NickA

I tried a PJB "compact suitcase" the other day .. not with my DB sadly; only with my fretless EB. But I reckon it could work for double bass too as it's very transparent and not "boomy". I'm teetering on the brink of ordering one. The only drawback really is that despite being compact it's quite heavy (40lbs) Tried an AER amp 1 a couple of years back and found it incredibly well made with a very nice sound, but rather dull sounding with an EB until I'd pressed all the "enhance" / "colour" / "presence" sort of controls and £1200 odd is a lot to pay. The PJB sounds good without all those buttons to press and brought out timbres in my old Wal EB that I hadn't really heard before. I asked the bloke in Bass Direct about alternatives and got the following replies:[list] [*]Gallien Kruger - no good these days, awful and dull sounding (I concur to an extent as I tried one recently with my DB = pretty damned good and with my EB = dull) [*]Mark Bass - OK for EB but too mushy for Double Bass [*]PJB briefcase / bass cub etc (ie the smaller PJBs) - don't shift enough air, so sound a bit thin. (I tried a PJB "fightcase" once and that was OK, nice sound but mebee a bit toooo refined) [/list] Said comments may well be as much due to the fact that the PJB compact flight case and PJB double 4 were the only tiny combos he had in stock! so, Chris S, did you make a decision? If so what?

I'm glad to hear all that. It's kind of nice that my bass has Ian Wallers signature inside it, but it's just "object fetishism". A brand new one really should be more expensive than a chipped and dinted one .. it's not like the sound improves with age (like a violins do ...allegedly) Shall keep my eyes open for another bass bash as would love to try one (or two) other than my old maple faithful. Wonder if I can justify a 2nd Wal as an investment ... Couldn't be worse than an ISA surely ;-)

Really useful thread. Thanks. I've been to Turner's Toft's and Thwaites over the years and liked Toft's best (as the people who restore and set them up are in the back room and available for a chat and all the basses were beautifully set up). However all three shops have a terrific mark up between what they pay and what they sell. Tried a bass in Turner's that they wanted 20000£ for .. found identical in a Sotheby's listing that had sold at auction for £8000 ( plus auction fees presumably, but still)

I remember there being a huge rack of WAL (and Chapman sticks) in Rod Argent on Denmark St in the early 1980s. I went in one day to obsess and they told me they were selling them off cheap at £500 each (or make us an offer). In a year or so, 2nd hand WALs were £550 or £600 on Denmark Street. I finally folded in 1998 and paid £820 for mine; the shop had two and I thought "they won't sell for a bit" .... the next day the nicest, Walnut, one had gone so I bought the Maple one on the spot. Of course, in part, its the cost of the wood. Mahogany is subject to CITES trade rules and Ebony is basically endangered. Gibson got raided by the US "fish and wildlife service" in 2012 for violations of wood trade laws. It's rare and precious stuff we're dealing with here :¬)

Hey MikesWals .... as the owner of both kinds.. do you find any difference between your "New" and "Old" Wals? I was with mine (a 1980s 4 string mk 1 fretless) in bass direct this week, where they had a Mk1 and a Mk2 for sale at around £4500 (!!) they told me the new ones are about £5000 and have a two year waiting list and "anyway wouldn't be the same as an old one", hence the increasing value of the original Mk1s. Any truth in that? I'd quite fancy a fretted one to go with my fretless and can wait two years ... but would it be "the same". Frankly I can't see why a new WAL would be any different from an old one - unless that endangered brazillian rain forest mahogany has all gone ...and the new ones look at least as nice as the originals.

sold for £400. bargain ... maybe

My (1880 ish Markneukirchen) bass fell over and the finger board came off ... plus lots of things came loose inside. It cost (the insurance people) £1500 and two months for me to get it back .. but now it's a) much stronger, doesn't buzz. It's still too big for my hands and I considered trading it in for a 3/4 size, but after months of looking and borrowing a "much better" bass for a month I decided to keep it (partly because the dealers were a bunch of profiteering crooks). Go for it. Once you have a bass you like, stick with it.

Impossible to say without trying it, (from the photos I can't even see if it's real wood or laminate or if the finger board is ebony or painted "hard wood") but without a sound post you can't try it! Retrieving / Replacing the sound post is quite difficult and you're talking £100 or so to get it replaced and properly set up. That or many hours fishing about inside trying to snag it with a loop of fishing line and many hours more tweaking it about 'till it sounds right. (edit, bloke on another thread got his music teacher to replace the post for a tenner ... so I overestimated a bit!)