johnsonabq
Watch out where the huskies go...
Personally I haven't bought strings in a music store since 1999.
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Dingwall Owners Club
- Thread starter FroggyOne2
- Start date
Why do you think they're "special"? Your local music store wont have "special" strings and you'll be very limited in what they carry. Just order them online and have em shipped to your front door. I recommend Paysons. Their shipping is fast and customer service is excellent.
D'Addario makes a "super long scale" set that they say fits 36"-38" scale basses.
Available at GC (also Amazon and Sweetwater).
https://www.guitarcenter.com/DAddario/EXL170-5SL-Regular-Light-Nickel-Wound-Super-Long-Scale-5-String-Bass-Strings.gc?rNtt=d'addario exl super long&index=1
https://www.amazon.com/DAddario-EXL170-5-5-String-Nickel-Strings/dp/B000OR2V42?th=1
Dunlop also makes a super long set, but I don't know how widely available these are in the stores. [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
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I’m more likely to find Dingwall strings stocked on the shelf around here then those offerings. Lol
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Good point! At least they're readily available through online retailers (especially the D'Addario set). Just make sure to order the "EXL170SL" set (says "super long scale" on the package). I have no idea if they sound as good as Dingwall strings. I have a pack of the Dunlop strings here but haven't tried them yet.
I’m curious about them. I do like the regular ones on my Spector. Let me know what you think when you try em out.
johnsonabq
Watch out where the huskies go...
I believe at one point Sheldon chimed in saying that parallel fret strings won't feel as good as fanned fret strings as they have their own gauges in order to ensure the strings are balanced from string to string. I really think that more and more manufacturers will be jumping on the band wagon on these.
I’ve never seen a Dingwall in stores in my area, let alone strings for basses over 34”. I special order most of my stuff now because I prefer fully balanced tension, plus I play some basses strung up with E0 (.192) and F# (.168-.175). Ordering sets of Dingwall strings off the net is already in my routine.
Good point. The D’Addario set doesn’t say they’re for fanned fret instruments. Dunlop DOES specify they’re for fanned fret.
170SL's were a Godsend to me, after I built a 35" scale 5-string back in the early 90's.
Due to a lack of pre-planning, I combined the long scale with a fairly long throat on the headstock and a Gotoh locking bridge with a long baseplate. The end result at the time, was that the only commercial strings I could find with long enough B-string windings to reach the back of the nut, were the D'Addario SL's.
That said, unless there have been recent changes, they do not work on 5 and 6 string Afterburners and Combustions. They're fine on the SJ/SP and 4-string long-scale Dingwalls, but they'll bite you on that 37" B-string every time.
It's not just about the actual scale length from nut to bridge saddle- it's also about the length of the bridge and distance between the nut and the tuners, too.
This applies to other brands as well, especially with tapered strings...
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What’s a local music store?
Payson and Fret Nation. I’ve used Kalium, but it wasn’t worth the hassle. Special orders like mine can take a bit of time, but stock sets are quick to ship.
I tried ordering bulk boxes from the mothership, but the same mixup happened. Worse, I sold sets I didn’t want, not knowing they were the wrong scale length. What a mess.
I just spent about $300 between Payson and Fret Nation, stocking up and working on dialing in my setups. I also have a pvc tube filled with denatured alcohol. Strings get soaked and stored in labeled bags.
It’s quite the production, but worth it.
I’ve found DR strings will work E-G on my AB and Dbird. I’d just use a Dingwall B.
But, yeah, I totally know the frustration of jumping into a re-string and finding out my new strings won’t work. After cutting and winding four of five.... there was some spicy language.
Payson and Fret Nation. I’ve used Kalium, but it wasn’t worth the hassle. Special orders like mine can take a bit of time, but stock sets are quick to ship.
I tried ordering bulk boxes from the mothership, but the same mixup happened. Worse, I sold sets I didn’t want, not knowing they were the wrong scale length. What a mess.
I just spent about $300 between Payson and Fret Nation, stocking up and working on dialing in my setups. I also have a pvc tube filled with denatured alcohol. Strings get soaked and stored in labeled bags.
It’s quite the production, but worth it.
I’ve found DR strings will work E-G on my AB and Dbird. I’d just use a Dingwall B.
But, yeah, I totally know the frustration of jumping into a re-string and finding out my new strings won’t work. After cutting and winding four of five.... there was some spicy language.
I just checked the Dunlop website, and the DBSBNFF45125's aren't listed there, either.
In fact, the only place Google could find a Dingwall-friendly Dunlop fanned-fret string set for me, was on Fretnation's website.
I have a feeling that it's another one of Jason's custom orders. It must be cool to be working with a large enough customer base to be able to afford those pesky minimum orders on custom sets from La Bella, D'Addario, etc. He does it for other oddball instruments as well, like the 5-string Ibanez Mikro.
Kudos to him for supporting us that way...
Ah, it used to be a pretty cool thing, where you could see 10 times the same bass and find the one which was born with more luck than the others
That was especially great for classics with big variance from one bass to the next one, anything fender musicman etc.
Of course you often had to prioritize tone over looks, or make some other compromise.
Now with everything online well sure, just order 10 dingwalls and try sending 9 back and getting refunds
At least with Dingwall, there's an unusually high level of consistency.Ah, it used to be a pretty cool thing, where you could see 10 times the same bass and find the one which was born with more luck than the others
That was especially great for classics with big variance from one bass to the next one, anything fender musicman etc.
I'd hate to be a beginner at the moment. Trying to get your hands on a good, cheap entry level guitar or bass in the middle of a pandemic is no fun. We're back in lockdown this month, but even when the local stores were open, the local big box store was lucky to have each of the models you were trying to compare. Never mind picking the best of 3 or 4, or having a choice of colours.
With every passing year, my love/hate conflict over online sales grows.
Aside from the negative impact on local employment, there's the inconvenience. There's one traditional mom-and-pop enthusiast guitar shop in my city (population 400,000). If I want more variety, I have to drive nearly an hour east, or an hour and a half west. And that's in one of the most populous parts of Canada...
I've seen enough canadian dingwalls that I know I would trust them blindly regarding build quality, Sheldon and crew definitely know what they are doing.
Now this may seem obvious to everybody on this thread of course, but since I unfortunately can't say the same about some other high-end brands I thought it was still worth saying anyway.
However regarding tone I'm still certain that if you ordered exactly the same bass twice you'd get two different sounds in the end.
That's just the nature of wood and woodworking imho.
Maybe the differences would be small, or maybe not so small.
This is where having a real music shop was great, and yeah it's dead here too alas
But it was also cool to meet other musicians, and see them playing.
I remember in the 90s I often heard some marshall 410 combo from the next room and thought wow this sounds so great what is it, only to come in the room and see that amp, and well long story short after trying it myself facing the amp I never could make it sound like that, so great amp but not for me somehow.
Oh and often you would test stuff that you simply would not have thought of but it was hanging on the wall and you had some time so you tried it anyway, and sometimes that yielded great (but expensive) surprises too, something which just never happens with online shopping.
Yeah I'm getting old I suppose.
And I'm also very eager to see when this covid thing will end and how the world will look then.
I'm really not a people person at all (an understatement if I ever wrote one), but after more than a year of this even I am starting to get seriously annoyed.
I received the SF2 pickup from Dingwall and want to put it in my Combustion 2X as a neck pickup. I want to reuse the existing rotary selector (to try it out) and swap the bridge pickup by the neck one (as suggested here). I found this wiring diagram (for NG3) but letters on the selector doesn't match (my switch has Gnd, Gnd, B-, N-, B+, N+), so I guess I need some other diagram, but not sure... Does anybody know if there is diagram available that shows how to wire 2X switch for 3X configuration?
Attachments
If you want to take out the neck pickup and put in the SF2, and leave it 2x, all you have to do is swap the pickup/wires. If you want 3 pickups, you'll need a 3x or D-Bird rotary that handles 3x.
I literally have been ordering them online and I recently got 4 packs of medium scale strings that are designed for the super p and j basses not my 37” bass. Ordered 4 more sets of the correct “long scale” today. I guess I’ll try the medium scale strings on my fender jazz. If they don’t work out I might just sell the other 3 packs of them.
Are they for 4 or 5 string? Are they nickel or steel? I bet someone would buy them all.
