Game changer bass for whoever ended up with it.
I was just guessing in jest. He likes his dingwall 6ers and was drooling too
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Dingwall Owners Club
- Thread starter FroggyOne2
- Start date
I was just guessing in jest. He likes his dingwall 6ers and was drooling too
Finally had some time to test my new 6-way switch that was installed courtesy of my buddy Sean Fairchild who some of you may know from his work with @tombowlus and the crew over at Bass Gear Magazine. I’d tag him but I can’t remember his TB handle. Whoops.
My SJ came with the standard 3X switch. Two years ago I had the switch replaced with a custom one from Mo that had all of the parallel pairs and all of the solo options. I hated the NM parallel pair, and only included the B solo option because I felt like I was “supposed to.” I ended up missing the BM series option and really wanted to try the Dingwall All-On option. I had Mo build me a version of the standard 6-way that has the greatest hits from both the standard and D-Roc switches, but in a different order more suited to the way my brain works. Those settings are as follows:
My SJ came with the standard 3X switch. Two years ago I had the switch replaced with a custom one from Mo that had all of the parallel pairs and all of the solo options. I hated the NM parallel pair, and only included the B solo option because I felt like I was “supposed to.” I ended up missing the BM series option and really wanted to try the Dingwall All-On option. I had Mo build me a version of the standard 6-way that has the greatest hits from both the standard and D-Roc switches, but in a different order more suited to the way my brain works. Those settings are as follows:
- All-on
- BM series
- BM parallel
- BN parallel
- M solo
- N solo
- Scooped in a different way than a typical Jazz with both pickups on. It’s quite dark and then there’s this bright sparkle on top of the darkness. It’s an interesting tone. The setup is BM in parallel and then combined with N in series. I would love to hear BM in series (so they’d act like a single pickup) and then in parallel with N. In my mind that would be more akin to a J/MM pickup setup and may be a more usable sound for my taste. I’m not going to do another switch just to find out, but it does have me wondering.
- This to me is the most Stingray sounding option of the bunch. A cool sound in the right context, and the wrong sound in others. Not a sound that will work for everything, but when it works it’s just the thing. This setting is hotter than all the others by a decent margin.
- My go-to setting when playing live over the last two years and it’ll probably remain that way even with this new switch. More mids than a Jazz but a little more polite than a Stingray. It reminds me a bit of the so-called Avanti (sp?) pickup spacing on modern Sadowsky basses. I’ve grown to love this setting and it’s always the first thing I try when dialing in a tone on basically anything.
- The Jazz setting that doesn’t really sound like a Jazz. To my ears it’s more Spector’y but that’s not really right either. It’s scoopy with a bit more throaty character than a Jazz. It’s a usable sound but not my go to on a gig for anything but slap. With my S/P switches configured P for neck and S for bridge I quite like it but it still doesn’t compare, for my taste, to setting 3.
- Like a P but tighter and more aggressive. Ridiculously great rock tone. If you want to cut, this will do it. I recorded a 22-song record last year and did 21 of the songs with this setting. A studio I do sessions for in Vegas, which included the aforementioned record, has been saying “use that white bass with whatever setting you did last time” when giving me tracking notes. The engineer there loves this tone, and I don’t disagree. It’s not my personal go-to, but it’s an absolute workhorse for anything with drums and guitars in the mix.
- For most things I view this as a less good version of setting 5. Sure, it’s fatter but it’s also more bloated and less controlled for lack of a better term. If I put the bass in passive mode, roll off the tone a bit, palm mute and play with my thumb or the Jamerson hook technique it can get Motown’y in a pleasant way. That’s likely the extent of what I’ll use this setting for considering there’s what I consider to be a better sounding option one knob position away for most things.
IvanBassist
Commercial User
- Jun 8, 2008
- 3,744
- 11,128
- Disclosures
- Content Manager at Darkglass Electronics, Dingwall Guitars Artist
Thanks for the detailed information!
Now this has gotten me curious about position 5 for my upcoming SJ.
Middle solo is absolutely where it's at. If I could get a 5 string Z with just one pickup in that spot, I'd jump on it.
You guys talking about the middle pickup solo….series or parallel? Im guessing series
I have the S/P switches on mine. Once you level balance the two the difference is really just the relative quantity of midrange with the series option having a bit more in the low and middle mids than the parallel. More often than not I leave the switches set to NP, MP, and BS which means I run the middle solo in the parallel setting. Sometimes I throw it to series for more bark in the mids. If really just depends how much authority you want it to speak with once you level match the two settings, which obviously isn’t an option if you don’t have the switches.
But how do you level match the settings? The differences in volume are quite significant. That is one of the few things I would like different in Dingwalls. I don't appreciate the level changes that come with the switches and the PU-selector.
I level match them with the volume knob and my ears. There’s no other way to do this. This isn’t a Dingwall issue, it’s just the nature of series vs parallel pickup wiring. Series will always be hotter than parallel and this is true for all bass and pickup manufacturers.
I went "way complicated" with volume matching.
My band plays to a backing/click. So I have it setup that my AxeFx2 receives a MIDI sysex to change settings right when needed. As long as I don't flub and mess up flipping the toggle on the bass, it's entirely transparent. I have it dialed in to under 1dB of volume difference this way.
Also, you can just change your right hand approach to account for a lot of the difference. Set your volume to your ideal state when playing in parallel, play normally. When you flip to series, play with a lighter touch. I did that before I messed with MIDI sysex'ing the changes. Yes, it takes more woodshed time, discipline, and you have to pay attention live when coming at it this way.
My band plays to a backing/click. So I have it setup that my AxeFx2 receives a MIDI sysex to change settings right when needed. As long as I don't flub and mess up flipping the toggle on the bass, it's entirely transparent. I have it dialed in to under 1dB of volume difference this way.
Also, you can just change your right hand approach to account for a lot of the difference. Set your volume to your ideal state when playing in parallel, play normally. When you flip to series, play with a lighter touch. I did that before I messed with MIDI sysex'ing the changes. Yes, it takes more woodshed time, discipline, and you have to pay attention live when coming at it this way.
My former Afterburners, both 2-pickup models born in 2012, had a trim pot in the cavity to account for that exact difference between series and parallel modes, IIRC. Would be interesting to hear why the team decided to get rid of that feature.
(Personally, I used it to fine tune and match the impedance between those two basses in order to make my fuzz oscillate to the tonic of one of our songs independent of whichever AB I felt like playing that instant - so I’m afraid my own experience and use case might not speak for the feature’s appeal to the broader Dingwall playing public
Nowadays, if I need a fuzz to scream in unison with a song, I just program it into my helix, impedances be damned.)
(Personally, I used it to fine tune and match the impedance between those two basses in order to make my fuzz oscillate to the tonic of one of our songs independent of whichever AB I felt like playing that instant - so I’m afraid my own experience and use case might not speak for the feature’s appeal to the broader Dingwall playing public
Nowadays, if I need a fuzz to scream in unison with a song, I just program it into my helix, impedances be damned.)
The trimpot (at least on my older ABs) is for the preamp, not the pickups. It is located on the output stage of the preamp itself and basically acts as a volume pot. You'll still have physics involved and Series will be louder and tonally distinct from Parallel.My former Afterburners, both 2-pickup models born in 2012, had a trim pot in the cavity to account for that exact difference between series and parallel modes, IIRC. Would be interesting to hear why the team decided to get rid of that feature.
(Personally, I used it to fine tune and match the impedance between those two basses in order to make my fuzz oscillate to the tonic of one of our songs independent of whichever AB I felt like playing that instant - so I’m afraid my own experience and use case might not speak for the feature’s appeal to the broader Dingwall playing public
They used to put a trimpot on the switch so you could adjust the volume of series mode. My experience is with a passive ABZ5, and yes, it adjusted the volume of series mode.
I’ve talked to Mo and he gave me a quote to build a switch with trimmers for volume matching which was, for the complexity of what we were discussing, very reasonable. I didn’t go ahead with the project though. I asked for trimmers to replace external volume pots so I could change the balance output of each pickup in parallel to achieve some of those sweet “in between” tones you get with a J bass, turning one pickup down just slightly from max with the other at max.
I’ve been casually looking for someone with PCB design skills to help make switches like the Dingwall offering, but so far no luck. I’m too thick headed to wrap my brain around rotary switch wiring on my own.
I’ve talked to Mo and he gave me a quote to build a switch with trimmers for volume matching which was, for the complexity of what we were discussing, very reasonable. I didn’t go ahead with the project though. I asked for trimmers to replace external volume pots so I could change the balance output of each pickup in parallel to achieve some of those sweet “in between” tones you get with a J bass, turning one pickup down just slightly from max with the other at max.
I’ve been casually looking for someone with PCB design skills to help make switches like the Dingwall offering, but so far no luck. I’m too thick headed to wrap my brain around rotary switch wiring on my own.
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Neat! Mine are older, one's a 2007, the other a 2009. Guess there was a transition period between mine, yours / wavemaker's, and modern ones. Kind of reminds me of the Voodoo Switching, which I really wish I could've gotten, too.
We have several folks on the forum who do PCB design and etching. Or at least, did several years back. I think for the S/P switch toggle trim idea, it would be a fairly straight forward PCB, too.
Super cool idea... should/would such a board include treble bleed caps for the trim pots so as not to lose high end while balancing levels?
Yeah, one of my ABs was completely passive, so definitely no preamp involved.
@J Posega that’s a really neat idea.
My Stingray 5 from 1992 doesn't have this problem though. IMHO a built in corrective measure for this would actually be a very nice touch.
Yeah, this:
I think one other time we were talking about it here, Sheldon chimed in with how many basses got it, and it was single digits? Like 3 or something maybe?
ohhhh maaah gerd... Dingwall shared the reel I posted from last night's gig to their IG story! I just saw they liked the post and was like... "um why is there about 600 more views than normal... and rising".
oh, ok.
oh, ok.
