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Me and my Wal in Sound On Sound


philw
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I like the story. The fretless is different and I love her, too.

Your Wal reminds me of a bit similar looking unlined Wal. I saw it in a local store early 90's, I think. She had mostly dark brown top but with a lighter round area, a bit like yours has. It was far too expensive at the time and I have tried to find it later on.

For some reason, the fretless 4 is fine but a fretted should be a 5. Don't know why.

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2 hours ago, itu said:

IYour Wal reminds me of a bit similar looking unlined Wal. I saw it in a local store early 90's, I think. She had mostly dark brown top but with a lighter round area, a bit like yours has. It was far too expensive at the time and I have tried to find it later on.

Wouldn't have been mine in the store as I've had it since new. Sounds like you saw a similar fretless with wenge body facings though and they're pretty unusual as Pete Stevens always argued that walnut suited fretless better. He used to advise against wenge for fretless, but I did it anyway 'cause I so loved the look. Didn't regret it for a moment.

P

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Superb! Well written and personally evocative for me because it echoed much of my own experiences regarding my own musical influences (Genesis, Yes, Brand X) - and subsequent 'sell everything to buy a Wal' purchase - around the same era. My Wal was fretted - and long gone - but not disimilar from yours.

Thanks for sharing this.

 

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Really enjoyed that :) 

Theres something special about a fretless Wal. 

My fretted Wal is very dear to me, but if my house was on fire and I could only save one it would have to be the fretless...

...Then again I have two hands so I guess I could just grab both 😕

...should probably leave a hand free for either Mrs C or the cat though 😐

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A lot of British players seem to have come to fretless through the likes of Brand X and Japan and as such, have a very different take playing a fretless compared to our American counterparts, where Jaco laid the foundation. 

An interesting difference but I always found Percy Jones's tone in particular to be rather unsatisfying as he always seems to pluck so close to the neck. 

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On 25/07/2019 at 13:39, NickA said:

Nice little article and couldn't be more right. 

the only true Wal is a fretless Wal

.....though the fretted ones are also decent basses.

How can a slab-bodied bolt-on neck bass ...be so special (and expensive)????

 

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Funny, I’m perfectly happy with my “untrue” Wals! ;)

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23 hours ago, Chris2112 said:

An interesting difference but I always found Percy Jones's tone in particular to be rather unsatisfying as he always seems to pluck so close to the neck.  

Jones has said he worries about sounding too like Jaco!  I think they both pluck all over the place to get different sounds ... compare, say, teen town ( bridge) with " a remark you made " or " refuge of the roads " ( over the fingerboard ) and of course Jaco played fretted too ( Portrait of Tracey ... which I can only get anywhere near playing on the fretless for some reason ).  Meanwhile Percy Jones on Noddy goes to Sweden has about every sound you can get out of a (fretless Wal) bass!

I  count both as major influencers .. but much as I like Mick Kahn and Pino P,  (and others from that great British fretless era, eg Andy Pask) I can never sound anything like them. 

..and Trevor, you need Wal no 3.  A walnut faced fretless would complete that line up nicely!

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Wonderful article - as others have said, it's very well written.
Lovely Wal too.
Saw John Giblin a few times with John Martyn's band - a pretty tasty player. In fact the whole JM band had serious chops around that time.

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