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Building a Wal....ish


funkle

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Love it, still can’t decide which bass I want to mod and spent all my funds on pedals by accident 😬

 

Might bite the bullet and order the preamp now to force me into making a choice.

 

While I know you said the laminate and fretboard choice made a big difference, it’s subtle enough without personally A/Bing a Wal I don’t think I could tell.

 

I was planning on adding a bridge pickup to my Schecter P4 Exotic anyways so thinking I might just go all in and make it a Walish. My BB would probably be closer though to the real thing. 

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1 hour ago, bassvirtuoso said:

Okay, spill it, where'd you get those knobs?


Ha, those were made by a chap called Ross. He did a nice job on them, although it took a while. I’m not sure he’s set up for mass production. 
 

I’ve just replaced them with the newest knobs from Nuno, and they’re great, but they suffer the same issue - the markings don’t go as far as the travel on the pot. I’ll talk to Nuno about it. 

Edited by funkle
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So what do you think Pete, would a Yamaha 434 make a pretty decent Walish base for conversion, Alder body rather than mahogany with 6 bolt laminate neck with rosewood board , though body end bridge stringing, put the neck pickup in the existing P position, bridge in the J and toward the bridge, would need another knob and maybe extend the control cavity and make a new pickguard to suit, I have one here not being played 😈 🙃

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6 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

My gut says exact wal positions would be quite useful …

But which exact Wal positions?

 

I'll bet Paul Herman uses a jig and/or veneer calipers...but the older ones are not very "exact".

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3 minutes ago, NickA said:

But which exact Wal positions?

 

I'll bet Paul Herman uses a jig and/or veneer calipers...but the older ones are not very "exact".

I’m pretty sure there were measurements somewhere in the last 30 pages!

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27 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

I’m pretty sure there were measurements somewhere in the last 30 pages!


I put them in the video as well. You just have to pause the screen at the right point, they’re not there for long…

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1 hour ago, Aidan63 said:

So what do you think Pete, would a Yamaha 434 make a pretty decent Walish base for conversion, Alder body rather than mahogany with 6 bolt laminate neck with rosewood board , though body end bridge stringing, put the neck pickup in the existing P position, bridge in the J and toward the bridge, would need another knob and maybe extend the control cavity and make a new pickguard to suit, I have one here not being played 😈 🙃


I bet it would work very well. But you’ll need to get the pickups in Wal Mark 1 or 2 positions IMO. No-one seems to consider the Mark 3 positions as ‘classic’. 
 

Link to the post on pickup positions -

 

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Wow, great result, and as I said in response to an earlier video, I actually prefer the sound of the Wal'ish. For me it has the overtones and the distortion of the Wal but it's just a little bit more open and fuller sounding to me. 

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9 minutes ago, MrDinsdale said:

@funkle What’s the output of the Turner Pickups with Lusithand pre? Are they pretty hot?


Yep, the Lusithand Double NFP Special with the newest ‘English voicing’ MC4X with the pickup output trims all the way up on the board is in fact louder than the Wal. Which is pretty impressive. 

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@funkle Thanks very much indeed for an extremely enjoyable thread - it's great to see somebody with a refined vision and the energy, persistence and ingenuity to follow it through.  In this case, the vision was followed-through to a very positive conclusion in my view.  The Wal mystique/mytery has been well and truly nailed from what I can hear.  Indeed, the comparisons are excellent and the Walish sounds more Wal than the Wal.  I know that sounds ridiculous, but to me, the Walish sounds slightly thicker and sweeter than the Wal in some modes, and it's that thickness and sweetness that I find most attractive about the Wal electronics/overall recipe.  This sort of makes it more possible to achieve Wal-like tones without the compromises (to me) of having a Wal bass - I've had a few, and those compromises undermined the tonal goal.  My aim/daydream now is to try this with a short-scale bass.  Of course, a big compromise in itself and a short-scale is unlikely to sound exactly like a Wal, though I hope to be able to get close.  Thank you again, a tour de force 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I see a big player in Nordstrand is now wading into the Wal tone pool with some new "kind of" multi coil pickups. https://bassmusicianmagazine.com/2024/03/new-gear-nordstrand-audio-polyvox-multi-coil-pickups/

It has just one coil per string with 2 pole pieces (effectively a splt P pickup per string on a staggered angle) Different to the Wal.. Should be popular though. 

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But they've ganged up all the coils inside the pickup.

 

Hopefully in series, otherwise the coils will load eachother and rob you of high frequencies. 

 

Not Wal like, but likely still pretty good.

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Hi guys - I really need some help figuring out what replacement pots to use for my 1980 Wal Pro fretless 2 PU. A couple just spin round and don't grip. I had a look and they don't look standard. How have you guys been replacing non-functioning pots on a 1980 era model? 

 

Andy

 

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On 08/03/2024 at 07:21, Burns-bass said:

 

 

1 hour ago, andyjevans said:

Hi guys - I really need some help figuring out what replacement pots to use for my 1980 Wal Pro fretless 2 PU.

Maybe not the right thread.  Try the "Wal Lovers of the World" Facebook pages, someone there will have a pro2 or pro2e ( whichever yours is) and be able to read the part number.   Or ask Paul at Electric Wood; they're really helpful to Wal owners; they've not made a pro2 in decades, but happy to mend them.

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5 hours ago, andyjevans said:

Hi guys - I really need some help figuring out what replacement pots to use for my 1980 Wal Pro fretless 2 PU. A couple just spin round and don't grip. I had a look and they don't look standard. How have you guys been replacing non-functioning pots on a 1980 era model? 

 

Andy

 

Andy, Pro bass pots are weird… never seen the like on any other bass. Rather being an integrated part of the same unit like most pots, the pot and the shaft for Pro basses are separate items. The body of the pot has two locating holes at the centre of the hub and a separate plastic spindle with two locating prongs fit into those holes. Yes, bonkers! After many years the plastic locating prongs get brittle and can snap off - which is what has happened to yours. Give them a gentle tug and you’ll find they come right out and you’ll be able to see where the prongs have snapped off.


Same thing happened to my Pro2E about 15 years ago. I took it to Paul for him to fix and he did is bang up job. The pots locate directly onto the circuit boards so I wouldn’t have trusted many people to have replaced them. When he fitted the new “normal” pots it really brought the bass back to life! So my advice would be to take it down to Fetcham and get Paul to swap them.

 

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