malpasso Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 (edited) (Things that can happen to you when you wish a fretless MK1 fretless WAL bass so hard!) Dear Basschatters! What can you do when you rave to grab a WAL MK1 fretless bass and you haven’t got the 3200 Eur requested for a pre-owned one? I made myself this question about three months ago and this is what I came up with: Buy yourself these components: Warmoth Precision body, mahogany core with flamed walnut top. Contoured heel option, rear routed for electronics, unfinished. Buy yourself a jazz Bass maple neck, ebony fretboard and paddle headstock, unfinished, have a Black Tusk Graph Tech nut installed to it. 4 knob, two switches, east U-retro Deluxe, three band EQ, sweepable mids, passive tone control. Black finish, like the rest of hardware. 2 GFS MM Pro pickups. Babicz Full contact bridge. Warmoth 4 bolt neck plate. Warwick capsule Gotoh-style tuners, ridiculously cheap, but featured on 3200 Eur basses (good enough for me!). Screws, strap buttons, pickup mounting foam, aluminum shielding foil… …You’ll heve spent some 1000 Eur counting odds and ends in. Knock off a WAL headstock design from pics in the net. Scale to your neck dimensions y and take it to a trusty carpenter to have it cut with a band-saw according to your design. Spend three hours of your time sanding it with fine grit sandpaper, until your fingertips cannot feel any irregularity on the headstock rim. Mark the tuner shaft holes and get back to your carpenter to have the holes press-drilled. Sand the neck and body thoroughly. Oil finish 4 coats for the neck, keep pore open, wait 24 hours and use steel wool in between layers. Follow suit with 6 coats for the body. Drill the holes on the body, where the preamp knobs and switches will be mounted. Cover the control cavity with the shielding foil, do the same to pickup tubs and under-the-bridge grounding cable location for perfect electrostatic isolation. Change the U-Retro jack socket for a switchcraft deep-panel one (this ruotong type should be specified when ordering body from Warmoth). Install the preamp, screw, solder, fix the rest of hardware, roll the fretboard edges, string, adjust, intonate… At the end of the process you should be getting something similar to this: You may hang it on next and discover there it is lighter that you expected, the neck does not dive at all and it is extremely comfortable and fast. Next you could plug it in, you might find it dead silent (in the good way) and like the sound (when played) so much that you could find yourself compelled to record a sound sample like this one: [media]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16506524/Karn%20bass%20sample.mp3[/media] …maybe you’ll arrive at the conclussion that there is a couple of loose ends: You may want to find a name for the bass, and choose Karn Bass as a homage to Mick Karn, from Japán, who passed away last year and whom you always admired. You might think of having a vynil logo made for the headstock. You will probably buy a string retainer to do away from some undesired tensión on the nut that could be caused by the second and third strings. Eventually you could want to share your satisfaction with your fórum fellows and start a thread like this one. Thanks for reading, forgive my elaboration…I’m soooooooo veru happy! Edited January 29, 2019 by malpasso Typo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Very nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truckstop Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Really nice there mate, great job! And that's a lovely piece of Walnut there, lovely ripples of flame there. Truckstop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OmeDunk Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Great work. How long did it take? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary mac Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Totally impressed, nice job Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andydye Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 That is super sweet, great job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muzz Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 That's lovely. I'm a big fan of having a go at things like this- cracking job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Nice concept, nicely executed - love the tone too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malpasso Posted February 19, 2012 Author Share Posted February 19, 2012 (edited) [quote name='OmeDunk' timestamp='1329642164' post='1545070'] Great work. How long did it take? [/quote] I decided to do it three months ago. Selecting the components took its time. The painstaking thing comes with collecting all the different parts from different sources. Once you have it all, the most time-consuming task is finishing: takes just a week if you find tha right oil-based finish product (Liberon finishing oil in my case). Of couse I'm not a pro, I did it in free moments. Edited February 19, 2012 by malpasso Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conan Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Lovely!! I actually prefer the shape over a real Wal, which I've always found to be a bit ugly... Lovely tone too! Well done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gub Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Wow thats an amazing job you have done, i am a big mick karn fan myself ,love the sound of this too! well done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prime_BASS Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 This sounds unreal man. Really dig that clip and the bass sounds amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Vader Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Beautiful job, I like that a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malpasso Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 [quote name='Conan' timestamp='1329658145' post='1545386'] Lovely!! I actually prefer the shape over a real Wal, which I've always found to be a bit ugly... Lovely tone too! Well done [/quote] Thanks to everybody!!! Conan: It's funny that you mention those aesthetic issues with Wall basses. Actually, the only model that rocks my boat as regards looks is the [b]MKi[/b]. I guess it was because of neck-dive problems that they decided to make Mkii and Mkiii longer in the upper horn. They may be more ergonomical, but that breaks the harmony of the original design IMHO!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muttley Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Lovely. Fantastic job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoombung Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 There you go; you don't need £3500 to sound like fretless bass superstar. Excellent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarky Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 [quote name='Spoombung' timestamp='1329758685' post='1546882'] There you go; you don't need £3500 to sound like fretless bass superstar. Excellent. [/quote] Indeed it bears more than a passing resemblance to your Precision-shaped Mk 1, Kev. Cool playing too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leftyhook Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Well done! sounds cool. but.........it won't have that certain bass, 'mojo'........... coming from a an owner of a commissioned Wal Mk1 so consider me biased. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gareth Hughes Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Nice one. I'm well impressed. Thanks for posting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malpasso Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 (edited) [quote name='leftyhook' timestamp='1329759711' post='1546901'] Well done! sounds cool. but.........it won't have that certain bass, 'mojo'........... coming from a an owner of a commissioned Wal Mk1 so consider me biased. [/quote] ...HA, ha, ha....!!! ...Well, there goes a good one!!!! Thanks, Lefty, lucky you to get hold of a real one!!! Edited February 20, 2012 by malpasso Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leftyhook Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 [quote name='malpasso' timestamp='1329748611' post='1546663'] Thanks to everybody!!! Conan: It's funny that you mention those aesthetic issues with Wall basses. Actually, the only model that rocks my boat as regards looks is the [b]MKi[/b]. I guess it was because of neck-dive problems that they decided to make Mkii and Mkiii longer in the upper horn. They may be more ergonomical, but that breaks the harmony of the original design IMHO!! [/quote] neck dive? er.......no neck dive to report on my Mk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malpasso Posted February 22, 2012 Author Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) [quote name='leftyhook' timestamp='1329866379' post='1548984'] neck dive? er.......no neck dive to report on my Mk 1 [/quote] Ooops! Then I must have made a false assumption, mislead by the change in design found in subsequent designs !! Edited February 22, 2012 by malpasso Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.gif.9ad672bb8b84505709f76b39c8c256ec.gif)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.