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Dingwall Owners Club

#7,421
This is my first post, I'm not a member of the club, but I think I'd like to be. Along that line, does anyone in South Florida have a Dingwall I could test drive for a few minutes? I've never bought an instrument before playing it & the thought of spending $2k + without trying one makes me uncomfortable to say the least. I live in Naples, FL...anyone in my area?
 
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#7,422
jim geeslin said:
This is my first post, I'm not a member of the club, but I think I'd like to be. Along that line, does anyone in South Florida have a Dingwall I could test drive for a few minutes? I've never bought an instrument before playing it & the thought of spending $2k + without trying one makes me uncomfortable to say the least. I live in Naples, FL...anyone in my area?%
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I would be glad to help, but I'm in Missouri. All of my Dingwall basses have been custom orders, so were unavailable to be played beforehand. I'm happy to report a 100% success rate at meeting or exceeding my expectations.
 
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#7,424
jim geeslin said:
This is my first post, I'm not a member of the club, but I think I'd like to be. Along that line, does anyone in South Florida have a Dingwall I could test drive for a few minutes? I've never bought an instrument before playing it & the thought of spending $2k + without trying one makes me uncomfortable to say the least. I live in Naples, FL...anyone in my area?
Click to expand...

Another vote for the "read all the reviews and saw that everyone was happy, so I bought one without having tried one" club. In my case I bought used first. I figured based on how often they don't come up I could always flip it. Didn't need to. Now I have 4 of them.
 
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#7,425
BuffaloBob4343 said:
What sort of differences in tone have you encountered in your experience, Steve? I am interested in your perception between a maple neck and wenge one to compare to my own. I agree there is a difference and I am curious to see if our perceptions are similar.
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IME, Wenge necks sound more forward in the mids (low mids on bass), a little compressed, and have a long, even sustain.

Once again, a disclaimer that my experience is limited to fairly small sample, but it has been pretty consistent.

Of course, there are also the weight and feel differences. Polished raw Wenge has a tactile feel that I really enjoy.
 
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#7,426
steve_rolfeca said:
IME, Wenge necks sound more forward in the mids (low mids on bass), a little compressed, and have a long, even sustain.

Once again, a disclaimer that my experience is limited to fairly small sample, but it has been pretty consistent.

Of course, there are also the weight and feel differences. Polished raw Wenge has a tactile feel that I really enjoy.
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My experience is very similar. I find those tonal characteristics to be subtle, but discernible.

The tactile feel is not subtle, I LOVE that smooth feel of wenge as well. I also love them aesthetically as well. Love the chocolate headstock.
 
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#7,428
I'm another Dingwall convert who jumped in without a trial run. I started with a Super P/J four string. Bought it used here on TB. It seemed like a stretch at the time, but minutes after the brown truck departed, I was super stoked. I used the packaging materials to box up my Fender Jazz and put a for sale add in the classifieds.
Never looked back.
 
#7,429
Bought my ABZ5 on TB after being an on-again, off-again 5 string player since I started playing 10 years ago.

Best purchase of my life. Although, it's ruined me... I only ever play my parallel fretless basses if I'm not playing the ABZ. Trying to unload the fretted parallels now since they're feeling the neglect.
 
#7,431
NaH said:
Another vote for the "read all the reviews and saw that everyone was happy, so I bought one without having tried one" club.
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I'm too chicken to invest that sort of money without checking an instrument out first.

I ordered mine through a stocking dealer who was willing to refund my deposit on arrival. That took a ton of stress out of the transaction.

The other advantage was that I got to try out a couple of other models when I went to place my order. Playing Super J and a Combustion helped to firm up the details through a process of elimination.

As much as I still think the Super P is the prettiest bass in existence, the string spacing and overall layout of the Combustion steered me towards a "real" long-scale Dingwall. Similarly, the sleek-feeling neck and the superlative electronics in the SJ gave me the confidence to step up to an ABZ, since the D-shaped profile on the Combustion wasn't my cup of tea.
 
#7,432
NaH said:
Another vote for the "read all the reviews and saw that everyone was happy, so I bought one without having tried one" club. In my case I bought used first. I figured based on how often they don't come up I could always flip it. Didn't need to. Now I have 4 of them.
Click to expand...

Same story here. Always wanted to try one because everyone says "they're AWESOME", but I live in Indiana, so nobody has one. One came up in the classifieds on here(which almost never happens), so I figured I'd give it a shot and if I didn't like it or couldn't play it, I could probably sell it fairly easily...now I have 2 and I'm spec'ing out #3...it WILL consume you!
 
#7,433
I had been curious about the Dingwalls for a while. I found out that a friend on TB who was local and had one (@groovaholic ), so I set up a trial. At that time I already had a line on a used one from another friend on TB (@BurningSkies ). After I played one it was pretty set in stone. I needed one. I have some fine parallel fret basses, but they were disappointing after playing John's AB1.5. I was committed to getting one the next day.

pbass6811 said:
it WILL consume you!
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+1 to this.

I have a few basses to move, and then I will be looking at a NG-2 I think.
 
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#7,434
Yet another read a ton of stuff then bought sight unseen, an SJ5. It was simply amazing right out of the bag. I immediately wanted to order an SP but it took me a few months to settle on what I wanted.

With the exception of my Grove 51 P and Martin BCPA4, I sold everything else after the Super P arrived. They were just collecting dust in the closet.
 
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#7,435
Following up on this:

CL400Peavey said:
For some reason I had this song stuck in my head all day. Went home and had to play it to get it out. Figured since I have all my gear at home right now I would record a couple clips. Here is the catch, can you guess which is which? Sorry for my crap-tacular playing, but there is a dingwall in there somewhere.



Gear in my living room right now

Amps:
Peavey Classic 400
Peavey Mark VIII XP
Ampeg Portaflex 500
Carvin B1500
Aguilar Tonehammer in to a power amp
VHT Special 6

Cabs:
fEARful 1515/66/1
greenboy DuallyT
Chopshop 110

Basses:
Squire franken P with DiMarzio PAF (chrome flats)
Fender American Delux Jazz (rounds)
Musicman Stingray HS 5 (chrome flats)
Ball Family Reserve Sterling HS 5 (rounds)
Dingwall After Burner 1 (Steels)

So whatcha thing? Can you spot the Dingwall? Or the amps or cabs?
Click to expand...


Both of these are good guesses...

BuffaloBob4343 said:
I found some headphones.
I would be shocked if number 4 wasn't the dingwall.
Click to expand...

Smallmouth_Bass said:
#4 is the Dingwall?
Click to expand...

All the clips were done with my AB1, PF-500, and DuallyT. In every clip all the EQ was set to noon, Compressor was at noon, and pre gain was around 2 o'clock. All the tonal variation comes from me changing pick up selection, BluEQube, and rolling the tone pot off. Pretty wide range of tones from a passive bass.
 
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#7,436
CL400Peavey said:
Following up on this:



Both of these are good guesses...





All the clips were done with my AB1, PF-500, and DuallyT. In every clip all the EQ was set to noon, Compressor was at noon, and pre gain was around 2 o'clock. All the tonal variation comes from me changing pick up selection, BluEQube, and rolling the tone pot off. Pretty wide range of tones from a passive bass.
Click to expand...
Aren't you the sly one!
 

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