Russ

I love Thundercat. But he's either a really little bloke, or that Ibby six-string he plays is just comically big. I've been playing a sixer as my main bass for over a year now. Getting comfortable and loving the sonic possibilities, but I still find myself skipping over the D string occasionally!

That's Amanda Lehmann. She's played with Hackett off and on for years.

For the djent-y crowd, he was also helping out the Blackmachine guys with their production backlog for quite a while, and they were/are fantastic guitars if you like a big dose of "chug" in your life.

Yep. As someone from the Cronx, I know Jonathan pretty well and he's worked on my basses on multiple occasions. Lovely bloke and he really knows his $h!t. His custom stuff is really nice. He mostly does guitars, but he has made the occasional bass. He made a couple of copies of the Alembic Spider (the Explorer-shaped one) for a guy who played Entwistle in a Who cover band and they were fantastic basses. This is their site: https://felineguitars.com/pages/feline-bass-guitar-models

It's OK, but doesn't sound very "fretless" - no noticeable mwah or growl. It was the same with Ibanez's SRF7xx range. I'm very glad a mainstream manufacturer like Ibanez make and sell a wide range of basses and are not afraid to try new things, it's just a shame they always seem to be "unfinished".

I have four Bongos, including a sixer. Polite is not a word I would use to describe any of them. The trick to EQ'ing a Bongo is the two midrange controls. The instrument's voice is tied up in that one concentric stack. And a good compressor will be your best friend, especially if you can get heavy-handed with your playing techniques.

Ah, Fixed voltage then.

For anyone who has one, can you check and see if the power supply is hardwired for 240V, or if it's a universal 110V-240V one? I've flicked through the manual and I don't see any mention of it. This might affect my decision to purchase one because... reasons.

Might it be worth contacting Carlsbro themselves? Not sure how many of the people who work there now would be familiar with the Delta stuff, since they're 25 years old at this point, but might be worth a try. Failing that, Chris May at Overwater was involved in the design of the Delta range, and may know people who have worked on them before.

I remember seeing a Wal in some Cash Converters-type place back in the mid-90s for £400. 😮 They weren't seen as particularly rare back then, or particularly special!

I'd say Lakland? That's pretty much their value-prop - a more versatile Stingray. It doesn't quite nail the Stingray tone (the MM pickup is a bit further back than in a proper MM) but it gets you pretty close, and it's got the 19mm string spacing. Incidentally, over at "the other place", there was a lot of interest from various posters about MM producing a Stingray 5 with 19mm spacing. Sterling Ball got involved, and said if they could get 100 orders they'd do a run of them, but not enough people signed up.

It's very 80s in style - the Simmons drums, the DX7-style synth... it's like the theme tune from some American 1980s cop show. Which is OK by me. Grew up on that sort of stuff.

Do a folk-power-metal version like this. I'd watch.

As others have said, it's mostly about two things - having good contacts, and "the hang". Being able to play is obviously important, as is being easy to work with and being someone who can nail a bass part in as few takes as possible. I'd suggest there's quite a lot of us on here who can do those things and who aren't professionals. But so much of it is who you know, and what you're like to spend time with when you don't have a bass in your hands!

They're fantastic basses for the money but they have a very odd passive electronics arrangement (two volumes, one for each coil of the pickup, and a passive tone control). If you want the full active Stingray experience, you'll have to fit aftermarket electronics. The Retrovibe guys do a copy of the classic Stingray active circuit (link below), and others are available that match the Stingray EQ curves (John East does a custom U-Retro, or whatever he calls it now, with the EQ frequencies set to match those of a Stingray). https://retrovibe.co.uk/product/retrovibe-stinger-77-classic-mm-stingray-bass-eq-pre-amp-2-band-pre-eb-circuit/

There's a new fanned-fret version of their Bass VI thingy - the SRC6MS: Looks nice. I really, really wish they wouldn't use the rubbish Bartolini BH-2s in their basses though. I'd happily pay a little more for the Nordys.

More and more luthiers seem to be using super-lightweight woods for basses now by request (stuff like paulownia, etc). They do the job, but you end up with other issues (thin tone, balance problems, etc). Paulownia also apparently dents easily and is effectively one step above balsa wood in terms of density. If light weight is the end goal here, I'd be looking at something traditionally made but with a small body, and perhaps headless. The Ibanez EHB range might be something worth looking at. I've played a few and they sound great and are extremely light (the 6-string I tried must have been no more than about 7lbs).

I think, out of that lot, with the exception of Status, Basslab is the only company that makes an entirely carbon fibre bass. The rest all just use graphite necks. Moses are no more - they stopped doing instrument necks a while back, and now only make carbon fibre speaker enclosures and violin/cello fingerboards. Emerald are a good bet if you want to go acoustic though. Their stuff is great and, while pricey, is not horrendously priced for what it is. Klos is gearing up to produce replacement graphite necks, to fill that gap in the market that has been vacated by the closure of Status. So maybe you could speck out a bitsa bass with a Klos neck and a lightweight/hollow/chambered body from Warmoth/Allparts?

The ones in my bass are the 10-coil, one humbucker per string models. Those are the ones that are the closest match to the Wal pickups. They have six wires coming out of each pickups - one for each pair of coils, and an earth wire. The preamp is the Lusithand Double NFP Special - this is designed specifically for those pickups, with up to six inputs for each filter. Nuno (Lusithand's main man) also makes a version that works with regular pickups (the regular Double NFP, without the "special"). Herrick are now the only pickup company that are making pickups for the Special preamp - Rautia Guitars used to as well (they called it "new style" wiring), but they've recently closed their doors, and Turner's Wal-style pickups have more regular output wiring. Have a chat with Martin Herrick before you order - let him know what you're after and he'll help you out. He's very responsive to questions and I'll happily use him again. I have an idea for another project - I came across a kit guitar company that offers a Dingwall-style multiscale bass, and I was thinking of getting one and getting it kitted out with the Herrick/Lusithand setup.

So I've had a bit more time to play with it now, and I think I've identified how to get some of those signature Wal sounds with the new circuit and pickups. That classic high-mid Wal "bark" is in there (the Geddy/Chancellor tone) - pickup blend centred, both filters open to about 75%, and both knobs pulled up to activate the frequency boost. The frequency sweep of the Lusithand preamp is a bit wider than the original Wal circuit so you don't really need the "pick attack" setting. If you pan most of the way to the bridge pickup and have the bridge frequency knob set somewhere in the middle, you've got that poky, rubbery tone that I associate with Percy Jones and Mick Karn. It's tempting me to mod my fretless Bongo. If you have the blend centred and everything wide open with both boosts activated, you've got a slap sound to die for. The only downside to this upgrade so far is that it's added maybe a pound to the weight of the bass - the pickups are hefty! I'll try and knock up a video over Xmas - @Dood, I'll take your suggestion! But I'll throw in a few stereotypical Wal riffs (bit of Tool, 80s Rush, etc). I'm no videographer, but I'll do my best.

It's home. First impressions - exactly what I was hoping for. The output level is INCREDIBLY loud - too beefy for my practice amp. So I'll have to dig out the big rig to give it a proper shakedown (and maybe make a video). Any riff requests? Interestingly, it has a big dose of that Wal flavour (it's got that "complexity" in the upper mids), but it's also retained some of its Music Man-ness, probably because the pickups aren't in the Wal positions.

So we still have a few electronic gremlins to address - the neck filter is massively distorting if it's in anything but the completely open position, and the bridge filter seems to have no effect whatsoever. Probably a simple fix, but the bass didn't get to come home with me tonight. We'll get there though!

I should hopefully be picking up the Bongo tonight - my guitar tech assures me it's got the sound I was after (I told him to give it a try and see if it sounded like 1980s Geddy Lee - that's kinda his era ). Full report either later or tomorrow! Seems there was a minor earthing issue with the pickups, but Martin Herrick was quick to respond and it got sorted quickly and easily.

Here's Tom doing his thing, and sounding amazing on his Bongo 6. Also, the drummer is INCREDIBLE.

I love Myung, and he's sounded so much better since he switched to the Bongos from the old Yamahas, but my main inspiration for getting the stealth black Bongo 6 was Squarepusher, who has an identical one.