Dingwall Owners Club

[JUMBO 70]

I have a 2013 square-shell ABZ. I believe it has FD3's, same as yours.

I enjoyed the pickups as wired. Very smooth and open, but not enough "oomph" for my P-bass-oriented ears.

I did the coil switch mod, and once I set both pickups to series coils, I never looked back. It doesn't have the slight mid-scoop and spike that I hear with the pickup switch in series pickups. Just a push in the low mids that gives it more heft. Still has that trademark Dingwall clarity.

Mind you, series pickups and series coils together has noticeably more growl and punch.

Thanks! Again, I apologize because this has SURELY been discussed at length in the past, but could anyone point me in the right direction for details on how to make this change? Thanks

 

[Derek Williams]

Thanks! Again, I apologize because this has SURELY been discussed at length in the past, but could anyone point me in the right direction for details on how to make this change? Thanks

Since I think you already stated your bass has the series/parallel switches there is no change you need to make (I believe switch up is series, down is parallel). For those of us without those switches we need to change the pickup wiring.

 

[Jeff Roller]

Favorite Dingwall and PJB M500 amp and C8 LITE cab. Both amp and cab discontinued, such a pity!

What are your gig rigs for the weekend?

 

[J Posega]

What are your gig rigs for the weekend?

I wish I were gigging.

One question for you, @Jeff Roller - what's up with that "Lakland"?

And a question for the group: how do you all find musical projects/bands to get involved with these days? Before the pandemic I was gearing up to try to start/join a band, but then the world went haywire. Back in my 20s, I could jump on Craigslist and find lots of good options, but now CL seems to be a wasteland for only the most braindead musicians, at least here in Los Angeles. I'd love to start playing with other humans again soon.

 

[singlemalt]

I think Jumbo70 said he’d played a Super J with the switches and been smitten. If I’m tracking this correctly, the ABZ with the square shells doesn’t have switches, and he’s not sure what he’s got for pups.

I’m not clear if Jumbo landed the Super or was doing a test drive. But he’s probably on his way to another Dingwall, like the rest of us.

First thing, open up the control cavity and post a good picture of the wiring going to the rotary switch. That’ll let us see what’s going on. If your really feeling adventurous, pull a pickup, and check out the label on the back. Just remove the screws, after you note the pickup height, and check the label, snap a picture.

If you want to rewire to series, or add switches, all the action will take place in the control cavity. Here’s a few pictures:

The bottom photos are a Super Fatty neck pup I rewired to series. Super simple, just join black to green, dab of solder and some heat shrink. This pushed the sound in the P tone direction, and I eventually replaced the pup with a split P pickup when Dingwall brought them out.

I really liked this change, (to series) so I did the same to the bridge pup. I considered switches, but I’m a “keep it simple” guy. Which is why I really like my one pickup, Super P four string. Volume/hybrid tone, done.

Top photo is a great illustration of what you might try.

If you can source a P tone, that would be another great option.

My opinion is you were hearing the series wiring thing more than the different pickups. There’s a great video a few pages back comparing the Custom Dbird and the production. I think these are the two pups we are talking about. I can hear the difference, but it’s pretty subtle.

I think the best bang for the buck( free) is changing the wiring. Add switches if you like. (A few more $ if you are a DIY guy). Next up find a Ptone.

Good luck!

 

[gustobassman]

Favorite Dingwall and PJB M500 amp and C8 LITE cab. Both amp and cab discontinued, such a pity!

What are your gig rigs for the weekend?

View attachment 4736513

Nice setup! Your Z... Did the Lakland take mushrooms and have a bad trip? That's a unique specimen!

Gonna be using this and my AB2 all weekend. However for tonight I run 2x115+112 behind me and run the 3rd 115 next to the guitar rig. Helps the BL hear my bass better when we don't have good FOH.

 

[spiritbass]

I think Jumbo70 said he’d played a Super J with the switches and been smitten. If I’m tracking this correctly, the ABZ with the square shells doesn’t have switches, and he’s not sure what he’s got for pups.

I’m not clear if Jumbo landed the Super or was doing a test drive. But he’s probably on his way to another Dingwall, like the rest of us.

First thing, open up the control cavity and post a good picture of the wiring going to the rotary switch. That’ll let us see what’s going on. If your really feeling adventurous, pull a pickup, and check out the label on the back. Just remove the screws, after you note the pickup height, and check the label, snap a picture.

If you want to rewire to series, or add switches, all the action will take place in the control cavity. Here’s a few pictures:
View attachment 4736676 View attachment 4736681 View attachment 4736682
The bottom photos are a Super Fatty neck pup I rewired to series. Super simple, just join black to green, dab of solder and some heat shrink. This pushed the sound in the P tone direction, and I eventually replaced the pup with a split P pickup when Dingwall brought them out.

I really liked this change, (to series) so I did the same to the bridge pup. I considered switches, but I’m a “keep it simple” guy. Which is why I really like my one pickup, Super P four string. Volume/hybrid tone, done.

Top photo is a great illustration of what you might try.

If you can source a P tone, that would be another great option.

My opinion is you were hearing the series wiring thing more than the different pickups. There’s a great video a few pages back comparing the Custom Dbird and the production. I think these are the two pups we are talking about. I can hear the difference, but it’s pretty subtle.

I think the best bang for the buck( free) is changing the wiring. Add switches if you like. (A few more $ if you are a DIY guy). Next up find a Ptone.

Good luck!

I don't bother with switches either. All of my pickups are hard-wired in series.

 

[SemiDriven]

I think Jumbo70 said he’d played a Super J with the switches and been smitten. If I’m tracking this correctly, the ABZ with the square shells doesn’t have switches, and he’s not sure what he’s got for pups.

I’m not clear if Jumbo landed the Super or was doing a test drive. But he’s probably on his way to another Dingwall, like the rest of us.

First thing, open up the control cavity and post a good picture of the wiring going to the rotary switch. That’ll let us see what’s going on. If your really feeling adventurous, pull a pickup, and check out the label on the back. Just remove the screws, after you note the pickup height, and check the label, snap a picture.

If you want to rewire to series, or add switches, all the action will take place in the control cavity. Here’s a few pictures:
View attachment 4736676 View attachment 4736681 View attachment 4736682
The bottom photos are a Super Fatty neck pup I rewired to series. Super simple, just join black to green, dab of solder and some heat shrink. This pushed the sound in the P tone direction, and I eventually replaced the pup with a split P pickup when Dingwall brought them out.

I really liked this change, (to series) so I did the same to the bridge pup. I considered switches, but I’m a “keep it simple” guy. Which is why I really like my one pickup, Super P four string. Volume/hybrid tone, done.

Top photo is a great illustration of what you might try.

If you can source a P tone, that would be another great option.

My opinion is you were hearing the series wiring thing more than the different pickups. There’s a great video a few pages back comparing the Custom Dbird and the production. I think these are the two pups we are talking about. I can hear the difference, but it’s pretty subtle.

I think the best bang for the buck( free) is changing the wiring. Add switches if you like. (A few more $ if you are a DIY guy). Next up find a Ptone.

Good luck!

Thanks for this info!

I've got an ABZ5 with a P-tone in the neck and a FD-3 in the bridge and have received very positive comments regarding the tone.

That being said, I've kinda wondered what the neck in series could bring to the tone-table in conjunction with the P-tone neck pickup. Hmmm....

I'm guessing the wiring would be identical (like what you did for the Supper Fatty) if I decided to try the bridge in series on the FD-3.

 

[NaH]

Favorite Dingwall and PJB M500 amp and C8 LITE cab. Both amp and cab discontinued, such a pity!

What are your gig rigs for the weekend?

View attachment 4736513

Genzler BA12-3 with a Markbass Little Mark Tube 800. Only pic I have of the rig:

This is my fretless. Also not seen in this pic is a Roland Integra-7. Keyboards switch around depending on the songs. HX-Effects for pedals.

 

[singlemalt]

I felt like series wiring made the bridge pup more viable solo. More bark and bite, less of a volume difference. You’ll still need to boost the volume for the bridge solo.

The setting one click back from bridge solo’d, with both series pickups in parallel, became my favorite, followed by neck (Ptone) solo. In series, both pups where massive.

I really like the bridge solo on my Dbird. Roll the tone back and dig in, it’ll get with the J bass thing. I haven’t opened up the Dbird to see what’s going on under the hood, it’s been just fine as it is.

 

[TTA]

It will be on my hands late next week… but until then, it is pretty cool to see my bass as one of the most liked posts on the dingwall facebook page (after only 1 day).

ironically… my second choice of colour was similar to celestial blue… and dingwall made that the new ng colour.

John Fox confirmed that the bass is indeed… GREEN. Hopefully he gets a video up this weekend.

 

[Jeff Roller]

I wish I were gigging.

One question for you, @Jeff Roller - what's up with that "Lakland"?

I believe there was an employee at Lakland who built it as a side project. On the heavy side, but it absolutely slams! And stunning BEM fingerboard.

 

[IvanBassist]

IEM gig this past Friday

 

[Nuage420]

 

[TTA]

soon i will be refining things with some low tunings. I have learned using nolly’s approach as a baseline. i do want to point out that in my setup, somewhere in the 60% distorted/40% clean signal is a good starting point to blend… but it does depend on the intensity of distortion.

Nothing sounds worse than a high level of distortion that is mixed with too much clean signal. Sounds like bass with some garbage fuzz in the background… lol.

i am tempted to try a darkglass X range of pedals. Right now i run an adam… which is great with the low b. I suspect it will do well with f# also. The various darkglass pedals all manage the clean/distorted hi/low signals differently… and i want to play with them.

 

[Nuage420]

soon i will be refining things with some low tunings. I have learned using nolly’s approach as a baseline. i do want to point out that in my setup, somewhere in the 60% distorted/40% clean signal is a good starting point to blend… but it does depend on the intensity of distortion.

Nothing sounds worse than a high level of distortion that is mixed with too much clean signal. Sounds like bass with some garbage fuzz in the background… lol.

i am tempted to try a darkglass X range of pedals. Right now i run an adam… which is great with the low b. I suspect it will do well with f# also. The various darkglass pedals all manage the clean/distorted hi/low signals differently… and i want to play with them.

So... Having bought too many pedals over the past few years but learning a ton about tone sculpting I have lately left my pedals to rot while using this...

Go through the manual and you'll see you could create maybe 95% of stomp boxes on the market. I have this set up so each button is kicking on an effect.
And before "but it's mostly guitar" EVERY effect has a direct mix my current favorite flavor of filth is blending in a marshall guv'nor.


This was 500? 600? (I used GC rewards and trade in discount so I forget the shelf price) and it's left me with a few thousand in pedals collecting dust.
You would be in good shape with helix, or headrush l, or the gt1000s. I had the core but this platforms work flow is better for me.

 

[TTA]

So... Having bought too many pedals over the past few years but learning a ton about tone sculpting I have lately left my pedals to rot while using this...
View attachment 4737392
Go through the manual and you'll see you could create maybe 95% of stomp boxes on the market. I have this set up so each button is kicking on an effect.
And before "but it's mostly guitar" EVERY effect has a direct mix my current favorite flavor of filth is blending in a marshall guv'nor.
View attachment 4737400 View attachment 4737399

This was 500? 600? (I used GC rewards and trade in discount so I forget the shelf price) and it's left me with a few thousand in pedals collecting dust.
You would be in good shape with helix, or headrush l, or the gt1000s. I had the core but this platforms work flow is better for me.

Oh nice! Yeah digital is changing the game. Digital used to do nothing well but now are fantastic. I am pretty minimal on pedals but My adam does everything i want really well and simply… but i do look at things like the quad cortex and wonder…

But for me… wah (dont much use), light and heavy overdrive, compressor, tuner are what i use. The adam does all of that minus the wah.

 

[Nuage420]

Oh nice! Yeah digital is changing the game. Digital used to do nothing well but now are fantastic. I am pretty minimal on pedals but My adam does everything i want really well and simply… but i do look at things like the quad cortex and wonder…

But for me… wah (dont much use), light and heavy overdrive, compressor, tuner are what i use. The adam does all of that minus the wah.

I just put that in last night, was feeling funky. Normally I'll have a distortion and a fuzz. Love having that option to instantly build a whole new board on a whim.

 

[Nuage420]

I've never seen Nolly with a dingwall other than an ng or combustion. I wonder if he has any custom builds?

 

[TTA]

I've never seen Nolly with a dingwall other than an ng or combustion. I wonder if he has any custom builds?

He used this in the juggernaught tour

If you watch videos close you can see some prototypes also