Wal Pro pickups and guts on eBay
 

If anyone is interested...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Wal-...item35c34348cf

Pardon the n00b question, but what, if any, extra features does the "Pro" pups/pre have over other Wal electronics?

The Pro electronics are completely different than the filter based preamp of other Wals. The controls on the Pro are master volume, neck volume, bridge volume and tone controls for each pickup. There is also a pickup selector switch. Basically a whole bunch of ways to switch between the two pickups.

There are two or three switches as well. One is a bass cut and I forgot what the other two do. I loved my Wal Pro, but I pretty much just left everything wide open and didn't use any of the controls. There is a large volume drop when you go from both pickups on to either pickup, so I rarely changed things on the fly.



The pickups are massive sounding however and I loved the way my Wal sounded.


Michael

Does it still have the classic Wal sound?

I'm not really sure what the "classic Wal tone" is honestly. The only person I can think of that plays Wals that I know is Justin Chancellor of Tool and I've read that his tone is not typical for a Wal.


For all intents and purposes, I would consider the Wal Pro a passive Wal. It's all in the pickups and not the preamp in my opinion/experience. I wouldn't buy these for the preamp, but for the pickups. You would also have to have a bass custom built or routed to fit the large circuit board. Wal pickups are very different than other makers and they aren't plug and play with a different preamp.


Michael

Probably. The pickups are the same. The Pro preamp also has the "pick attack" EQ and a midrange boost setting. This was the Wal sound before the filter preamp came along. The Filter preamp also has the pick attack switch.

The Justin Chancellor tone is one of my favorites, and it would be great if these could get me close, but my favorite Wal tone is probably Flea's BSSM tone or Geddy's Wal tone.

If I get these, I'll probably buy a Maple unrouted Warmoth P Bass body and figure out some way to fit these electrics in.

Did anyone get this?
It sold for $585 with 19 bids.
I would have like to of bought it and modded my NS-2A but it went higher then I could go right now.

I have a couple customs and a pro iie They are both different animals but the same species if that makes any sense. Something i read so it Not my words but I completely agree:

The electronics in the old Pro models are very different to the Custom models to which you're referring.. though having said that, Wal basses do have a 'sound' that is quite distictive and IMO, can be heard in both the Pro Models and the Customs. However, the Custom models have a much more versatile e.q. system..

And.....:

picture a Mk I with a bit less of a glassy top-end, and perhaps a tiny bit more low-end.


As far as distinct sound.... A cool YouTube video I've watched recently has the custom Wal sound pretty good: mike hogan from cranberries playing a Mk II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8HBkhah3q0

Also, the Pro pickups (and probably the passive model), were wired up differently. Each row of coils is in series, and then those two rows are wired up in series at the preamp.

On the Mk I each pair of coils under a string are in series, and then each string pair are connected to the preamp in parallel.

I almost won it, but with 20 seconds to go, my bladder finally got the best of me. Yet another reason not to mix eBay and beer!

I use free software called JBidwatcher. You can set it to snipe at the last couple of seconds. So it will out bid the highest bid by a $1 or whatever. I don't even have to be home sitting at the computer, I just have to have the computer on and the software running. I've won a lot of auctions that way while I was out playing at a gig or whatever.