NickA

The original pickups in my j bass were single coil for sure. The two being wound in different directions and having opposite polarity magnets. Turn one pickup off and lots of hum results. The delanos are silent. The sound I think comes from the narrow aperture rather than the singlecoiliness per se. So you can make a humbucker that sounds close to a regular single coil .. trad humbuckers ( stingrays, Wals etc ) have a wider aperture.

I have a pair of humbucking j pickups in a bass (Delano) but Don't fender make a version too? I think they have two coils inside but only one around a magnet.

Sandberg VM5. The split coil pickup is the other way up so closer to the bridge on the bass side ( which is how all p pickups should be imho ) also has an H near the bridge so can do Stingray noises too, but it's easily turned off. One of the best basses I tried on a recent 5 string hunt. Leo fender said his best basses were the g&l ones ....so it seems he didn't think he'd got it right first time with the precision!

These are great. I have four electric basses and on not one of them does everything quite line up ( the Wals included ), so don't get too sore about your unaligned neck. On my Northworthy bass, the misalignment of neck, pickups and bridge was my own fault as I left Alan Marshall making the neck and took the body away to fit with tronics ... And yet!!!! This one has the best string/pickup alignment of the four, by dint of the schaller 3d bridge. Actually the Warwick isn't bad; the bottom half of the two piece bridge is squiff but the upper part is adjustable side to side ( with difficulty ) so the strings can align with the pickups and neck. Looking forward to seeing the end result anyway. Nb: Gotoh tuners .. great, very smooth, very low gear ratio. Bought some with trepidation for the Northworthy bass. Actually work better than schaller lights despite feeling a little flimsy by comparison.

Tried gigging my TC polytune this afternoon. Put it in the signal chain between bass and amp so that turning it to tuning mode blocks the signal to the amp. Good for swapping between the electric and double basses. Works very well, locks on right away all the way down to the e basses bottom B string. Very accurate in single pitch mode and good for a quick check in "poly" mode ( it swaps automatically ). BUT the double bass does act as a big microphone, so external noise ( the vocalist and guitarist warming up even ) gets into the tuner a bit and can switch it into poly mode. Isolating the sound of the dB from everything else, I guess, is the problem, especially if a pa is pumping out electronica behind you. Now understand the issue!

G strings handles "just". In fact at a recent gig I did a list minute check of my fretted bass and adjusted it to the tuner ..which was set to JUST!!! Sounded awful. Never ever ever use just on a fretted instrument! As for orchestras, really good ones ( especially " authentic performance " ones) will use " just " or other carefully chosen non even temper; then the base key will sound perfect and contrasting keys will sound Different. In my kind of amateur orchestra we tune to the same A, then everyone does their own thing .. cellos and violins tuning strings in perfect 5ths, double basses in perfect 4ths ( which is an argument for tuning basses in 5ths!). If you get a melody line then it's usually played in just ( avoiding open strings) but no one is good enough to play say an A minor melody in natural temper of E major! Anything with a piano in has to be even temper anyway .... though I gues if you're lang lang you can get your piano specially tuned for a given performance ?... probably ( I guess not ). Bit of a pet subject 😉

I use gstrings tuner app on my mobile. Set it to 5 string bass guitar, put it on my bridge at orchestra ( much more accurate than listening to the oboe) and put it on my amp when doing jazz. Free, accurate ... does the job. I have just bought a tc polytune tho ... impulse buy.

Nice to see Christian is using both index and middle finger ('cause that's what I do). I used to play with the middle finger only and got awful blisters. Most people seem to use the index finger only. Once had the chance to ask Alec Dankworth how to avoid bleeding fingers and he said a) share the duty, b) turn your amp up (ie don't pluck so hard) and most important of all c) practice a lot!

O Oh Ohh Simandl. I hate it. It is the dullest book ever written. Full of tuneless sequences of notes. But sadly it is a hell we all have to go through to get the basics down (tho you do need to read music). There are other techniques, but this ancient tome, designed for classical bassists playing gut strings with a bow and an action measured in inches, is kind of baseline standard. I've seen so many rock and bluegrass bassists stalled with a bunch of bananas technique trying to change notes by shifting their whole hand about ... I'm not convinced you can injure yourself doing that, but it's severely limiting.

Yes, very. Theorbo best .. but the guitar and harpsichord grew on me. Been playing Bach and correlli on my 5 string bass guitar .. now have to find some Visee to play

Hard to find anything that works really well for DB and EB. Best compromise I found was PJB (the neo-speaker range, BG-150, BG-300, PB-300 etc) but if you found EA too "HiFi", the same will probably apply here - and they only have one input, which means the dreaded ABY switch or fiddling with leads between songs (I switch between passive for DB and active for EB, and generally keep the EQ dead flat except for room acoustic compensation, so that's not an issue). PJB's "piranha" speaker range (BG-400) seems to have a bit more sparkle and has two separate channels as well. Might hit the spot, but does come with a weight penalty. I note that an increasing number of DB players are using Markbass amps, which are also well liked by EB players. Worth a try if you can find some (lots in the Gallery in Camden, but it's a way from Wales).

It's also on Mr Morewood's own site ..https://elitevintageguitars.com/category/wal-bass-pro-ii-e/ Better photos and, yes really, a jg build plate. seems the last two jg basses (1152 and 1153) were pro 2es. This then could be the FIRST Pro2e ( well, some of it) And it's ash not "mahogy".. Thanks to Mr Raggarts Wal history ... from which I have cribbed with impunity 🙂

Know OF him. Through similar Wal selling attempts. He usually has two or three Wals, they are often proclaimed to be for sale, but prices are rarely mentioned. This Wal, specifically, has an unexplained replacement neck ( no bad thing for a player, tho a collector wouldn't like it ) also has a knob missing which, in this case means the shaft is broken or gone; needs a new pot soldered onto the PCB and short of 3d printing one , a new knob would be hard to find. At around £3000 it might be a decent budget way into Wal ownership for someone prepared to do or commission repairs & renovation.

Ah the great and well known Joey Morewood. For a man with so many lovely guitars and basses he appears to know nothing about any of them. Disingenuity I fear, in pursuit of a greater margin. Wouldn't touch this bass with a bargepole at anything near that price.

The wedge on mine is a much more subtle affair! About 5mm thick at the thickest bit, so no effect on the neck profile. Certainly a very skilled job, but much lower impact than taking the whole neck off. Also it allows for adjustment of the side to side angle of the fingerboard, ie you can change the action more on one side than the other which is usually what's needed on an old bass built for gut strings being converted for higher tension steel. It's still going to cost a few £100 - normally the kind of thing you negotiate into the price when buying from a dealer .. ie "I'll pay you £5k for that if you change the action, fit a new bridge and add a new set of spiros"

You may not need a neck reset. They can put a wedge under fingerboard leaving the neck as is. Mine has one put in by Malcolm Healy when I bought it. Made a huge difference to the playability. For complicated reasons the action ended up too high again and I was advised to have a new wedge put in ... I sawed a cm off the bridge instead and it's just fine, no change in sound, just easier to play ( especially in high positions ). I think somewhen I may go to a mender and have an adjustable bridge fitted, can tweak the mwah on the fly then - and crank back up for classical stuff.

2nd / 3rd hand strings received from @Clarky today. Thanks mate. The bass indeed sounds huge (it IS quite large) - but it's the extra attack, sustain and articulation that are so nice to have back! The Helicores (though bowable) are dull and thuddy by comparison. Thomastik Spirocore - there is no substitute. Others may be more subtle, but these babies swing! Dont try slapping though, they'll have your thumb off.

Those perpetuals have a good write up: "Extremely energetic with very little effort and a juicy right hand feel when played pizzicato, yet strong and complex with good stability under the bow." Maybe true at the price (though still less than Eudoxas!) Anyway, that's an offer too good to refuse. PMd you. Why do the Ds always give out first? Just cause it's the longest string and there's more to fail?

Had a look on his site (https://thedoublebassroom.com/) whilst poking about for cheap basses; everything he lists is over £3000 (and very well priced at that for the quality). Does he have a hidden back room (a "bargain bassment" perhaps?). +1 for an old and well setup ply bass btw No setup will make a bad bass into a good one, but even a good bass won't work without being properly setup and, unlike an electric bass, it's not something you can do by yourself . Decent dealers and owners will sell basses that ARE properly set up .. Thomann etc probably not. Worth factoring in when comparing prices.

Realising that I have only Jazz to play until September; I decided to take the D'Addario Helicore Hybrid strings off my DB and put on my old set of Thomastic Spiros. The Spiros have been sitting in a box for 20 odd years (!!) and when I dug them out I found that the D string has a knot in the peg end (must have snapped some time) and the E has gone AWOL. So, off to my local bass shoppe on Monday to buy at least a new E .. probably a D too ... oh sod it, probably a whole new set (£166!) Has anyone tried both Siprocore Medium and Spiroco Light (weich)? What is the difference in sound? I think my spiros date from when spiros were spiros and the three different tensions weren't an issue. I quite like the idea of a lighter string that's easier to hold down - but don't want to sacrifice tone. NB: the bass is a fairly hefty 43.5" scale German affair - solid and loud with a big fat tone when bowed, and pizz sustain that goes on and on and on and ..........