joe_geezer

I disagree and thats why i won't be buying a Wal, you go ahead though and enjoy your £7000 bass and 6+ year wait

I love this comment!

Good news, they have updated their website with the following " Sorry, our order book is still closed so these stock models are the only basses currently available.We will add more information when we are accepting new orders." So, looks like they are going to accept new orders soon..

Well done mate

Yea, i asked John to make it with light woods & it's a really nice weight.

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

Interesting story, it reminds me of seeing Tubbs from Light Of The World, his Wal looked really heavy on him, not sure how tall he was.

You stated - level are detail & Paul has made his basses to be on the same level as the other money is no object bass builders As you've been lucky enough to to sit down and play a modern Wal, can you describe what changes the modern Wal has over the originals that makes them so much better? I respect your subjective opinion bias, we all have this but for the purpose of this discussion it will helpful if you can describe the improvements.

When you say Can you be more descriptive and break down exactly what aspects of a modern Wal attain your 'level' status, thanks. Have you had the opportunity to play a modern Wal and & compare it to an original Wal?

Thanks, also, if you compare Wal to 2 other great english bass manufacturers - Status & Jaydee, both with reasonable wait times and excellent value, as well as excellent build quality, I have a new Jaydee and it's up there with any Alembic, the level of detail is unreal! I would have liked a Wal because i like the fretless sounds of Percy Jones, John Giblin and Laurence Cottle... Im a jazz bassist so a Wal fretless is a great bass for that genres but under the current situation, its just not feasible for me.

Thats funny, yea i went the opposite root, had a career in music until i hit 40 and then switched to become a software developer... I have 7 bass guitars now & 2 Jaydees on order haha!

It's not a stereo type in my case, they are some of the people i know... I used to be a pro musician myself and all the top level pros played mid priced instruments as they were all broke, including me at the time.

Great story!

I can't argue with that, its just a shame younger gifted players won't have the opportunity to carry on the Wal legacy, the Wal ownership club will continue to be only for middle aged doctors and lawyers that can barely string 2 notes together

There are some folks that cannot afford the £6000+ for a bolt on instrument. I'm not rich but I could afford one tomorrow, no problem, but I would never condone the prices and you can't force me to either, respectfully. I wonder if Waller and Pete would have wanted Wal's legacy to live on as a company that only creates bass guitars for the privileged few...

And that's a shame that under Wal's current owners & business model (which is not the same business model as Waller's, who made affordable basses with reasonable wait times) you will not own one.

Great comment!

So, would the general consensus be, that folk, are happy that they probably will never have the means or the finances to own a Wal & that keeping the prices very high and the wait times very long is actually a positive sign that Wal are making great instruments - even if none of use will ever own one... ? If we compare Wal to Alembics then Wals seem cheap as Alembics go for £18,000. Alembic basses are constructed with more exotic woods, a more time consuming process, lots of mother of pearl and gold plated metal work .etc - they are like the Rolls Royce of basses. Wals are bolt on & if you compare other top end bolt on basses like Pensa, Sadowsky .etc they are in the $5000+ range. Wal's were always competitively priced back when Waller and pete the fish were running the show... and those instruments were fantastically built, i'm not sure I agree as some people have mentioned that they were sub standard - if that was the case then Geddy Lee, Paul Mccartney, Percy Jones etc. etc. wouldnt have played and loved them.

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

If Wal were to hire an extra 2 contractors, that would at least halve the waiting times, would that be a positive move or do you think even that would degrade the quality of Wals?

I remember going in to the Bass Gallery in the early 2000s and seeing a wall of secondhand Wals, i think they were prices at £800 - £1200 back then. Then Waller died & the prices started creeping up as demand grew with the help of ebay etc. So is the price hike reflective of supply and demand, not on the actual materials or man hours building? Here's the Wal prices from 2001 https://web.archive.org/web/20010813174714/http://www.thebassgallery.com/index2.html click on the top left broken image link, which links to the bass page, then click on "Other Basses" , scroll down and youll see the Wal prices

Do you know how they were able to use the brand name, did they purchase it off Ian Waller's family?

I'm good thanks in camp Jaydee... but thanks for caring

Good point