This bass started life as a 1979 Wal ProIIe. These are the original Wals designed in the seventies. Wal took their original, passive, design and added active electronics. The body is ash and the neck is a nine piece blend of hornsbeam, maple and purpleheart. I bought it as a project from an ebayer. The bass had previously been routed for a kahler tremolo and it had been converted to fretless at some point in its life. I paid $2000 for it off of ebay and I asked the seller to ship it directly to Mike Lull in Washington to have it refretted and to have the tremolo route filled. Unfortunately, once the bass arrived at Mike Lull’s and he had a chance to go over it, he found that the fingerboard had been planed way too much and it was unusable as a fretted bass or a fretless. The fretboard needed to be replaced. This sucked and it was VERY expensive to have done. I contacted the seller and he was great to deal with. Even though it was bought, paid for, and I had no way to force the issue, the seller was gracious enough to give me a partial refund of $250 and he even helped me get the cash after paypal screwed everything up royally. (I can’t believe what a messed up company they are. I got a different story from every person I could get on the phone.) So, now Mike had the bass and I asked him to do the following work:
Fill the tremolo route with a nice piece of ash and prep the body for repainting
Replace the fretboard with Indian rosewood, refret the bass with vintage size wire
Make a new bone nut for the bass
Run it on the PLEK machine
Mike uses Jerry Dorsch, of Graphite Guitar Systems fame to do the refinish work. Mike says he uses Jerry for all of his refinish work and heavily prefers him over many of the other famous names in painting. I have to say, Gerry’s work is impeccable. I wanted to base the paint job on T.C.’s helicopter, the island hopper, from Magnum P.I. I’m a big cheeseball and I really like the “so ugly its cool” look of 70s colors. I asked for the body to be done in 70s brown with an orange and yellow racing stripe, which was inspired by my Alleva Copollo.
Everything ended up costing me around $2100. It was a ton of work and money. I wished I hadn’t gotten in so far over my head many times, but I’m really happy I did it. Yes, that does put the grand total close to $4000, which is by far the most I’ve ever spent on a bass.
This bass is absolutely SICK!!!!! I’ve owned a ton of basses and this one really is just incredible.
Playability wise, the bass just kills. You can tell that everything is just perfect when you play it, thanks to the PLEK. The fretjob and setup are just perfect, for the lack of a better word. The action is low, the neck is straight, and it just plays like a dream. The neck is definitely odd, but I really like it. It has a violinesque V-profile in first position, which gently turns into a C-profile as you go higher up the neck. I love vintage sized frets and I think they really aid in playability. They might not last as long, but my fingers just fly over the fretboard.
The sound the Wal produces is just fantastic. It’s very, very powerful sounding, whether played with a pick or finger style. The electronics are two tone controls, two volume, one master volume, a pickup selector switch, and three tone altering switches. One is the “pick attack” which adds some top end and makes finger style sound closer to a pick. The second is a low mid boost and the last is a bass cut/treble boost. There are a ton of sounds in there and I haven’t even come close to finding all the tones. With everything wide open and all the switches off, the tone is almost like it has a little envelope filtering going on. It makes a sort of wah type sound, close to a talk box. This the opening sounds on Living on a Prayer, it sounds kinda like that, but not all the way. So far, I usually play it this way, but I sometimes add the low-mid switch to cut through a little better.
I really couldn’t be any happier with this bass I don’t mind the money I spent. This is truly MY bass and there isn’t another like it. I’m really happy I went with the paint job I had envisioned. I was thinking just getting it black, thinking of resale, but every time I walk past it and see that paint job I just grin like an idiot. I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, but that’s how I roll. It’s just awesome!
Special thanks to Jerry, Mike, and Roger!!!!
Mike
Edit: Images fixed thanks to Wilbyman
Fill the tremolo route with a nice piece of ash and prep the body for repainting
Replace the fretboard with Indian rosewood, refret the bass with vintage size wire
Make a new bone nut for the bass
Run it on the PLEK machine
Mike uses Jerry Dorsch, of Graphite Guitar Systems fame to do the refinish work. Mike says he uses Jerry for all of his refinish work and heavily prefers him over many of the other famous names in painting. I have to say, Gerry’s work is impeccable. I wanted to base the paint job on T.C.’s helicopter, the island hopper, from Magnum P.I. I’m a big cheeseball and I really like the “so ugly its cool” look of 70s colors. I asked for the body to be done in 70s brown with an orange and yellow racing stripe, which was inspired by my Alleva Copollo.
Everything ended up costing me around $2100. It was a ton of work and money. I wished I hadn’t gotten in so far over my head many times, but I’m really happy I did it. Yes, that does put the grand total close to $4000, which is by far the most I’ve ever spent on a bass.
This bass is absolutely SICK!!!!! I’ve owned a ton of basses and this one really is just incredible.
Playability wise, the bass just kills. You can tell that everything is just perfect when you play it, thanks to the PLEK. The fretjob and setup are just perfect, for the lack of a better word. The action is low, the neck is straight, and it just plays like a dream. The neck is definitely odd, but I really like it. It has a violinesque V-profile in first position, which gently turns into a C-profile as you go higher up the neck. I love vintage sized frets and I think they really aid in playability. They might not last as long, but my fingers just fly over the fretboard.
The sound the Wal produces is just fantastic. It’s very, very powerful sounding, whether played with a pick or finger style. The electronics are two tone controls, two volume, one master volume, a pickup selector switch, and three tone altering switches. One is the “pick attack” which adds some top end and makes finger style sound closer to a pick. The second is a low mid boost and the last is a bass cut/treble boost. There are a ton of sounds in there and I haven’t even come close to finding all the tones. With everything wide open and all the switches off, the tone is almost like it has a little envelope filtering going on. It makes a sort of wah type sound, close to a talk box. This the opening sounds on Living on a Prayer, it sounds kinda like that, but not all the way. So far, I usually play it this way, but I sometimes add the low-mid switch to cut through a little better.
I really couldn’t be any happier with this bass I don’t mind the money I spent. This is truly MY bass and there isn’t another like it. I’m really happy I went with the paint job I had envisioned. I was thinking just getting it black, thinking of resale, but every time I walk past it and see that paint job I just grin like an idiot. I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, but that’s how I roll. It’s just awesome!
Special thanks to Jerry, Mike, and Roger!!!!
Mike
Edit: Images fixed thanks to Wilbyman
