CPCustomdubwise

I think I've got a tuner screw from my old Wal Pro 1E in a drawer somewhere.....I' d better get the rest to complete the bass. ...

This is it.... the Basschattiest Moment.... The very Essence of Basschat. " i've got a pickguard..... Oh well; better buy a bass to fit it !!! "

Ooh....lists....fun Currently, BB434M black BB415WR modded with lightweight hardware and John East giblets. Previously, BB5Gs BBN5 heavily modded with EMG & Ken Smith bits BB350F

Gianni, you have made your point eloquently ( really eloquently if english isn't your first language ) but those who have responded have made their's too and they are entitled to. The car analogy doesn't, in the end, work that well, because there are so many other variables come into play....the skill of the user, the rules of the.road...the bloody weather... You can go really fast in a ford focus if you want. Some people find themselves in the position of being able to afford Ferraris...or high-end basses....and they buy them and use them and are happy or not. Other people use ford focus cars or Squiers basses and are happy and content too. And it isn't even a question of empyrical values either...not materials, not how well the things are made....not what they will be "worth" later.....it's all those things and many more besides, and in the end it's a judgement call for the individual which, in the end, is worth it if they think it is. On another thread, Andy Travis talked about his Sadowsky and his Yamaha 414....he pointed out that the Sadowsky is better than the Yamaha but not ten times better, which given the cost differential one might argue that it should be...and yet he seems to like both and hasn't got too hung up about it. That's how it is....we find value in things according to our own, unique criteria.

How many Basschatters does it take to change a lightbulb.....

At the risk of being yet another pointlessly argumentative pedant, they do in fact do exactly the same job....it's just that they do it in gloriously different ways, and that's where the fun of it all lies.... Vive la difference.... (and now I'm sucked into this elliptical nightmare too....)

I happen upon old photos like these from time to time. Provides an excellent opportunity to spend some quality time kicking myself a lot ! Also, your pictures emphasise the distinct stylistic heredity evident in these peculiarly British basses....from Shergold and Hayman through Wal to Enfield....

You could also look at the Guitarbuild website. Their quality seems very good and you can spec a lot of options, including weight. I am not connected with them in any capacity, by the way. www.guitarbuild.co.uk

1 )Ibanez EHB1505....really liked them when they first appeared....had a word with myself ( no need/already too many/studio equipment more important/etc etc etc) Then, very foolishly, I watched a couple of the more recent Youtube reviews.....fatal ! 2) Squier CV Mustang..... As above, plus I find the whole shortscale fad a bit trying..... but they are so lovely and so inexpensive.... 3) Arturia Microbrute

Ibanez ATK springs to mind; lots of people like those. And the G&L L-1500 is held in high regard too.

Travis Bean playing Shellac.... Or Travis Bean playing Japan ? And, in that vein, the most aggressive bass I can think of is a Fender Precision - if you stand it in front of a marshall 4x12 with vandalised speakers and hang it around the neck of JJ Burnel.

Funny thing, because I was going to mention exactly those two myself, and was also going to add Tim Commerford from RATM; he almost exclusively plays fingerstyle and I'd say that, like them or loathe them, the Stingray sounds pretty much exactly proper for the setting. And he has an aggressive style too. And referring to the style v instrument question, it's true; there are aggressive players and players who are maybe more restrained. But sometimes basses just are intrinsically a bit...lively. My Status only seemed to do that; loved it at first but then started to long to discover some subtlety lurking within and I never could; every time I plugged it in the apocalypse started to happen yet again....even taking into account my undoubted shortcomings as a player it was just a stroppy sod of a bass.

Just to be even more egregiously basschatty-smartarse, nobody seems to have mentioned Status basses yet. I had an early one with the GMT pickups, and it was the most staggeringly aggressive sound I've ever heard; in the end that was all I could really get out of it, so I sold it ( ironically, to Bruce Thomas, who is not a bass player incapable of subtlety ). But I can drag this back to the subject of the thread a bit by saying that I have often used a Status-necked Stingray, and that bass produced amazing, much more controlled and much more "musical" aggression.

I have also had all three and, as we know from another of your threads, the Thumb didn't do it for me.... Whatever, many years having elapsed and the one I still have ( well, not the SAME one....this is Basschat after all) is the Stingray. So my qualified answer, especially via a GK800rb, is Stingray.

They DID ! The Performer bass..... Which, neatly, also fits the remit of this thread.

I didn't like them then....I have a perverse attraction now ( which doesn't extend to actually wanting to buy one...) Did they use the headstock on another of thwir angular 80s efforts....? I think they did; that's my excuse for getting confused and I'm sticking to it !

Snap !

And in the interests of natural justice, I DID google....and Big Red X was right and I was wrong; I can't find any evidence to support what I write and I can find lots to support what he wrote. I never studied the headstocks of the things closely enough ( inexplicably !) So abject apologies due and delivered !

Google.

Also incorrect, as there certainly WAS a Fender Katana bass.

I think all your points are completely valid, and your comparison with Status is thought-provoking. And another interesting comparison might be with ACG. TrevorR and others have also made observations about relative values then and now and about the fact that all these things add up to a most inexact science... And as we have all said, in the end if the guys at Wal are producing instruments which meet their standards and comply with the business model they prefer, then it doesn't matter diddly what anyone else thinks.... But for all that, if they did their equivalent of a Metro....or the SBMM basses.... then I'd be in the queue. Not holding my breath though.

Pretty much exactly this ! I totally concur that the pickup IS key to the Wal sound, and losing that would render the thing no longer a Wal. But the circuitry is surely designed to allow tonal modification or adjustment of that core sound, isn't it...and without the adjustment the core sound is still very much present . How about this for comparison....back in the day Gibson produced the Les Paul model...then they made a posher one and called it the Custom and a " student " model and called that the Junior. There were distinct price points based on the level of extra stuff you got as you moved through the range, but the basic principle remained constant from bottom to top; the materials and craftsmanship were universally high. A good Les Paul Jnr is a FANTASTIC guitar; many people think one of the greatest ever. In some senses it is the purest essence of the Les Paul....even though it is a slab-bodied, one pickup, basically-finished guitar. As for slab bodies...well, my Pro 1e had a slab body...one pickup....a not hugely complex circuit by today's standards....it was a Wal Junior, to all intents and purposes...it was also an amazing bass. It had that sublime v neck they were doing then and it sounded so,so good. It's all moot, because they don't want to make them anymore and that is completely their prerogative, of course, but I can't channel 6+ grand in the direction of a bass; if they could do a bass that captured the essence of Wal at a manageable price point I don't personally feel that would undermine the brand one iota....Sadowsky, Fodera, Overwater....peer brands have done it and successfully retained the integrity of their flagship ranges. And that's all I was saying, really.

Andy - exactly right....though the little label on the back of the headstock has gone it describes itself thus in the neck pocket, along with it's YOB; 2005. Al....well, after a bout of reckless experimentalism at the outset I have been using it passive, and, as you will be aware, like that it sounds great; The East pre is an amazing thing but when I pushed every parameter when first trying it I soon realised that I'll take a while to use it in a nuanced way rather than just overdoing everything....so I'll get back to you once I have. The 18v certainly does provide plenty of oomph.... The neck is the revelation; I have owned various Yamaha BBNs, plus Warwick, Tobias, Status and various other 5s, and this is the nicest 5er neck I have experienced. The closest was a Stingray and I seriously prefer this one.

This particular thread seems to have gone a bit quiet recently. Anyhow, just for the sake of completeness if for no other reason, ardent folliwers of the thread may remember this bass, mentioned several million posts earlier on. There was speculation about what it might be and whether it might be worth the asking price.... I looked at it a few times, bobbing there on the ocean of eBay, apparently becalmed... I don't much like wine-coloured instruments...I've had lots of 5s, including several Yamahas, and never kept them, I wasn't after anything and anyway I was sure it would disappear quick.... But there it remained. So I bought it; it seemed a bit rude not to. Elsewhere there's a thread about bang for the buck; well, this cost 219 quid plus a very few pounds more for shipping. For that I've got Yamaha design and build quality, a genuinely fabulous neck and great pickups....to which someone has appended an East Uni Pre running at 18v with series/parallel and active/passive switches, and some Grover lightweight tuners.. All the work has obviously been done by an extremely competent pro luthier and it has a brilliant set-up straight out of the bubblewrap... That is £219 for a complete gem of a bass with some outstanding upgrades and that, my dear Basschat colleagues, is bang for the buck.

Not to be in any way obstreperous about this, but unless I have missed it, nobody has made mention of the " second iteration " of Wal basses called "Pro", produced in the latter half of the 80s. These were single pickup, passive basses with series/ parallel switches; I have never owned one but have played several, including a fretless which I borrowed for a while which was both a scaled back, effecrively "budget" Wal and EVERY INCH a true Wal bass; having previously owned both active Pro and Cuatom Wals, I can confirm that those basses sound like Wals even without the filter pre. So the precedent does exist.