4000

7 hours ago, NickA said:

 

They're still heavy basses!  Just not quite as heavy as one from the 1980s.  Personally I like the heft of a good hardwood bass with solid hardware on it.  Don't own anything under 10lbs.

 

As to the orginal question .... NO NO NO NEVER NO AND NOT AT ALL.  Electric Wood are are making a decent living making a good product at a low rate of supply.  If they're happy with that, why should they change a thing.

 

The ‘80s Wal Custom I owned wasn’t that heavy. I’m pretty sure it was comfortably under 10bs, which is pretty unusual for an ‘80s Wal. It was much lighter than the Jaydees I owned and I’d say a bit lighter than my Dolphins, which were also noticeably lighter than my Jaydees. The Pro IIE I owned was quite a bit heavier than my Custom. 
 

FWIW I too hate heavy basses. Prolapsed discs will do that.😉 Although TBH I tend to prefer the sound of lighter basses anyway. 

The best colour ever. A fabulous thing. 

On 09/06/2022 at 14:51, joe_geezer said:

Thats great thanks, i would probably pay an extra grand to have the weight reduced, i hate heavy basses..

That’s interesting as both the Jaydees I owned, and the majority of the many Jaydees I’ve played, were very heavy; 12lbs or so. 
 

I take it yours is much lighter?

10 hours ago, joe_geezer said:

I played many original Wals and never found any to be second rate, on the contrary they were at least as good as a Fodera, Alembic...  i must have been lucky  

I’ve also played many original Wals - and owned 2 - and none of them have been particularly outstanding in terms of build quality or playability IMO. In fact they were bordering on agricultural compared to the Alembics I’ve owned. But they have all had variations on a distinctive tone and if that’s what you want, then that’s what you want.
 

I haven’t played any of Paul’s so can’t comment on them. 

10 hours ago, Shaggy said:

 

Thats something Wal will never, ever do.  Every part on a Wal bass is bespoke apart from the tuners, and they know that’s a big part of what makes their bases unique and effectively uncopyable (there are close custom build copies of course - IMO the Enfield Cannon is pretty much a copy of a mk2 - but never exact).

 

 

 

I asked Wal if I could buy a set of pickups and electronics back in the early ‘80s. They said yep, no problem. They weren’t even that expensive. For various reasons I didn’t go ahead but I really wish I had. 

22 hours ago, bass_dinger said:

Listening to John Deacon, I do wonder about his influences.  He seems to have arrived in Queen fully formed, and hugely skilled, and very adaptable to the various styles of the band.    

 

School band; covers band on guitar; Queen's bassist.  

I’ve read in an interview that his biggest influence - or possibly favourite bassist - was Chris Squire. 

Blimey! 😳

On 01/06/2022 at 11:13, BigRedX said:

When you consider that 3 of the best known Wal users - Mick Karn, Justin Chancellor and Leigh Gorman - all sound very different there may be some truth in that...

Well Karn plays fretless for a start, so he’s not really going to sound the same. From the little I’ve heard of Chancellor he seems to use a lot of effects (please correct me if I’m wrong), so that’ll be a factor as well. 😉 Gorman sounds pure Wal to me. 
 

1 hour ago, NickA said:

Well, I play jazz mostly. Not especially fast.  I Read a John Pattituci article, also repeated by Janek Guizdala, where he said a high action is better for tone and articulation, which makes sense.

 

I bought a Warwick dolphin a few years back that arrived with an action so low I found it hard to play (spooky) so settled on about 1/16" ( or a bit less) at 12th fret.  Certainly higher than flea or John entwhistle (I really don't want fret buzz)

 

But is that too high for good slap tone?

 

 

It’s all completely subjective. I can’t slap with high action at all (not that I really do anymore) but YMMV. Of course it doesn’t just apply to slapping either. There is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to what’s comfortable. As for tone, I like to have a bit of fret buzz in my sound and find the higher the action, the further away it gets from the tone I like, so whether higher action is better for tone Is also entirely subjective IMO. 

2 hours ago, nikon F said:

love Thains playing on the heep albums ,,,on the earlier keef hartley records you could hear him leading up to what he did with them.  he also played a P towards the end of his time with heep 

He did indeed, but I like his sound on Demons & Wizards and Magicians Birthday best. So sweet & plummy. Love Gary, one of my favourites. 
 

13 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

I play rock and metal (although not quite so much metal these days). I've always preferred a low action and dig in hard when playing.

If the bass is set up properly a low action should not be an impairment to musical style.

I originally played rock and metal and always preferred as low an action as possible, although I do generally play very lightly.
 

Flea uses pretty low action considering how hard he plays:

3/64ths 12th fret E string

2/64ths 12th fret G string

5thou relief centre of neck when string fretted at both ends

And then of course there’s Entwistle and his famous “I like my strings on the other side of the frets” quote. And this one I read recently- “When a bass mag interviewer asked if, because of his super low action, if it bothered him if he got fret buzz in a few spots, John said "Yes. I want them all to buzz evenly."😂

3 hours ago, joe_geezer said:

I play Jazz. fusions, smooth jazz & funk, I like to play fast so I need a lower action for this & slightly lighter string (100-40).

I also have a fender Jazz with heavy strings and high action for my Jaco sound.

 

Mark King also stated in the Guitarist interview that you need to get the lowest action possible & he's an amazing finger style funk player as well.

If you're a metal or rock play then a lower action probably isn't your bag, i have no idea as i am not a rock / metal bassist.

 

For example, this is me playing on a jazz with low action and 100-40 strings:

 

 

To be honest that action looks noticeably higher than mine! 

6 hours ago, wateroftyne said:

It makes perfect sense to me. 
 

People want to see the band. The band can’t perform. This is the next best thing and, as far as I can tell, they’re backed by a live band.

 

All good.

This.
 

They’re arguably my favourite band (along with Yes and Genesis) and I never got to see them live. This is as near as I’ll ever get, so I’m looking forward to it immensely.

I’ve always boiled my strings (although may no longer be doing so quite as much as I’m slowly moving over to the dark side and TI flats). It started because I had no money - I was at college, then on the dole for nearly 3 years, then only working part-time for about 3 years after that  - and I couldn’t afford to keep buying new strings. In terms of time, I had plenty of that!😂 And contrary to the experiences of some, I’ve always found it worked really well on my preferred Rotos (not so well on other brands and nickels IME) although it didn’t last as long as actual new strings, obviously. 

Physically, for me, they’re now one of the most uncomfortable basses out there. Which is a shame, because I would quite like one with flats for that Gary Thain vibe. 

On 20/05/2022 at 17:55, Cosmicrain said:

Hand over day.  Mark popped in today to collect his new baby.  After quite some time I had to turn the amp off to stop him playing it, I think he would have done a full set given the chance. We both agreed it sounds like a "Wal" in a Zoot Boudica package.

 

 

That looks epic! 

2 hours ago, KevB said:

Really sad to hear this. I tried learning Greek a few years back (unsuccessfully) and part of the course was we had to do a little presentation so I picked Vangelis. Have all the J&V stuff and some Aphrodites Child too along with the odd solo album. He auditioned for Yes after Wakeman left first time and eventually they picked Pat Moraz instead. Apparently Vangelis spent more time playing drums at the audition than keyboards, bit of a character by sounds of things.

In an interview I have, Steve Howe suggests the issue was that he just improvised every time whereas they needed more fixed parts, something to latch onto, so they mutually agreed there wasn’t any point continuing. 

Gutted. He was a genius. This is my favourite; reduces me to tears every time:

On 08/05/2022 at 13:03, T-Bay said:

 

I think there was also a bit of a stink a few years back over some questionable comments on a radio program as well (a bit far right iirc) but I didn’t hear it personally.

Do you mean the comments about supporting Theresa May?
 

If so, she clarifies here:

https://www.katebush.com/news/clarification

She was supporting having a woman in power, not the Tories. If that’s what you’re referring to, it’s not exactly “a bit far right”. 

Not questioning your experience, but everything else I’ve ever read or heard from anyone who has worked with or encountered her in person says she’s lovely and completely backs up Mark Radcliffe’s comments. Which isn’t to say she always will be of course. 

2 hours ago, Rich said:

Quick mock-up

 

You know, as great as that looks, I think I prefer the gold with that top wood. 

2 hours ago, Cosmicrain said:

Finally finished, Mark is due to collect next Friday.  And before you ask, yes it does sound like a "Wal" and then some.

That’s gorgeous. Congratulations Mark! 
 

FWIW I like the gold bridges, but I don’t mind gold hardware. Black would be fine too, but either way, it’s stunning. Food for thought; I want one!

I’d be interested to know what it weighs….

On 20/04/2022 at 13:53, Andyjr1515 said:

Next jobs will be the neck carve and headstock plate.

 

Neck profile will be a pretty much standard 'C' shape.  I will rough it out with some templates and then fine-tune it by feel - plenty of air-bass coming up

 

For the headstock plate, I'm going to do an inset/flush truss rod cover in the same ilk as my recent ebony 6-string electric build, where the cover is fine-saw cut from the blank itself.  It creates a really neat and clean looking solution:

 

 

 

And this morning, we have shavings!

 

Most builders will tell you that the most satisfying part of a guitar or bass build is carving the neck.  Trouble is, it's usually over the quickest too!

 

I use a variety of tools.  First, I take the corners off the volute with a block plane:

 

 

And that lets the spokeshave, that comes next, to take full-length sweeps from heel to headstock to rough out the shape.  The spine is pencil marked as all of the carving will be up to this point to preserve the planned neck depth:

 

And that gets a rough oversize shape ready for the micro plane that will take less material away at a time and allow me to guard against going too far at any one stroke - which is easy to do with a spokeshave...this is after less than 15 minutes spokeshaving! :

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m amazed to see how little time this took. I always imagined it’d take some serious time whittling away at hard maple. I’ve watched a few luthiers working in my time but have always managed to miss neck carving. 

On 12/04/2022 at 08:36, prowla said:

I'd like to try one of these out, but they're awfully expensive and don't address tail-lift.

 

Even narrower than a normal Ric's ???

Yep. I cut the saddles at 16.5mm centre to centre. 

My two favourite bassists, in context. Chris openly admitted to The Ox being his main influence, early on, although they were very different in many ways. Chris is my favourite, but I love them both. And Squire’s tone and Entwistle’s Alembic tone are probably my two favourite bass tones, again in context. 

Cheers, much appreciated. I have my spacing narrower than usual, hence the question.