NickA

PS: What I love about basschat ... never heard Michael Manring or Steve Lawson before; now lying in bed with my headphones on!! Thanks for the recommendation. Quite totally different sounds achieving a similar kind of music! Don't think even COBALT flats will get us Manring's tone!

I've two fretless basses, that I've always used round wound strings on. Both are over 20yrs old, both have round wound score marks on them but neither has needed the fingerboard more than lightly resanded. So long as you don't use "side to side" vibrato or note bends (no need on a fretless) it's not a huge issue. The Wal (30 years old) actually has slight furrows under the strings .. which I read somewhere improve the sound a bit, so have never sanded out (plus Wal fingerboards are quite thin and very expensive to replace!). If your fingerboard is NOT ebony (or this semi synthetic ebonum stuff) then probably use flats, get the board epoxied or put up with re-planing / sanding now and then. Fingerboard wear aside I've always reckoned you can get a wider range of tones from rounds than flats, giving more scope for shaping a particular sound - and in particular lots of mid tones that accentuate the way the tonal content changes through the note (aka Mwwaaahhh) HOWEVER, only today, I acquired a set of EB Cobalt Flats and put them on my franken-bass (a self designed jazz bass) and am knocked away by the lovely rich tone .. and they feel nice under the fingers too; spookily silent shifting! They are not (as the blurb says) flats that sound like rounds; more a mid-way between the two. Such a long long way from the tonally indistinct and thuddy Rotosound "Jazz Bass 99s" I learned on and which put me off flats forever. It's made such an improvement to the franken bass (which previously had rotosould "swing 66" rounds on) I'm wondering if I should try them on the Wal (currently running D'Addario NYXT rounds and with more punch and fretless Mwahh than anyone needs). Mind, the new strings OUGHT to be good at the price!! £40 from Bass Direct.

I took my bass all the way to bass-bags (a whole 4 miles away!) to see what bag fitted my odd shaped bass (it's 4/4 but not very deep and I'd expected to need a made to measure). The Westbury 4/4 is a slightly baggy but basically perfect fit; they're very good bags, quite roomy, lots of handles and I don't really see the point in spending more. Of the four bass players in my orchestra, three of us have the same bag (tho the oldest of us has the one with wheels as he was finding carrying hard work). https://www.bassbags.co.uk/product/westbury-double-bass-bag-11mm-padding/ The man at bass bags reckoned the extra padding in the 22mm version made no real difference except it doesn't fold as flat. My previous bag didn't fold well and got stored in the garage ... where the mice ate great chunks out of the 20mm padding!

Ha! The standard passive precision that people rave about and which I normally find rather dull ... in this case was spot on.

Shame the pickups are switched rather than blendable ... but having a bridge pickup will surely help get that fretless growl. Meanwhile a bit of experimentation shows that mid lift helps my fretless jazz bass a-like, especially if using the neck pickup. But the Wal has so much mid range anyway, that any boost is over-kill. Mick Kahn and Percy Jones are two of my favorite bass players btw .. and reasons why I own a Wal! For fretless, IMHO, active usually beats passive as you're trying to squeeze out all the tone you can; but there are still notable exceptions (ie Jaco!)

This is nice. Do PJB make combos you can actually gig with? That are still tiny? Not really. The Pjb compact suitcase is a great combo, but quite heavy. I've a flightcase that is much lighter, and a bit smaller, but it isn't loud and still won't quite hide behind the sofa. It is giggable for quiet / acoustic stuff but needs a pb300 beneath it to he heard over loud drummers and guitarists. A double 4 or bass cub plugged into a PB 300 is a good modular solution .. but I guess so is a gk mb200 combined with a small and a large cab To the OP I'd say Roland micro cube.

So that was you on the last leg the other week? Bass sounded great; I've been trying to find that tone ever since :-). Think my basses may be too complicated !

The wal has tone controls like a passive fender, ie low pass with an adjustable cut frequency. But it has one per pickup and the option of boosting the volume at (and just below) the cut frequency. Active yes, but does what a passive does with extras. I'm usually turning the mids DOWN on mine, so the concept of boosting the mids to get a more "fretlessly" sound is a bit foreign to me. With the response curve shown above (similar to what my Warwick has) you can still boost the mids (quite close to 800Hz in fact) by cutting the bass and treble then turning up the volume. Never quite saw the point of a mid boost / cut unless it's a "parametric" one with an adjustable centre frequency. Plus there are always the amp EQ controls .. so unless you change tone a lot whilst playing (or can adjust the pickup frequency responses individually .. as per modern Wals and some Alembics) tone controls actually on the bass are probably not that important. Of course, some of the best fretless playing ever was on a passive fender jazz (plus two expensive amps and a bit of chorus).

I thought double basses and cellos were arched to stop the tension of the strings driving the bridge clean through the table. If you built a flat tabled instrument with a bridge, bass-bar and sound post wouldn't it just collapse, rather than merely be too bassy? My double bass and cello are much louder than my acoustic bass even when played pizz ... but run far higher tension strings and have much bigger surface areas too, and that I reckon is the thing. But I'm an engineer not an instrument maker, so probably wrong. Off topic anyway ... it's a great looking instrument and even if it doesn't sound quite as intended it must be a lovely thing to own.

... and the 2nd hand ones don't cost much less (http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Wal_MKI_Fretless_1983.html). I guess they keep their value tho, so you can always sell to fund yr retirement; however, I reckon there's a bubble going on right now, possibly fuelled by collectors from the US who want gold plated hardware and fancy colour finishes on the back of the falling pound; so you could end up in negative equity ... best wait for the crash, and buy only then! :¬) Back in 1998, mine cost £650 and a Yamaha BB2000 in px (wish I'd kept the Yamaha and paid the balance) Anyway Wals are active and you want a passive .. could do worse than that Fender MIM jazz TBH.

" Is there something I've missed? " What you need my friend.... is a Mk1 4-string wal custom fretless :¬)

POINT!! I'm still learning to use all four strings all the way up the neck instead of ploughing up and down the G-string (it's easier on the double bass than oh the electric because your thumb hits the heel of the neck just as your first finger hits D on the G string; hence a nice easy marker for "I'm an octave up on the string below"... the neck on my dolphin seems to go on for ever without any way of knowing where your are) ... so I may not be ready for an extra one. But yes. Meahwhile listeing to that Dave Grossman on youtoob ... he's not exactly Rachael Podger, but it's impressive none the less.

I saw somewhere that a lot of show music is written on the assumption of 5-strings, so if yr a session bassist, you just have to play 5. I love the IDEA of a 5-string for access to EXTRA deep notes - and access to lots of 'cello / baroque music that goes down to C or D, and a low Eflat might be useful for jazz. But when I hatched a plan to buy a 5 string Thumb NT or Dolphin and started a search ... I went and saw/bought my 4-string dolphin, so still stuck with 3x 4-stringers (and a 4-string double bass and a 4-string acoustic) ... still Gassing about a wal mk2 5 or a broadneck dolphin ... or a 5-string musicman .. but just can't quite make the switch; and after playing 4-strings for nearly 50 years (!) that extra one is CONFUSING. Old dogs new tricks etc. PS: yes indeed, Bach flute partitas on an electric bass, sounds great!

I have no idea what the fingerboard radius is on any of my basses.. nor the nut width nor the weight. Best to obsess less & practice more, I reckon. Had a go on one of those totally flat Shuker "infinity" ones once, bit odd for the first couple of minutes.

Carefully saw the top off the bridge, following the existing curve adjusted as required to get the right string heights and having marked the positions of the notches; which you then need to file back in using a tiny round section file ( from any arts and craft shop) A quality luthier would grimace, but on a £350 bass I wouldn't get too precious about the exact proportions of the different bits of bridge. I did it on my bass which is worth "quite a bit" more, and it was a massive improvement. Reason there are no 2nd hand bridges is that they don't wear out. I've had the same bass bridge for 30 years .. tho tis now shorter than twas due to my desire for a lower action. Think my cello's bridge is even older. They only need changing if they break really.

Oooo; looks nice, same shape as my old German one (ie the BEST shape IMHO = viol shape with a swell back). Adjustable bridge, high tension pizz strings - ready to Jazz; ... hope it's all you expect; I'd be very nervous about paying £1700 for a bass I'd not played (but did it with an electric once and am very happy with it!).

Hey post some pictures so we can share your joy! There's a wal facebook page too (wal bass lovers of the world), where a previous owner might shed some light. Also a list of serial numbers and original owners for some of them at http://walbassarchive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/archive-stephans-wal-database.html. Enjoy ownership, they are a bit weird but very special.

Wals are pretty obviously wals. Very hard to fake I'd reckon (specific hardware and particular woods)like andve never seen a fake one. Outside the bass world of course no one would know what one was or that it was special. But You have to wonder how the seller came by it. It seems only fair to check the serial number, and maybe get a photo of the internal label and, if you don't want to post here then at least tell electric wood you have it in case anyone reported it lost. For someone to claim it they'd have to provide proof of previous ownership and a crime report surely. Hopefully it's all above board and you got lucky..

Thanks for the info Phil. Trumpington is near family, so will try for that for sure ..

AWB out there boosting their pension funds ... fantastic. Soft machine doing the same. Nice to see John Ethridge still out there with Roy Babbington on bass. To my disappointment Roy was playing a Squire PJ through an el cheapo Line 6 amp ... which just goes to show that it's what notes you play not what you play them on that counts. But I still reckon he'd sound better on a Wal plugged into a MesaBoogie ;¬)

Can't speak for the MEC pickups, but my DIY project with Kent Armstrong pickups failed because the pickups could make transients of up to 20V which the little amplifiers in my home-made pre-amp could not handle (they were powered from a 9V battery); hitting the strings too hard caused the little amps to clip the signal, which sounded nasty. Generally, to use passive pickups in an active bass you need either a pre-amp with a higher supply voltage (2x9V batteries or a voltage step up circuit), or you need to reduce the output of the passive pickups. I guess you can do this by feeding the pickup outputs into a resistor divider (eg a 1MOhm potentiometer) to reduce the pickup output before feeding it to the pre-amp - but that will only work if the pre-amp has a buffered input (otherwise the extra resistance may mess with the filtering/EQ and volume controls). The Gold MEC pickups in my Warwick have only two wires from each - there is no power supply going to the pickups, so I don't know what is "active" about them. I guess they are just low output so as to suit the 9V pre-amp, and the bass certainly has a low output despite being active. It actually has a "passive" switch, but that only turns off the EQ. Taking out the battery kills the sound even with the passive switch engaged.

I've got a realist sound clip that clamps on to the bridge (no fitting required) it has a built in volume control and plugs straight into the "passive" input on my PJB amp (4.7MOhm input impedance) without needing a pre-amp. A mate told me it would be even better with a pre-amp but his profferred amp a) kept cutting out due to a loose battery and b) made no audible difference. Possibly depends on whether your amp was designed to take a piezo directly or not. Set up properly it really does sound "like a bass only louder" .. which I appreciate is not what everyone wants. Downside of the realist is that it's hard to exactly replicate the position, counter-weight, clamp tightness.. . all of which affect the tone and the occurence of feedback. Oh and the price - (it had to be a birthday present)

How much do you have to spend on a wooden bow to beat a good carbon one? Are we talking just loads more (ie more than the most expensive carbon) or is there a break point at which wood overtakes carbon again? Andrew's bows look beautiful, but he's a bit coy about the price! £4000 or so? (over my budget for sure). On the other hand the wooden ones will probably keep /gain value, especially as the wood gets rarer; whilst carbon bows loose value as the tech improves. On consistency of carbon.. the arcus ones are all hand made (ie hand laid fibre) and do vary (they say). The sticks are then graded and fitted out to suit their quality (they say) so that the expensive gold mounted bows have the best quality sticks. I doubt I need or could justify another bass bow .. but a new cello bow is on the cards and whilst I'm tempted to just get another Arcus, I'd rather be sure .. and quite happy to buy a wooden one - especially if it's helping to keep a skilled bow maker in business. NB: you can drop my carbon bow on its tip from a metre up without any damage (as I found when a passing violinist knocked mine off the music stand).. and its waterproof too.

Seem to remember the "string section" at a David Byrne gig all had pickups that looked just like those. At the price it's worth a punt. But seem to have gone now :`(

I'm a huge Jaco fan. But all the same: I think I agree ....he noodled a deal (especially live)... but for me that doesn't detract from his genius any more than John Coltranes trips into (to me) unlistenable chaos, detract from his. I'm a huge Beethoven fan .. and who knows how he'd have sounded if he'd never a) heard Mozart b) had his dad trying to make him into Mozart, but he'd have had a lot more ground to cover before even getting to his 2nd Symphony (ie the one he wrote first, before writing a much more Mozarty one - his 1st - second, for the sake of popularity). Off to bed, after working a night shift, before I disapear up my own pseuds corner :¬)