Thanks for your replies. It was never a case of wanting it to sound exactly like the P and J fenders, or is more of a case for them to sound similar, yet better. It's hard for me to decide on what options to go with for my first custom Dingwall, so trying to get as much feedback as possible for me before ordering is a great help. I believe Alberto Rigoni's ABZ has the dual density ash body body, and that bass sounds amazing.
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Dingwall Owners Club
- Thread starter FroggyOne2
- Start date
I played the Super P5 against this Super J5 in the shop for a while. The Super P is a lovely instrument and it was a hard choice. On the Super J, I can get very close sounds to the Super P with the split-P pickup at the front and also I have the bridge pickup for the rich punchy mid-range tones.
They're all fantastic basses!
It's especially easy with Dingwalls, isn't it?
I wish I was playing enough to NEED to change strings, but my house remodel has taken over my life...
Hello All
I am now the *extremely* happy owner of a Super JP5... It is wonderful. I prefer it to my ABII (now sold) - it just feels "right". It has the vintage feel that I was looking for.
Very, very impressed. The build quality is flawless as I would expect and now I have both P, J and the series and parallel options so I have no need for another bass.... Ever.... (we'll see hehe).
Now back to the shed...
Hello! Congratulations and welcome aboard, brother. I've not owned or fondled an AB II, but an AB I was my first Dingwall bass. I eventually installed a P-tone pickup at the neck. Fantastic bass, but I found that I preferred my SJ/P four-string. It's closer to the 'traditional' tonal ballpark. I couldn't stop at one medium-scale Dingwall, I now have a different one to enjoy playing for each Sunday of the month.
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
I'm slowly converting everyone. It really does work and has worked for me since I started doing it back about a decade ago. We've had a recent couple hot weather gigs (including 90 degrees in the sun on stage) and with the sweat and grime, my strings might make it a gig or two.
It's perfect for me because I like my strings "broken-in" but still very bright sounding.
The alcohol soak lets me keep them in that sweet-spot for the longest time possible.
And the PVC tube makes it easy, because straight strings are unlikely to get tangled...
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
I think we roughly like the same thing from strings. I like them to feel clean and lively, and to have about 85% of the brightness of new strings, just a bit more 'relaxed' than new. I haven't gone for the PVC pipe method, but either way it works. People who do this need to remember to use denatured alcohol (methylated spirits) rather than 'rubbing alcohol' which has a high water content. There's a big difference.
Wonder if straight IPA would work? We go through 500 gallons a month or more at work, it's 99.4% pure......
Probably, as long as you mean Isopropyl Alcohol instead of India Pale Ale!
I've done OK with 91% isopropyl; if you have something 8.94% better, I think you're golden.
I've done OK with 91% isopropyl; if you have something 8.94% better, I think you're golden.
Just got an email from Sheldon (last night). My SP/J5 should be ready to ship in the next week.
Just got the news that my SP5 will be delayed for 2 more months on the account of a bad batch of wenge for the neck.
So hopefully by October it will come. I will be anxiously waiting with my head held high
I decided to change my SP5 order up a bit. I went with all maple instead of wenge (maybe on my next one
). Also I liked the ash on the SPZ4 I had that MDBass is now showing love to, so I switched body material. I also had my wife help pick out a finish and we settled with trans white.Hopefully I'll hear back by Monday and get this bass in to production. This will at least give my DAS a little break.
Addition: I received a forwarded email from Barry yesterday saying that the new specs were confirmed and is added to the production schedule
(assuming this means it is now in the build phase)
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I'm the proud new owner of a beautful Super P5. I was thinking about how cool it would look with block inlays, so I wonder if block inlay stickers are available for super P5/J5's. Anybody know of anything? Also it isn't really apparent in the picture, but the dot inlays are very low contrast against the fingerboard, so I'd like something that "pops" more.
Dingwall ownership is freedom. No need to search for "The Holy Grail" anymore. You can live out Stanley Clarke's excellent advice to 'find gear that works for you and get on with playing music'.
MDBass
Supporting Member
- Nov 7, 2012
- 8,590
- 14,892
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- Endorsing Artist: Dingwall-Fender-Bergantino-Dunlop-Tech 21-Darkglass-Nordstrand
I decided to change my SP5 order up a bit. I went with all maple instead of wenge (maybe on my next one
Hopefully I'll hear back by Monday and get this bass in to production. This will at least give my DAS a little break.
Addition: I received a forwarded email from Barry yesterday saying that the new specs were confirmed and is added to the production schedule
I'm really glad you decided to part ways with it, I use that bass for literally EVERYTHING now
So much so in fact that I totally switched up my order, so as to not have one SPFD play second fiddle to the other....it's now an SJ XXX with an SP neck, should be in the build phase in about a month
I'm really glad you decided to part ways with it, I use that bass for literally EVERYTHING now
So much so in fact that I totally switched up my order, so as to not have one SPFD play second fiddle to the other....it's now an SJ XXX with an SP neck, should be in the build phase in about a month
Nice. If I got another 4 string thought about ordering a SJ with SP neck. I didn't like the black cherry SJ xxx that was built at first, but yeah I'd rock the heck out of that. I think if I ordered another it would be the SJ XXX or ABI XXX. I wonder what the SJ 3X sounds like passive. I thought about changing my build to a SJ5 XXX config but it was going to be about another $1000 for what I wanted to do. Well there is always the for sale forum
Awesome bass! I had a similar problem with the Super J I had and decided that if I were to order a morado/rosewood board bass from Dingwall I would almost certainly get it with the luminlays put in. I didn't have any problems with it when I first got it, but then I played it on stage and was a little taken aback by how hard the standard inlays were to see vs the maple SPZ5 I had been using. I've pretty much gigged maple boards exclusively for the last 4 years, so I never really noticed it before.
If you have a good tech/luthier, you could even buy the materials yourself and have them install them for you.
Of course my new PJ5 will have a maple board with block inlays, so I won't be having this issue
