Видео

Could be a winner…their other basses are good value too…

Go for it!

Price is definitely a factor…but from what I could hear in video samples online it was the sound I wanted. So I stumped up…

@@SuperFunkyPete Oh.. Don’t get me wrong when I put a J-Retro Dlx in my active deluxe jazz bass back in 2002 (was that really more than 20yrs ago?!?) I was so completely blown away by how much sonic ground it allows you to cover while really not presenting any strange, narrow q type of nasal midrange.. Or any truly obnoxious, offensive sounds you nearly always get at the extremes of the potentiometer’s boost/cut setting.. They’ve actually become even more user selective since then via pcb mount trimpots for pickup gain adjustment, mid-scoop/flat pre-shape filter contour dip-selectors etc.. Which is truly remarkable! J.East’s circuit design frankly merits the hefty price tag (which isn’t really any more than Delano/Glockenklang/Bartolini/Noll/Lustihand/Sadowsky/Nordstrand or Aguilar which are all nearly identical in concept circuit wise..

Appreciate that very much. It's been a lot of work!

@@matthewduncan9405 such is life

Glad you enjoyed it! :)

No, this is wired in parallel, classic old-school style. I think parallel is actually what is standard for 'classic' Rays. My original SBMM pickup was wired in series, though, when I bought the bass.

@@SuperFunkyPete my mistake I got it backwards lol. thank you

I like it too! I'm playing it plenty these days...

Agreed.

I don't know why it is, but it just is. At least in my testing...the neck is a big deal.

I like them too. Great basses to mod

Nice. I love the Brazilian rosewood feel and look.

Great to see you here Pete!! Miss you.

Those were Hipshot Ultralite Licensed tuners. Cheap but effective!

I’m glad you asked. I did research the bridge too. I’m told the bridge itself is zinc and the saddles are brass, although I don’t have a way to independently verify that. So for the ‘Wal-ish’ I went for a brass bridge as being as close to zinc as I could get. Honestly I have changed bridges many times on basses (Babicz, aluminium Hipshot and brass Hipshot A/B bridges and also their Vintage model, good old Fender bent bit of tin, KickAss and Badass bridges, no-name pieces of rubbish….I could not say that I have noticed much difference (once a minimum level of quality is reached). But YMMV…

You're not alone. And as it turns out, neither am I! I honestly thought everyone had just about forgotten his work. They're still the best Jazz and Precision body shapes I have seen from any maker. Same for the headstock.

These are round core steels - DR Hi Beams, 100/80/65/45. I like steel round wounds a lot for the highs to get this type of sound. To be fair, I use nickels on other instruments, and the older Stingray 5s with ceramic pickups (as opposed to the warmer alnico one here) sound great with the standard Ernie Ball nickel round wounds.

@@SuperFunkyPete Thanks for sharing! I actually also wound up doing nearly the same build after watching Lobster (except I went 3 band) and love toying with different strings but they're often demo'd on P's or J's, so the sound comes out different. I usually go nickels, but the only steels I've tried were Ernie Ball, which seemed too cold for my taste

Strings are a big frontier to cover. I keep trying out different sets and finding interesting differences. DR Fat Beams are some of my favourite steels; they have just a bit more mids than Hi Beams and D’Addario Pro Steels and can add just a touch of needed warmth to that ‘steel sound’. I used Hi Beams here but on my Celinder (see my other video, plug plug lol), Fat Beams are perfect.

You bet!! I could get a custom made for me for that money.

Before buying it, I had the idea of buy the sterling 34 but checking the differences and the price.... I think that famous brands do the same. Gibson specially. They change epiphone pickups by gibson pickups and the increase the price 500$.... Yep. You can check some parts from the bass and it is enough. Another thing is that you want tonbuy a jewel... Then the stingray is perfect 😅

Eh. I guess it’s in the ear of the beholder

I found it. Thundercat / Mac Miller. I knew I heard it somewhere! I actually heard it from the bassist of a funk band called Telua. You should check them out if you already haven't!

That’s the JuliaPlaysGroove version of ‘What’s The Use’ by Mac Miller. Original bassist was Thundercat…Julia’s line is well worth copping, she’s fantastic…

@@SuperFunkyPete I love JuliaPlaysGroove! I've only started the bass in the new year, but I found some tabs for What's the use on Nate Navarro's channel, so I've just started to learn it after wringing my comment.

That sounds like it could work well. Let’s hear it when you’re done!

​@@SuperFunkyPete I got to test a prototype bass and now we're in the planning phase for a custom build. It will probably be a custom-made body (I just designed a shape, kind of between a Jaguar and a StingRay 5 with a unique twist), paired with an off-the-shelf neck with Fender 5-string dimensions (20-22 frets for more space for the pickups, and so I can change to a high-quality neck easily). I'm probably going for 2 sliding pickups, but a single filter EQ to keep it somewhat simple. If all goes well, this will be able to sound like all the classic basses out there - P, J, StingRay, Ric, Wal, Thumb, and more 😁

@@VeitLehmann I think the sliding pickups idea is really smart. I wish I had thought of it. Record what you make, I'd love to hear it..

I’ve seen the Clover basses. They look great; never heard one. I’ll have to try and check one out if I can.

Fair point; perhaps I should consider myself lucky!!

Appreciate it JJ. I’m always surprised how long it takes me to record anything. I’ll get faster one day

😂 ha!!!

You’re very kind. I don’t know the TRBX pickup dimensions, but I have played them, and I suspect they are narrower top to bottom than Turner pickups but perhaps just bit less wide (from E to G string). I think the mounting rings would be needed too. I use Microsoft PowerPoint sometimes to measure up basses (as long as I have a shot from the front and make the distance from nut to 12th fret the same on both, I can make size comparisons between the basses). Why don’t you try something like that to help visualise it?

I like them too, and would have gone with Nordstrand at the time if it was available. But, couldn’t get one, so Aguilar it was.

@@SuperFunkyPete also, another fine choice.. Aguilar was a close #2 for me

Sure. I marked out 4 spots where the thumb screws go through and then used a metal drill bit to drill through the existing bridge plate. 4 holes to allow the thumb screws from the mutes to screw into the wood. I would have preferred to put in metal inserts in there for the adjustable mute screws to go into, but couldn’t find any that would fit.

Make a video!! 🤓

@@SuperFunkyPete I’ll attempt to. I’m kind of new at this lol.

@@SuperFunkyPete what’s your twitter handle. I’ll post a picture.

Yes, scale differences would make a big sonic change. I’ve noticed 32” scale instruments have quite a different sound. Fortunately, here, both the Wal and the Wal-ish have the same scale length, 34”.

That one does sound good. Both pickups together nearly full open is great.

@@SuperFunkyPete I agree, that had great tones!

Thanks man. I like it!

As long as you don’t mind the butchery, I don’t see why not. Worst that happens is that you decide you want to move the pickups, and then you might make a custom pick guard or similar to cover it. But I’m a fan of using what you have…make do as best as possible.

Thank you, Croc. I hope it’s been helpful!

Glad this is helpful to you, that’s why I did it…not many people have documented their journey, so I decided I would. Kind of learned how to do it as I went.

I did consider this and wish I had moved it back by about 9mm closer to the bridge. It looked so weird I didn’t have the courage at the time, but I wish I had done it now. Still, if you see the next video, once I swap out the pickups/new pre, it is very close indeed anyway.

Yeah, but he literally just went out of business as I was hoping to make an order. That's what led me to hounding Chris Turner as well as a bunch of other pickup makers...

ACG makes a great Multi-coil, but I’m not sure Alan sells them as replacements outside of ACG basses. Much like Wal.

@@ChemistryZero He sure does; made by Aaron Armstrong I think. However they are integral to the sound of his basses and indeed he will not sell them or his newest preamp version separately.

I had an afterthought. Have you approached Bartolini? They’re in the central coast of CA and very open to new ideas and make fantastic stuff.

@@ChemistryZero I think I'm about done for now...Bartolini might indeed make pickups for me but the next video gets me where I want to go...have a gander.

That would be quite unique. I'd love to hear that.

I’m really pleased for you. The treble is more key to the sound than I had realised myself - I only really got it when I sat down with a frequency analyser and tweaked until I could match the top end of the Wal. Who knew?

I think it could be. And you can get the Legacy series ones pretty inexpensively secondhand. My only slight reservation would be a one piece neck vs a multi laminate one; I think the multi laminate does add something to the mids. But otherwise - I’d say use what you’ve got if it’s what is available, or can easily access…90% (ish) of the sound is the pickups and pre…

What a great suggestion. I’d have never have thought of that. Was it from AliExpress or Wish?

@@SuperFunkyPete Ali But there are sometimes scammers about I bought from grandguitarampstore or however it was called

Man I’d love to see and hear it! Where did you get it!!??? That would be such a. Fun project!

Ah….both Tool clips are played with a pick here…? Can’t comment on the rest, the playing is what it is…

I had them made for me, but the person doing them isn't geared up for large scale production. I've actually since bought the knobs that Nuno at Lusithand just came out with, and they're great. I await version 2.0 of them - he is going to have them corrected so that the rotation on the pot and the spacing for the numbering matches perfectly, which they don't presently. Buy from Nuno

I did have to drill through the existing bridge plate, 4 holes, to allow the thumb screws from the mutes to screw into the wood. I would have preferred to put in metal inserts in there for the adjustable mute screws to go into, but couldn’t find any that would fit. I hope that answers your question..

@@SuperFunkyPete thank you! 👍🏽

Go for it Matt. Would love to hear how it turns out!

@@SuperFunkyPete struggling to find Turner MC4X multicoil pickups with 'English Voicing' i CAN see MC4

@@mattbh0y you’ll have to message him directly. They are a special order I think

@@SuperFunkyPete is it less than 300?

@@mattbh0y it was around that. Postage and import tax is killer though

It will never be perfect, that would need I think some preamp tweaks from Lusithand. But it’s definitely within the range of sounds that Wal basses make now…

@@SuperFunkyPete Definitely. especially in a live setting it would sound extremely close

Yes, you may be right. I spent a long time tweaking the high end to be similar when playing the same clips, and how much high end is rolled has a huge effect on the perception of the low end. It is kind of surprising. I have spoken to the chap at Underhill and he does now have a filter pre with the necessary buffering for these pickups. My issue is he’s made it clean sounding, so no built-in harmonic distortion. I’m probably going to leave it for now because of that.

We’re definitely in the area now where the Wal-ish falls within the range of sounds that Wal basses can offer. It’s not exact but it’s good…

Thanks Badger. I’m getting more ideas for more content as I go along. I’m never going to be in ‘regular production’, but I’ll make stuff that interests me as I go. Hopefully it will interest others too.

It really is tricky. I just got the newest knobs from Nuno at Lusithand, and whilst they are real quality, the range on them doesn’t quite match the range on the potentiometers either. I’ll chat to Nuno about it.