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Partial to Aluminium ? Acrylic ?


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5 hours ago, songofthewind said:

Somebody above suggested that if it was black it would look like a boring P bass copy. I was pointing out that it is NOT black, but, to my eye, a rather ugly assemblage of components from differing sources, with different engineering and aesthetics, coupled with a large and oddly ungraceful backplate. So to me it looks plain weird and badly designed

You could've said that in the first place! All valid points, depending on your aesthetic view. I think it's cool-looking (aside from a couple of details that do spoil it), but I like basses that are a bit different.

I also like pretty conventional basses too - quite partial to a 'burst J myself - athough I'd have maple board & blocks - preferably pearl.

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OOh - interesting. Did TB only bring out a fretless after MK ripped his out ?  Personally, i would have thought that they made a factory fretless back then, so not sure why he didn't just a buy a fretless version of his bass

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On 04/07/2018 at 14:33, Hellzero said:

Yes, they do and a lot... I remember the glorious days when I had one with a Kahler vibrato on it, always fine (and sometimes heavy) tuning notes while playing thanks this "gadget". That's the main reason why Mick Karn played a Wal, thanks to his tech/roadie that borrowed a Wal during an "impossible to stay in tune" recording session as the studio was just near Wal office. The rest is history.

I have it on good account (a guitarist who toured with Gary Numan) that apparently MK owned two Travis Bean TB2000s.  One stolen very early on (this was a very low production number), and the main one he's more familiar with was left at Gary Numan's studio during the Dance sessions.  Allegedly, MK didn't have the nuance/balls to go and collect it so he migrated to the Wal.  This was after Gentlemen Take Polaroids, so 1981-ish.

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3 minutes ago, fleabag said:

OOh - interesting. Did TB only bring out a fretless after MK ripped his out ?  Personally, i would have thought that they made a factory fretless back then, so not sure why he didn't just a buy a fretless version of his bass

TB didn't make a stock fretless.  Mine was fretless for a while (ebony board) as the fingerboard was lifting off the aluminium, I then had it refretted by Richard Knight.

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6 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

I have it on good account (a guitarist who toured with Gary Numan) that apparently MK owned two Travis Bean TB2000s.  One stolen very early on (this was a very low production number), and the main one he's more familiar with was left at Gary Numan's studio during the Dance sessions.  Allegedly, MK didn't have the nuance/balls to go and collect it so he migrated to the Wal.  This was after Gentlemen Take Polaroids, so 1981-ish.

I don't which one is the good one and if there's one, but Mick Karn remained loyal to Wal even when he could afford another Travis Bean or when he played a Klein fretless bass...

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I knew I read it somewhere, and it was in Mick Karn's autobiography. Don't want to start finding the page as someone already gave the answer in the other TB https://www.talkbass.com/threads/when-did-mick-karn-switch-from-travis-bean-to-wal.833442/#post-11862761

You can tell your guitarist that he really is a guitarist : not reliable. 😁

From TB : In his autobiography, he states that while in the studio, extreme temperature changes were causing the aluminum neck to shift and not hold tune. It just so happened that the Wal factory was down the street from the studio. They let him borrow a bass to get through the session, and that was it.

Edited by Hellzero
TB excerpt added
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