Bass Gear Review

Reviewer	Trevor Raggatt, playing 15 years, rock, pop, blues, folk, praise &
	worship
Manufacturer	Wal (Electric Wood)
Model	Custom 4-string (made in September 1985)
Price	List price approx. 1,800 pounds sterling (bought second hand in 1992 f
	or 500 pounds sterling)

Neck type	Bolt on six piece laminate neck of rock maple, hornbeam and rosewo
	od.
Fingerboard	Thai rosewood, 21 frets, pearl dots
Body	Brazilian mahogany core, maple laminate and bookmatched figured hydua (
	pronounced “schedua”) facings
Finish	Natural wood
Pickups	Two Wal flat response humbucking pickups (each pick-up contains four
	individual string-matched pickups), active circuitry.
Controls	Jack output, balanced XLR D.I. output. Volume (push/pull “pick att
	ack”), Pickup mix, Two tone controls (push/pull quasi-parametric boost – provi
	des a boost of about 10 dB around the roll-off frequency of the tone control g
	iving a more active sound)
Hardware	Gold plated Schaller machineheads and Wal cast bridge.

I have wanted a Wal Bass for years so when I got the chance to get hold of a mint condition Wal for silly money I jumped at it. It is a great bass which is versatile enough to play just about any type of music. It is a quite heavy bass but this adds greatly to the sustain and depth of the sound. The sound is quite middly and great for fingerstyle playing while the pick-attack adds a great punch to the sound for rockier fingerstyle playing. The tone boosts are great for that studio active sound for pop and funk. There are some great slap sounds too. All in all you can get everything from a Precision type sound to a mellow, almost double bass type sound. The body looks gorgeous and the hydua body has a wonderful, unusual flaming which moves beautifully under the light. If I had to make any criticism the heel of the neck is a little square and bulky. However, having said that, the playability is great; the cutaways allow good access to the top of the neck and the heel doesn’t give me too much of a problem and is no worse than most other bass necks. Still, in fairness I guess I’d have to knock one point off here. Frankly this was a bass I lusted after for years and, unlike most dreams, the reality has lived up entirely to all my hopes. Now I wouldn’t buy another bass (unless it was a Wal 5-string)

As far as customer service is concerned Wal also scores highly. The bass is really robust and has never had any mechanical problems. When I bought it in 1992 it was still in mint condition bar one little screw in the bridge. However, it did not have a hard case and I contacted Wal to see if I could get hold of one and a replacement screw. I popped over to their workshop to buy the case and Pete (“the Fish”) Stephens was really keen to see the bass and took time to chat about the bass and what I thought of it. He replaced the missing screw and then said, “While you’re here I’ll just give it a complete once-over and check the set-up.” – all for free (had to pay for the case of course!!). If anything ever did go wrong with the Wal I have no doubt that they would be very helpful in sorting it out.

Construction	100%
Playability	95%
I'll take off five points just to be nit-picking and to take account of the b
ulky heel. Mind you, it never bothers me much (although a direct match agains
t my thru-neck Aria SB700 would show it as a little bit less easy to reach the
top frets). Besides, it would look biased to give it straight top marks!
Appearance	100%
Sound	100%
Value for money	100%
Customer service	100%
Overall	100%