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Wal and other filter-based preamps

burgerdj

burgerdj

Dec 4, 2006
4,072
6,669
Maryland
#1
I was able to spend a bit of time on a borrowed Wal recently. After getting acquainted with the preamp, I was able to dial in some tones that were truly remarkable. I know of a few other builders that provide filter-based preamps (ie Alembic), but I’m curious why more builders don’t embrace them, particularly given how “famous” the Wal tone is. Thoughts?
 
#2
I think the same though I am not familiar with Wal basses but I use alembic basses which are filter based and they too have some incredible sounds at your finger tips. ACG guitars in Scotland also use filter based electronics. My knowledge of non alembic basses is not that great from a playing perspective but I would imagine most bass players want their instruments to have a specific vintage sound so manufacturers will want to capitalise on that. This may be the reason many makers will provide a line of fender style and fender sounding basses within their range.
 
#4
sikamikanico said:
My guess would be that most players are confused about filter-based electronics or simply prefer cut/boost preamps (or passive), and so, in turn, builders don't use filter-based preamps...
Click to expand...

Yep, that would be the take of most of my luthier friends. The vast majority of the builds based on my open source design end up in pedals rather than installed in basses too, FWIW. And that was most definitely not my intention when I designed it.

I never even knew until recently that Bartolini made one. Anyone have any experience with those?
 
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#6
I have a thought on this. I have Series Alembic electronics in a Pbass (I bought it this way 30 years ago). I find that the electronics extremely true to what is coming off the string. They capture what the tone of the bass is. Could it be that unless you have a bass built to the caliber of a Wal or an Alembic, with dark tone woods, blah blah blah, that a production line bass (like mine) won't have the inherent richness of tone that produces a sound that bassists find appealing? Simply said, filter electronics expose a basses tone, or lack thereof?
 
#7
Jigmay said:
I have a thought on this. I have Series Alembic electronics in a Pbass (I bought it this way 30 years ago). I find that the electronics extremely true to what is coming off the string. They capture what the tone of the bass is. Could it be that unless you have a bass built to the caliber of a Wal or an Alembic, with dark tone woods, blah blah blah, that a production line bass (like mine) won't have the inherent richness of tone that produces a sound that bassists find appealing? Simply said, filter electronics expose a basses tone, or lack thereof?
Click to expand...

If I understand Alembic electronics correctly, the flat ("true") sound is not due to the preamp, but their low Z pickups. The preamp boosts the signal (which is pretty low due to pickups being underwound). They opted to use filter-based tone shaping because they thought that sounded best (I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere), though I don't think it's inherently more transparent than cut/boost EQ.

But yes, I think the general premise is that flat and transparent pickups (and also electronics) will sound best on a nice sounding bass (with nice strings). Though, I don't think people agree on what makes a bass sound nice. See all the debates on tonewoods, neck joints, body types, bridges, nuts, etc... As far as I can tell, Alembics are made pretty stiff, so according to what I learned on TB, their sound should mostly come from electronics (and strings), not the bass. So if your P bass sounds nice to you, that's all that matters.
 
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#8
Jigmay said:
Simply said, filter electronics expose a basses tone, or lack thereof?
Click to expand...

I think that just depends. In the case of mine my design intent was kind of just the opposite, at least for the filter section. The idea is to at least partially neutralize the pickup's natural resonant peaking and then superimpose a new one of our choice electronically. But that's only in boost/peaking mode, which is not the only option. Also, my design is meant to work with many pickup formats, where some others are more tailored for specific ones. Part of the rationale for doing an open source design was that there would be many design forks for different specific basses and wiring schemes, but it hasn't really happened that way so far.

I designed a proprietary two band preamp for a luthier friend with just active bass and mids, and a standard passive tone control for treble. IMO that one is quite a bit more transparent than my filter one, actually.
 
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#9
I had an Alembic PJ stickup set and filter in an old P-bass and feel like a fool for selling it. After I did I tried one of the ACG filter pres and one of the Boogieman Alembic clone filter pres from Ebay, both put in outboard boxes. I can confirm that the filter pres seem to work best with low impedance pickups like the Alembics, I assume because the resonant frequency of the pickups is so high that the filter has more range to work with. I do wish there were more options for both low z pickups and filter pres. The range of tones you can find with a good combo is far wider than any standard pickup/preamp I’ve tried
 
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#10
Passinwind said:
Yep, that would be the take of most of my luthier friends. The vast majority of the builds based on my open source design end up in pedals rather than installed in basses too, FWIW. And that was most definitely not my intention when I designed it.

I never even knew until recently that Bartolini made one. Anyone have any experience with those?
Click to expand...
Yes, I had an old Curbow prototype that had the Bart filter eq. It was mated to a Bart P/J. I really liked it, though at the time I needed a fuller tone than what the bass produced (crazy slice!) so I regretfully sold it.
 
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#11
If I'm not mistaken the Wal pickup's coil makeup is different from Alembic's single coil type

82c4086aa26c1e55fb95d603cef1de18.jpg


then each pup has its own filter bank

496d179f51c52f7e3c1ed2d0e09cea97.jpg


Wal electronics aren't all squeezed on a single PC board and if one side goes out all is not lost.
I couldn't find any Alembic photos except for the Boogeyman stuff on eBay and it isn't authentic.
 
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#12
Passinwind said:
Yep, that would be the take of most of my luthier friends. The vast majority of the builds based on my open source design end up in pedals rather than installed in basses too, FWIW. And that was most definitely not my intention when I designed it.

I never even knew until recently that Bartolini made one. Anyone have any experience with those?
Click to expand...
Hello Passinwind,
Where can I find your open source design?
 
#15
I saw a supposed 30 year long owner of a wal bass flatout state that he still has no idea how the preamp works, so I think its the fact that most bass players, cant, wont, or are simply incapable of being bothered by how something like a filter based preamp works.
 
#20
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