Dingwall Owners Club

[kev451]

Punchy and bright is exactly how I would describe mine. I have 13 active basses and my passive ABZ's are louder, punchier, growlier, brighter, deeper, and more musical than any of them.

Maybe not the best example as this is a cell phone video of us back in the summer, but you can really hear it punching through even with this poor recording

Ok lemme say that finger of yours got some strength…

I’m wondering if it will go along with this, it’s my bands recording

 

[mmbongo]

Ok lemme say that finger of yours got some strength…

I’m wondering if it will go along with this, it’s my bands recording

I think so! I actually have too much 'gank' in that recording, I was not very happy with my tone. I made the mistake of setting up all my pedals with headphones and not testing through an actual amp before the show. The tone of the bass itself is much deeper and thicker but it does have some natural gank. But it's not a thin, piercing gank like a Jazz bass. It's more like a warm punch that I've never heard from any other basses. What you hear there is both pickups in series. In parallel it can do that thin Fender type of tone.

 

[Smurf-o-Deth]

Put my NG3 up in the classifieds. I’ve come to the conclusion that the D Roc is just a much better fit for me, and I never pick up the NG3.

 

[AB Nate]

Haha wow i had no idea Michael was that much of a beast that early on, I follow him on IG and he is an absolute beast! funnily enough i was super close to buying a D'mark just like the one he's playing on the video but the neck had a slight warp so I didnt end up pulling the trigger, it was an awesome bass though, the mids were SO smooth. I did have in the back of my mind "this is pretty wide" though. but yea man I really appreciate the detailed reply. I see, yea thats the thing is I just honeslty cant realistically afford a Z3 any time soon, and am still not entirely sure that I even love the Dingwall tone enough to blow that much on a Z. The AB2 is an all around smasher, kills it in anything, but every time I pick up the BBNE2 again its like "oh gosh the tone "

Yea getting hi up on the fretboard on the AB2 5 is like twister for your fingers, thats one of the things that was making me think about a 6. I've also just always felt like a one to rule them all bass would be a 6 for me, I've only owned 2 and i played one exclusively for a year or 2 back when I was like 18. it was an ibanez but i've since grown to not like Ibanez as much as I used to.

Seeing how my playing situation is with college; I'm not in a band anymore, I play at church about two or three times a week, and many times I have to choose between getting a good nights sleep or not if I want to squeeze in any at home play time during the week. So im thinking about narrowing down to 1 or 2 basses.

Some times I definitely wish I stuck to a 4 string and never ventured beyond. That said the first bass I ever BOUGHT was a 5er…. Too late(?). Now it’s way to late. It’s hard to justify keeping the 5ers now.
A thought I had early based on speculation about your tone tastes is that perhaps an older Dingwall AB or Z may be more suitable for you.
Having has a Bbne2 myself, I understand what your saying about it’s tone. It turns out it’s not a tone for me but it is a very smooth sultry sounding bass. The tiny nut diameter and neck combined with the super smooth sound didn’t work as a keeper for my playing but that said, I’ve found with a few older Dingwalls I’ve had/played/heard they have had the clarity and articulation without the modern edge and perhaps that may be more suited to your taste. And budget.
Just a thought. And, fear not about the older dingwall necks. They were every bit as fantastic or perhaps even more so then the newer ones depending on the bass. My old Voodoo six is actually thinner and ever but as awesome as the newer Zs for church lyfe an old voodoo may be just what the doc ordered.

 

[ccRFMalice]

Hey all,

For those that have installed a 6way switch for your 3 pickup Dingwall, would you mind taking a photo of the wiring so I can double check it against the diagram? I'm not the greatest at reading these and wanna get it right!

 

[1983L2000]

It also de

Hey all,

For those that have installed a 6way switch for your 3 pickup Dingwall, would you mind taking a photo of the wiring so I can double check it against the diagram? I'm not the greatest at reading these and wanna get it right!

That's from someone else's C3 with EMG preamp but with added series parallel switches, so that may not be helpful

I did the same with mine but it's much sloppier... no pics.

 

[J Posega]

Slightly OT, but I recall someone installing a Darkglass Tone Capsule and adding a passive tone control that was always in-circuit. Was it you, @gustobassman?

I've got a DTC coming for a (gasp) non-Dingwall build (but it's got a rotary switch!), so I'm trying to figure out the electronics setup.

 

[groovaholic]

Slightly OT, but I recall someone installing a Darkglass Tone Capsule and adding a passive tone control that was always in-circuit. Was it you, @gustobassman?

I've got a DTC coming for a (gasp) non-Dingwall build (but it's got a rotary switch!), so I'm trying to figure out the electronics setup.

IIRC, the Tone Capsule install is pretty darn simple: input wire goes in here, output wire goes out there...

I'd think the easiest way to have a rotary switch and passive tone would be to have them "upstream" of the Tone Capsule, so that when you switch the TC to passive, their functionality is the same.

Anything after the TC would need to have pot values appropriate for a low-impedance signal.

 

[gustobassman]

Slightly OT, but I recall someone installing a Darkglass Tone Capsule and adding a passive tone control that was always in-circuit. Was it you, @gustobassman?

I've got a DTC coming for a (gasp) non-Dingwall build (but it's got a rotary switch!), so I'm trying to figure out the electronics setup.

Yep.. that was me. I have a few of them made up as well.

 

[smeet]

I intend to install the 6-way switch in my about-to-arrive NG3. Does anybody have any feelings about the choices for the 6 combinations? In particular, I notice the "standard" config doesn't include the middle pickup soloed. Any thoughts on if that setting is worth losing another setting for? I'm looking for a useful and wide variety of tones applicable to lots of styles (jazz/rock/country/funk/R&B/fingered/picked/slapped/etc). I play clean 95% of the time.

 

[AB Nate]

I intend to install the 6-way switch in my about-to-arrive NG3. Does anybody have any feelings about the choices for the 6 combinations? In particular, I notice the "standard" config doesn't include the middle pickup soloed. Any thoughts on if that setting is worth losing another setting for? I'm looking for a useful and wide variety of tones applicable to lots of styles (jazz/rock/country/funk/R&B/fingered/picked/slapped/etc). I play clean 95% of the time.

The middle pick up sooo is way more valuable then bridge solo. IMO

 

[groovaholic]

The middle pick up sooo is way more valuable then bridge solo. IMO

I just modified my P-Bass with this pickup config, so you can probably guess my feelings on “bridge solo”…

 

[smeet]

The middle pick up sooo is way more valuable then bridge solo. IMO

I sometimes like a Jaco-ish bridge tone, but with more body in the lows. Can I get that with/without the bridge pickup solo?

 

[Derek Williams]

I sometimes like a Jaco-ish bridge tone, but with more body in the lows. Can I get that with/without the bridge pickup solo?

Im a fan of bridge only, but only once I got the SF2 pickups. I wouldn’t want to drop it now, but I’m perfectly happy with the plain 2 pickup config of my NG2.

 

[Waltsdog]

I intend to install the 6-way switch in my about-to-arrive NG3. Does anybody have any feelings about the choices for the 6 combinations?.

The middle pick up sooo is way more valuable then bridge solo. IMO

Neck Solo, Middle solo - and even that is 1 more than most of us really need haha

 

[J Posega]

I sometimes like a Jaco-ish bridge tone, but with more body in the lows. Can I get that with/without the bridge pickup solo?

Not to be a boob, but have you considered playing the bass first? That ought to tell you which options you may or may not want.

Since the stock switch uses screw terminals, you could even mess around with connecting the middle pickup to the bridge pickup terminals just to test out middle solo vs bridge solo.

 

[AB Nate]

I just modified my P-Bass with this pickup config, so you can probably guess my feelings on “bridge solo”…

Doesn’t count…

 

[AB Nate]

I sometimes like a Jaco-ish bridge tone, but with more body in the lows. Can I get that with/without the bridge pickup solo?

What are your preferred settings?

to start with tell us how you think you’d configure a six way

 

[retroXvertigo]

These would be the same thing, as Jazz bass pickups are wired in parallel. Is it perhaps that one setting is N + B Parallel and one is N + B Series?

I mistyped.

It's neck/mid

 

[smeet]

Not to be a boob, but have you considered playing the bass first? That ought to tell you which options you may or may not want.

Since the stock switch uses screw terminals, you could even mess around with connecting the middle pickup to the bridge pickup terminals just to test out middle solo vs bridge solo.

It should arrive today, and of course I'll check out the 4-position settings to see if there are any settings I simply don't like, but I'm assuming all will be at least usable, so I'm just looking for other people's opinions. I didn't realize the switch had screw terminals, I'll definitely try out mid vs bridge solo.