Dingwall Super J : Vintage + modern

After convincing Sheldon Dingwall 2 yrs and 3 weeks ago that he should consider melding the vintage vibe of a Fender J bass with all the goodies of an ultra modern Dingwall bass. I recieved my new Super J on weds (yup--waited 2 yr 3 week).

I wanted to give a quick impression + picts and over the next few weeks i'll submit sound clips.

So the bass is Sheldon's interpertation of a Jazz bass.
Spec:
Resonant Alder body
Soft maple neck w/ carbon reinforcement w/ Maple fingerboard
Short scale (34.75" E-33.25" G)- you can use any string type
21 Banjo frets
old school black fiber dots
Ultra light HipshotBlack elephant ear tuners (reversed) w/ Drop D on E string
FD-P "p" pickup (custom wound)
FD-J "J" pickup (custom wound)
U-retro deluxe preamp-custom wired w/ a 3 way passive
High mass Dingwall Bridge w/ RMC piezo
RMC polydrive, and buffer- 13pin out
neck width 1.5" neck profile-custom

First impressions- The bass is small and lightweight. Must weigh a bit under 8lbs, lighter and smaller than an Afterburner. The bass looks like a million bucks, deep rich paint, incredible woods, all the electronics look top notch and feel great. The neck profile is somewhere between a relaxed C, and a Dingwall (7-25 compound radius), it feels basically flat w/ a mild hump. i can wrap my fingers around the fretboard.
Unplugged -the bass is extremely resonant, and lively. Plugged in, in passive mode the bass sounds like a Dingwall bass w/ slightly quicker decay; punchy, articulate notes, w/ a little more top end, quite different than a Z1 or Ab bass. The P-pickup tone was modelled after a 62 P bass, and its fat, punchy, and tight, the J-pickup was modelled after a 67 Jazz bass, w/ more of that Jaco "burp" added in. Very punchy, w/ lots of mids. In active mode the skys the limit. Its got a slap tone that cuts and sounds like a "perfect" jazz bass. The U-retro sounds great -it really brings out the nuiances of the FD pickups. I'm still try to figure out the mid sweep part. I've not had a chance to work w/ the piezos or run the vbass off it yet
The bass has exceeded my every expectation, its just amazing to look at and even more amazing to play.

Based on this prototype bass Sheldon Dingwall told me he will be making a production model of this bass, called the Super J.
It will be available w/ a maple or morano fretboard. Either a P/J or JJ pickup arrangement, and will come passive w/ an Aggie OBP-1 as a option. Right now sheldon is planning to make 4 strings, but you should talk w/ Mr Dingwall about anything else.
all I can say is WOW- an amazing instrument

The 1st pict of of my actual bass
the 2nd photo is the body during the test fitting, it doesn't have the U-retro or the piezo bridge installed
frank

this is the Super j production model....
Notice the headstock is "Normal", and this instrument contains a J-J setup w/ Aggie OBP-1 preamp

I've got more photos of this bass in my yahoo folder over at the Dingwall bass user group
Link Removed

frank

on the production model, The E string kisses the end of the bass, typical Dingwall. You can make the dimensions of the bass smaller by using every inch of space. Believe me its not a problem

I'm not sure I can give you exacts on the price, but IIRC Sheldon mentioned the production Super Js will cost inbetween ABIIs and the Z basses.

My bass cost because of all the custom work plus an expensive bridge/piezo setup. Since this was a working prototype; Sheldon had to R&D everything from scratch(took literally 6-8 months to hash out what the bass would look like, scale lengths, placement of neck into the body, etc.), make it CAD, create jigs, tool everything, and come up w/ the pickups, that in it self had alot of emperical testing.

As far as color options, contact Mr Dingwall. I don't recall him saying 5 strings were in production today. who knows about tomorrow

I agree w/ both lowphat and troll. The bottomline is if you believe it worth the $$$ and you can afford it- then you can afford the price. My bass instructor (Mark White) plays off the shelf Stingrays, and ATKs. He thinks my Dingwall collection is nice, but not for him. In his opinion, he gets the tone he wants from his hands and those instruments. His choice.
So far the bass is everything I had hoped for, its tone, its playability. I wanted a workhorse bass, w/ tones of both a P bass, and a slap monsterJ. So far Sheldon was able to distill this into this bass. The shorter scale has been interesting.
frank