I just bought a Dingwall Super J5 and I'm pretty much in love. I'll get all the usual Dingwally stuff out the way quickly and just say I'm stunned by the craftmanship, the feel, the playability, the tone, and the head-turning looks. Thing is it's a passive bass which I bought second hand to dodge the 6-month build time on a new model as I'm going back abroad to work soon and need a 5-string for the job, otherwise, had I had more time, and had patience been a virtue with which I was more abundantly born, I expect I would have opted for the active/passive model. So I'm considering picking up either an Audere or, much more likely, a J-Retro (unfortunately not the Deluxe as my bass has a front mounted jack). I'm pretty sure that with the variable midrange and the pup blend, not to mention the rest, it would give me ample tone options (I do like my mids so the variable sweep is very appealing), but does anyone reckon I'd be getting more tone options by just keeping the Dingwall's passive control suite with it's fantastic 4-way rotary pickup selector? I'm fairly easy on the active/passive debate so that's not toooo much of a factor. Anyone's 2 cents are welcome here. I'm just curious if people think it's sacrilege to rip out that rotary knob in favour of a variable mid sweeper? Is it worth it? I mean two of the settings on the rotary are for the solo'd pups anyway, and the other two are both pups in different configurations, all of which a J-Retro can do, plus a variable midrange sweeper. I suppose really I'm asking if anyone can think of an argument NOT to do it.
One more thing... does anyone know whether the J-Retro would work with my pickups in series or parallel? I'm hoping it's series because in a mix I can't really hear too much difference between the parallel and neck pickup settings, so the J-Retro would get a similar sound to the parallel mode by just rolling the blend right onto the neck pickup right?
Thanks for reading this slightly ranty post, and thanks anyone who is kind enough to offer their opinion and any advice.
One more thing... does anyone know whether the J-Retro would work with my pickups in series or parallel? I'm hoping it's series because in a mix I can't really hear too much difference between the parallel and neck pickup settings, so the J-Retro would get a similar sound to the parallel mode by just rolling the blend right onto the neck pickup right?
Thanks for reading this slightly ranty post, and thanks anyone who is kind enough to offer their opinion and any advice.
