Dingwall Owners Club

[spiritbass]

You'll need to look in the control cavity. If the green and black leads are connected, that pickup is in series.

 

[jellew]

Tack för ditt svar Ugglan! Det är vad mina öron anar.

I took a quick look, it was cables everywhere! Neatly organized but very tight, I will have a closer look tomorrow maybie take some pictures if needed, thank you spirit bass!

 

[BrBss]

IIRC, Dingwall pickups come wired in parallel standard if they don't have the series/parallel switches.

Some of the older models were series bridge and parallel neck.

 

[BurningSkies]

Tack för ditt svar Ugglan! Det är vad mina öron anar.

I took a quick look, it was cables everywhere! Neatly organized but very tight, I will have a closer look tomorrow maybie take some pictures if needed, thank you spirit bass!

If you have FD-1's there's a good chance any of this talk isn't valid. The FD3's with 4 leads for the two coils didn't come about until the mid 2000's and before that the original FD3's were all 2-lead. Modding was a bit risky because it took unsoldering some of the pickup wiring and working with each of the coil-ends which are very thin wires.

Unless otherwise noted, I would assume that FD-1's were wired in parallel from the shop, which is how the original FD3's were done.

 

[BurningSkies]

Both my Combustions are currently in the hands of different tech/luthiers.

The NG is local and having the side-dots drilled out and luminlay done.

The fretless Combustion is at Mo's out west...he's currently working on the implementation of the Graphtech Ghost system and preamp. Got an email yesterday that the bass was received without any problems...and today we've discussed piezo preamp implementation. That will go on while we wait for the order of Luminlay for the neck.

In the meantime I only have a lil' old Voodoo Prima and a Z-series sitting at home.

 

[TinyE]

The NG is local and having the side-dots drilled out and luminlay done.

what is involved in that process? do they just drill out and then glue in new?

 

[BurningSkies]

what is involved in that process? do they just drill out and then glue in new?

Pretty much. I made sure to get side-inlay material that was the same size or slightly bigger than the stock dots. The website lists them as 2mm but we measured them closer to 2.5 or 2.8 with calipers today. I think I purchased 3.0mm for inlay. He'll drill out the old ones, and glue in the new ones. I've worn the finish off the sides of the neck anyway so no additional finish work will be done, just sanded/smoothed down to level.

 

[xnewyorka]

So I was curious if the pickups in my Dingwall are wired in series or parallel, having more faith in myself than justified I took of the strings and loosened the neck pick up. I have read that it is easy to remove the cover and have a look at wirings, that pickup felt sealed shut though, didnt help that there was barely any room to work in due to the cabels (for good reasons I suppose)

Anyway the bass is apparently fitted with FD-1 pickups which are made in 2003. Anyone have some wisdom to bestow on me?

On the newer ones, I believe that if you look under the cavity cover and find that the black and green wires are connected together, that means they are in series. So you might try looking under your cavity cover and seeing if that is the situation. I have no idea whether that has changed in the last 15 years or not. I'm too new at the Dingwall game to know.
I would also imagine that those of us with series/parallel Dingwall experience should be able to listen to a good quality recording of the pickup played clean through a DI or an amp with tone control settings flat and be able to tell by what we hear whether we are listening to a pickup in series or parallel. At least, I am fairly confident I could tell.
Wired in parallel, the frequency response should be relatively flat across the entire spectrum. Wired in series, there should be a noticeable mid-range hump in the frequency response.
EDIT: Sorry, I had not read the intervening posts. I see that others already had stated pretty much everything I had in this post. Sorry for the duplication. should have scrolled down first to see who else had replied before I bothered to respond. Seems like the bit about the green and black wire being connected is not valid on the old ones.

 

[BurningSkies]

Series have a low-mid bump and some roll off on the deep lows and top of the highs. Although without comparison, you'll have a hell of a time knowing. And there aren't a whole lot of FD-1s around. I'm guessing that you'll find that the pickups are 2-lead only and you have no option.

...except for getting a set of FD-3/4L to install...which I think you'd probably do through Carey Nordstrand.

Dingstrand Nordwall 5

 

[singlemalt]

It is really that easy to do your own Luminlay. I bought a couple slightly different drill bits and did a test fit in a scrap of maple. My store didn’t have metric bits so I converted to thousandths. The 3mm dots are sweet.

The existing plastic side dots were just slightly smaller than the selected bit, but the existing hole made it easy to drill straight. I put some tape 5mm up from the drill tip, and drilled to depth.

Super glue the end of the Luminlay rod in the hole, use a fine tooth saw to cut the rod as close to flush as you can. Repeat until they are all in. I had a bit of rod left over after doing a 24 fret bass. 220 paper to flush it out, maybe something finer to remove any sanding marks on the finish. Steel wool works. I use a Kiwi shoe polish to finish. You could use blue masking tape to protect the finish, but I didn’t.

It takes longer to unstring and remove the neck. While it’s off, it’s easy to touch up any frets and do a good cleaning.

The little LED key chain charger light is not really necessary, but it’s fun. Really gets the dots glowing. So cool!

 

[BuffaloBob4343]

It is really that easy to do your own Luminlay. I bought a couple slightly different drill bits and did a test fit in a scrap of maple. My store didn’t have metric bits so I converted to thousandths. The 3mm dots are sweet.

The existing plastic side dots were just slightly smaller than the selected bit, but the existing hole made it easy to drill straight. I put some tape 5mm up from the drill tip, and drilled to depth.

Super glue the end of the Luminlay rod in the hole, use a fine tooth saw to cut the rod as close to flush as you can. Repeat until they are all in. I had a bit of rod left over after doing a 24 fret bass. 220 paper to flush it out, maybe something finer to remove any sanding marks on the finish. Steel wool works. I use a Kiwi shoe polish to finish. You could use blue masking tape to protect the finish, but I didn’t.

It takes longer to unstring and remove the neck. While it’s off, it’s easy to touch up any frets and do a good cleaning.

The little LED key chain charger light is not really necessary, but it’s fun. Really gets the dots glowing. So cool!

You make it sound so easy. However, I remember a few ill-begotten shop projects back in high school that reminds me that it is best to let those with the natural skills of woodworking to operate on something like a work of art like my Dingwall.

 

[spiritbass]

Series have a low-mid bump and some roll off on the deep lows and top of the highs. Although without comparison, you'll have a hell of a time knowing. And there aren't a whole lot of FD-1s around. I'm guessing that you'll find that the pickups are 2-lead only and you have no option.

...except for getting a set of FD-3/4L to install...which I think you'd probably do through Carey Nordstrand.

Dingstrand Nordwall 5

I have never seen an FD-1, but after my earlier post, I had a recollection of reading that they were two-leads. I think they are wired series internally...

 

[BurningSkies]

Maurilio Mina has started on my fretless Combustion,

First off, the wiring clips didn’t fit in the bridge pieces with the saddles:

Snipped soldered/hand wired.

Next, bridge saddles needed to be drilled and ovaled so each saddle could be intonated wire channels drilled:

Next up, integrating the second preamp. The plan is to stack the treble/bass and also use a push/pull on the mag. volume (preamp bypass) which allows the last pot hole to be push/pull for piezo volume and then only a switch gets added for pickup selector.

 

[tombowlus]

In anticipation of Sheldon coming to the Link Removed this Friday, I have played my Z3 at band practice the past several weeks and will be playing it during our set on Friday night at the Summit. What a great bass!

I am often gigging/playing different basses in for review, and so I am guilty of neglecting some really great instruments, sometimes. This does let me fall in love all over again, though!

We are going to put this on display at Sheldon's booth during the Summit, as well.

 

[AB Nate]

In anticipation of Sheldon coming to the Link Removed this Friday, I have played my Z3 at band practice the past several weeks and will be playing it during our set on Friday night at the Summit. What a great bass!

I am often gigging/playing different basses in for review, and so I am guilty of neglecting some really great instruments, sometimes. This does let me fall in love all over again, though!

We are going to put this on display at Sheldon's booth during the Summit, as well.

That is still one of my all time favs.
Love the top. Loooooove the top and fretboard!! I still may think it looked better pre paint but that IS the perfect paint for it!

 

[Ranarion]

I’m currently saving up for a Dingwall but I’m unsure whether to buy a NG-2 or NG-3. If I understand this correctly, the NG-2 can use both pickups in series, while the NG-3 has all three pickups in series in that position. Can someone explain what difference this makes or has even an audio clip for that?

 

[Peter Lufrano]

In anticipation of Sheldon coming to the Link Removed this Friday, I have played my Z3 at band practice the past several weeks and will be playing it during our set on Friday night at the Summit. What a great bass!

I am often gigging/playing different basses in for review, and so I am guilty of neglecting some really great instruments, sometimes. This does let me fall in love all over again, though!

We are going to put this on display at Sheldon's booth during the Summit, as well.

Wow Tom! That is tr

 

[xnewyorka]

Wow Tom! That is tr

uly a stunner!!

 

[AB Nate]

Lol. Teamwork

 

[Peter Lufrano]

Lol. Teamwork

Thank you!

Don't know what happened there......