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Won the Wal pickup on ebay!!!

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#221
SGD Lutherie said:
Initially they will be in MM style covers, but I'm exploring making a cover that looks like the original. That wont fit into anyone's bass without some work though. They are also pretty tall pickups, so even in a bass with MM pickups, some routing will probably be in order.

Just so everyone gets an idea of the size of the pickups, here's the Wal next to a 4 string MM cover. And yes, the pole pieces will be exposed.
Click to expand...

Nuts.

I mean that's ridiculously awesome in a purely overkill way, but hollowing out a $1,400 bass body is going to be interesting...
 
#222
musicmansf said:
Nuts.

I mean that's ridiculously awesome in a purely overkill way, but hollowing out a $1,400 bass body is going to be interesting...
Click to expand...

They are taller than the MM covers, but not all that much taller than something like an EMG soapbar.

My test bass has a rout for two EMG-40 size pickups right next to each other, and is routed to hold that depth pickup. The real Wal was slightly too high sitting in that cavity, so it would have to be slightly deeper, but not a whole lot.

At some point I'm going to make a similar pickups with slightly smaller coils that will fit in more standard sized covers.

I built one back in '92 that fit into a Jazz bass cover. It had five small coils.
 
#224
musicmansf said:
I mean that's ridiculously awesome in a purely overkill way, but hollowing out a $1,400 bass body is going to be interesting...
Click to expand...

After messing with the parts for a while, I came up with another version that will totally fit into a MM cover and wont require making the cavity deeper.

But this won't be an exact Wal copy, and will use neodymium magnets. But the coils will be the same. It will probably be brighter as well.

pushifier said:
@SGD: I'm really interested in your progress on the Wal pickups and preamp.

Could you post some pictures of your progress? And/ Or sound files?

(also your soapbars sound really cool!!)
Click to expand...

I haven't made much progress since the last update. All the coils are wound, and I have the steel parts for the pickup that the coils sit on, but now I have to assemble it.

I got busy with a couple of repair jobs, and working on a Jazz bass pickup prototype, but will be back to the Wal this weekend.

There's no sound clips yet, since the pickup is not finished.

The preamp is still on the drawing board, so to speak, so once the circuit is tweaked a bit more that will be breadboarded.

Glad you like the pickups! I'll be putting Music Man and Bart BC4 & 5 shapes up soon, probably next week.

I have several J designs being built and tested and a P is next up. Some other stuff too...
 
#226
Hopper said:
Bump...Any more news?
Click to expand...

I'm about to get back into the this project. I put it on hold while I finished up a new Jazz bass pickup. Now that's done so I'm back on this.

One development is I'm also working on a neo magnet version. It doesn't have adjustable poles, but doesn't require such a deep rout as the real thing. Should be an alternative tone also.
 
#227
SGD Lutherie said:
I'm about to get back into the this project. I put it on hold while I finished up a new Jazz bass pickup. Now that's done so I'm back on this.

One development is I'm also working on a neo magnet version. It doesn't have adjustable poles, but doesn't require such a deep rout as the real thing. Should be an alternative tone also.
Click to expand...

as an unsolicited comment...the time David spent on the new Jazz pickups was well worth it...check out his thread showing them...(you find it :) )...

I'm excited about these and will be looking to get a set soon (as soon as I recover from my two speeding fines :rollno:)
 
#229
WarriorJoe7 said:
Hey David,

I ended up in the hospital last month so I haven't been keeping up with ya. My PMs are now emptied out.

Joe
Click to expand...

Hey Joe,

Hope it wasn't serious! :eek: I was wondering where you were.

OK the Reader's Digest version is I stopped working on the Wal clone long enough to finish my Jazz pickups and add more pickup shapes to the site, and now I'm back on the project.

:D
 
#233
Ach said:
SGD:
Maybe these pair of videos will be interesting to you
Click to expand...


Oh yeah, someone posted that link before.

So from that video I have determined that the pickup I have here is not wired up with an output from each string, but obviously some (or most) of them are. Maybe this was for a passive bass?

I'm trying to figure out the simplest way of offering as many wiring possibilities as possible, while still making the pickup easy to deal with.

Stay tuned!
 
#235
AndroWal said:
Any possibility of a Walish pickup for a regular sized Jazz appliction?
Click to expand...

That's a tough one, but nothing is impossible. In the mid 90's I made a five coil Jazz pickup in my Ibanez 5 string. Now I'm making dual rail humbuckers that fit in Jazz cases, so it's not too much of a stretch to make 8 or 10 smaller coils.

The question comes down to how it would sound. Could be a cool thing.

(adds one more thing on the "eventual to-do" list...)
 
#239
If you get fed up I know a company that will put the pickup and whatever modifications you make into production. They do engineering and everything all in house then can get the stuff like mold or cases made over seas or they can even make the whole damn thing for you in huge numbers.

If you are intrested send me a PM and I will give you the companies name. Also it does cost some coin to do this.
 
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