stu77

Hi, Thanks for the reply and yeah, that's about as far as I've got as well. Same body shape and headstock etc but different spec! I'll get there in the end unless mine is some kind of prototype but I think it's a production model, just not sure what one?!!

Hi All, Been a long time since I last posted but trying to pin down what model bass my new Aria is? Closest I get is the SB 404 but that's a multi laminate through neck and this is a bolt on. I'm sure someone out there will recognise it immediately so any help greatly appreciated. Cheers, Stu

...........but then i just found this info and a pic of paul turner, so looks like maybe another dead end (is it me or is that jazz bass yellow as well?): Sunshine

ok, further to trevor's brilliant initial detective work i've just done a search for "gareth gates.......musicians, backing band, who played on...." etc etc and unfortunately so far nothing coming up? why is is that backing musicians don't get the credit they deserve sometimes? i guess if it was just a paid session then ok but they still should get a credit somewhere. anyway, i've even just emailed a guy selling a dvd of the 2003 concerts on eBay to see if the personal are listed! be great to find out who the guy is in the clips and see if he's still playing the same bass elsewhere (if he even is a bass player as trev suspected as well?). anyone with a gareth gates cd that lists the personal get back to me (anonymously if you prefer, haha).

WOW, WOW, WOW!!!!! that must be it but i'll contact paul and see if he knows of any other yellow ones as unlikely as that seems? so anyone know who this guy is and did he hire it or own it? you'd think from the many appearances that it may have been his own but then again maybe it belonged to the production company (you know their budgets back then) and that's why it's in limbo so to speak, company goes bust, no-one to actually claim it, office clearance guys come around and toss it in the back of the van?! further research needed i think. so what year was this and pardon my ignorance but what's the gallery (i'm assuming a shop somewhere down denmark street but it doesn't ring a bell)? nice one trevor for dragging up that memory from gawd knows where!!!? the mystery continues!

Great, thanks for the advice on the sticky pot, i'll give that a try. I have a can of servisol switch cleaner which I'm guessing is similar to Deoxit?

Aha, now that is what I needed to know, thanks for the info. I've tried playing around with the controls and discovered some amazing tones but it's all been purely random chance. Now maybe I can see what really happens. One thing though, the top neck end control isn't a push pull on my bass or else it's seized (which is perhaps more likely).

Ah, just a plain mahogany body, no facings mentioned on the back of the plate and originally yellow from the workshop according to Paul at electric wood. I love it and i've got it pretty well set up now. It is a truly remarkable bass and I'm so happy to be a citizen of planet wal, I just wish my playing was up to the quality of the instrument . Thanks for the heads up about the capacitors, i'll have a check of the circuit.

according to the plate and the records Paul has at electric wood it's all original. Weird huh? I really like it and I think with the black hardware it really goes in a strange way. Not your usual Wal for sure!

yeah, it's a mahogany body. It weighs a ton but still comfortable to play on the strap. Absolutely fantastic instrument but what the heck do all these controls do?

Happy New Year to all Basschat members. Ok, so I’ve been dipping in and out of the site for the past month or so to see what’s what (and to read some very interesting / funny threads) but there's nothing new been added to the thread about the Wal and with no news from anywhere else I think it’s time I can actually call it my own. So, as promised (if anyone is still interested) here are some pics. As soon as you see them you may understand why I didn’t want to just post pics etc but rather wanted someone to come forward and say “is it serial number $%^$&* and is it such and such a finish?”. Being such a distinctive bass nobody could have guessed the details i don’t think so it would have been pretty apparent that they actually knew the instrument! I can’t imagine there are many like it out there?!!! as I haven’t heard a thing from anyone about it or even a hint of a mention of it anywhere I’m really hoping that I’ll be it’s new custodian from now on but if these pics throw up any new leads i’ll follow them up for sure. A little bit about the instrument. It was virtually unplayable when I found it; action was through the roof and the neck was so loose in the pocket it would move from side to side with little effort. I appreciate some people may have liked and played a set up like that (apart from the loose neck perhaps) but I got the feeling it hadn't been played for a while. It all just needed a little tweaking though and now it plays wonderfully, though it does still have some electrical problems. a quick once over by electric wood at some point will sort that I’m sure. Ok, so over to the pictures to tell the rest of the story. Not a beautifully exotic wood faced instrument and perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea (or glass of banana milk?) but…it’s….a….wonderful…..WAL (and definitely not something you ever expect to find at a bootsale so keep your eyes peeled!).

hi guys, sorry not been on here for a while, had a week in bed and not for good reasons, haha! anyway, yeah, patience is the word. if i haven't had any definite claims from anyone by new year i'll accept ownership and plaster the site with pics! i promise you it's not a fake (well not according to paul at electric wood and he should know) and no matter how many of you make offers it's NOT for sale, sorry ! in the meantime, hope you all have a great xmas and new year. btw as i said initially i am mainly a guitarist (and a drummer, though no longer actively playing ) and a terrible gear hound and hoard all kinds of instruments inc basses so thought maybe you'd like to see one that i bought maybe 25 years ago? it's a guild M-85 from the mid 70s i think and has a distinctly "woody" tone! not something you see every day and it may keep your curiosity sated for a while, at least until i reveal the mystery wal anon!

yeah I already contacted Paul at Wal but no reports there. I put the word out to a few specialist shops also but likewise, nothing reported. It is a mystery for sure!

wow, that is cool, good for him. from all accounts he was a great bloke. i had a chat with paul at wal about this but he had no records of it being nicked or missing so this old wal will have to do for me i guess!

Yeah, you're right, might help though I can't imagine anyone who actually played this bass would've got rid of it knowing what it was! As I've said before I think it was passed down to someone who had no idea, maybe a relative / landlord etc. Funnily enough, I was just in a charity shop earlier chatting to one of the staff about records etc and she told me she'd just given away a couple of banjos that belonged to her late husband that had been stuck under the bed for years. Didn't know what make, could've been anything, Gibson, Vega who knows?! Anyway, 4 string, fretted, rosewood board, South of England, made pre-2000. cheers.

ah, i think i've just figured out how this reply thing works now, you have to hit the quote option yeah? yeah, i get you i just thought it's not like anyone would hold back for any reason in telling me the details straight away (though not a peep yet) but the clincher is ONLY they would be able to ID it. i gave paul at wal the serial number to check out but i asked that he please not divulge any build details for the very same reason but if anyone at all can throw some light on this then maybe he can at least tell me the original owner and see if they can add anything (or if recently deceased, though morbid perhaps, at least that would be a clue). i'm getting new ideas to try everyday so i'll pursue it further and i may be wrong in my approach here but i'm just going by what i feel is best at the moment.

thanks kev, i appreciate that. it's never happened to me before either by the way and like you i never thought i'd get this lucky but i'm sure you'd do the same. i just thought i needed to do something just in case it was the "unaware relative" scenario as i have been there myself as i said. actually now you've got me thinking, maybe someone has been trying to track me down on some art forum somewhere? you know i never even thought to look!!!?

In all sincerity I think you're missing my point. put it this way, if I posted "I just found a £50 note, it's pink and it's serial number is such and such" what's to stop anyone just saying "yeah, that's mine"? However, if I say I just bought a wal custom MK1 and if anyone can prove it's theirs by telling me the details and what happened with it, without knowing any details of the instrument I have, then there's no way it could be anyone else's as only "they" would know the specifics. Does that not make sense?

Thanks Tubbybloke68, I'm trying my best. CamdenRob, That's the whole thing, it definitely would have flagged up somewhere but there's nothing, and it's obviously a pretty specific item and would be hard to miss!!! You're not the first mention it but if I put up the details anyone can just come along and say, "hey that's mine, blah blah blah" (though they'd still have have to prove it I guess) but that's not the idea. If someone PM's me with the details then I'll be absolutely certain they know this instrument intimately. I got in touch with Paul at wal basses this morning but there were no reports of any missing wals there so I still think this forum may well be the best way to go. If the seller just didn't have a clue, as it appears, then there will be no report anywhere anyway and this may be the only way to let them know.

Hi Chris, that would be a brilliant gesture whatever and no worries, I can understand the scepticism (possibly not helped by my first "mysterious" post but I'm getting there!). Please put the word out to anyone you think might help the search. My main thoughts are that someone has died and their relatives don't know what it was, or maybe someone died intestate and the landlord cleared the house / flat so if anyone knows of someone recently deceased who owned a wal, maybe this could be it? Let's see if we can find out one way or another, Cheers, stu.

Hi Skybone, yeah, going to try them tomorrow, see if anything has been reported but I reckon this forum probably has a wider reach overall and surely such a rare Instrument would have flagged up somewhere by now which makes me think whoever had it really didn't know what it was and so isn't actually looking for it? Highfox, that's exactly it. And yeah, what a find if it's all cool!!!! By the way, I'm not sure what I'm doing here, with replies I mean? if I want to reply to individual posts how do I do that (I told you I was new to this, haha)?

Hi guys, woah, there's really no need for this kind of conjecture! I'm sorry my original posting may have seemed so cryptic, I just really had no idea how to go about doing this. First up I have no intention of selling this bass nor am I a scam artist / Chinese infiltrator i am a guitarist (i know, sorry about that) who also enjoys playing bass who seemingly got some amazing luck and I'm just trying to estabslh ownership of a fantastic instrument so I can feel comfortable abut enjoying it, or if I discover that this actually wasn't meant for me then I shall gladly return it to whoever it should rightfully belong to. It really is that simple. It was bought at a Bootsale of all places so you can probably see my thoughts about its origin. After getting it home and realising it actually wasn't the Chinese fake I first thought I went, uh oh, has some poor son / daughter, neice / nephew sold this on without realising what it is they had? I have searched for any reference to the instrument having gone missing / been stolen and there is absolutely nothing I can find so I'm hoping I am, as Trevor so eloquently put it in a p.m., the luckiest bu*^er around, haha. but until i've done my very best establish that I shall keep this thread active in the hope that someone may make a connection somewhere and get in touch. I can say that once this is resolved either way I shall post full pictures and details up as it is an interesting instrument and one of those OMG moments and maybe then you'll realise why I'm unable to do so at the moment (sorry again if that seems rather cryptic!!!!).

Thanks for the replies guys. I can't really put any pictures or details up at the moment because someone could just say "oh yeah that's mine, can I have it back please!" If you see what I mean!!!? I'm really trying to see if someone is missing it for some reason and can send me the spec / serial number etc so I'll know it's definitely theirs and if so connect them back up. It is a fantastic instrument for sure, though it is a bit bashed up!

not sure if this is the right part of the forum to post this but here goes (moderators, if it would be better seen elsewhere please let me know)? ok, here’s the thing, i mostly play guitar but i recently bought a very interesting bass and wondered if any of you people could assist me with something? When i got home i did some research and i’m pretty sure it’s a Wal custom MK1 and the reason i’m posting on here is because i want to check to see if it was really supposed to have been sold or if the seller made some mistake because it seems to be more valuable than I thought? i have no reason to think the sale was anything but legit but the price i paid for the instrument made me think about it more and I feel a bit uncomfortable that the seller may not have known what they had (after my dad died a while back i sold some paintings that i'm pretty sure sure were a lot more valuable than i thought so it does happen i guess). a friend in the police force told me the best place to start would be on a forum like this (i'm also posting on FB etc) so if anyone has recently (mistakenly) got rid of such an instrument or knows of anyone who has pm me and if they can prove this is their instrument (they’ll know the serial number and details etc i’m sure) i’ll gladly reunite them with it. i’ve already scoured any sites online that have missing or stolen instrument databases as well as searching FB and doing general google searches but not found anything in relation to this instrument at all so i’m hoping (of course) that i have just been lucky with what I’ve bought but please pass this around anywhere you think might be helpful and get back to me with any info. cheers.

it's great site, thanks.