single "rows" you have now, halved, in series at the same time through separate but equivalent amps, given that they're buffered and mixed in both the Wal MKs and with the Lusithand Specials.