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Dingwall Owners Club

#17,323
Dingwall nickles on both. I'm not inclined to change on either.

When the Dingwall strings die, I may try TI'S on the SPJ5 if they work with the Dingwall nickel B as I'm not a fan of the TI B. If that fails, maybe a set of Sunbeams with the same caveat regarding the B. Have thought about Payson reduced core nickles, but only if the tension is the same or less.

But then again, why change what works so well?

BTW, how long are the Dingwall nickles lasting y'all? Over a year on the SJ5XXX, about the same on the SPJ5, but strings have always gone a looong ways for me even with heavy use.
 
#17,325
Some initial observations on the new Super J...

Build/finish quality is top notch (as expected).

The first pleasant surprise was series mode, which adds great beef to the tone, but is still tight in the low end with plenty of definition on the high end. Series is more scooped as you'd expect, and the pickups are a bit more scooped sounding than my other J's, but not to the extent that the tone is unusable, and I think this helps explain why series sounds so good. I need to check out series/parallel at higher volumes to really get a feel.

The second thing I wasn't expecting was how great the Glock preamp is. As others have said, it's extremely transparent with no tonal change between active and passive - no loss of punch, no clanky high end. If anything, it makes it sound a bit sweeter. The big surprise for me was the treble control - looking at the specs, I kind of thought ***, thinking it would be hissy, harsh, whatever - but it's quite the opposite. It adds a great air to the tone, and is extremely quiet. It's more on the subtle side but very musical and useful. I get it now. Having it function as a tone roll-off in passive mode is pretty cool - I'm pretty much a tone wide guy, but it sounded very good and didn't get muddy, so well done. It kind of reminds me of the Tonestyler.

I removed the stock strings as they are a couple of years old and a bit dead. They were also a bit loose for my taste, especially when tuned down a half step. They remind me of DR High Beams which are too scooped for my preference.
As I mentioned in my other post, I put a set of EB Cobalts on which sound great. They have been working well on all my other basses as of late (prior to that, I was a DR SS Low Riders guy). I tune down a half step, so I like a heavier B. I've been running 135 100 75 55 40 which is pretty balanced. I picked up a 45 and 60 for the SJ5 in case the 40 and 55 were too slack with the shorter scale length, but I'm going to keep it as-is. It's nice to have a bit more flexibility on the high strings for bending, and the Cobalts are pretty stiff to begin with. They still feel very balanced tension-wise.

The bass played great upon arrival, and I ended up adding a small bit of relief to the neck and raised the action a bit after I restrung it. I also dropped the height of both pickups down, especially the neck (probably about 1/8", maybe 1/16" on the bridge). The Cobalts are loud strings, so there is plenty of punch, and lowering the pickups added more clarity. I'm sure I'll fine tune it more as things settle in.

No issues adjusting to the fanned frets - it's easy playing up the the 19th fret or so. I actually only notice it when playing the first fret of each string on the A, D, and G due to the slope of the nut, but it's not an issue.

I stayed up way too late last night playing it which is a good sign, and I can't wait to test it at higher volume to really get a feel for how it projects and responds.
 
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#17,328
Thumper said:
Dingwall nickles on both. I'm not inclined to change on either.

When the Dingwall strings die, I may try TI'S on the SPJ5 if they work with the Dingwall nickel B as I'm not a fan of the TI B. If that fails, maybe a set of Sunbeams with the same caveat regarding the B. Have thought about Payson reduced core nickles, but only if the tension is the same or less.

But then again, why change what works so well?

BTW, how long are the Dingwall nickles lasting y'all? Over a year on the SJ5XXX, about the same on the SPJ5, but strings have always gone a looong ways for me even with heavy use.
Click to expand...


Payson doesn't do medium scale yet for our super series.
:crying:
 
#17,330
JGR said:
Some initial observations on the new Super J...

Build/finish quality is top notch (as expected).

The first pleasant surprise was series mode, which adds great beef to the tone, but is still tight in the low end with plenty of definition on the high end. Series is more scooped as you'd expect, and the pickups are a bit more scooped sounding than my other J's, but not to the extent that the tone is unusable, and I think this helps explain why series sounds so good. I need to check out series/parallel at higher volumes to really get a feel.

The second thing I wasn't expecting was how great the Glock preamp is. As others have said, it's extremely transparent with no tonal change between active and passive - no loss of punch, no clanky high end. If anything, it makes it sound a bit sweeter. The big surprise for me was the treble control - looking at the specs, I kind of thought ***, thinking it would be hissy, harsh, whatever - but it's quite the opposite. It adds a great air to the tone, and is extremely quiet. It's more on the subtle side but very musical and useful. I get it now. Having it function as a tone roll-off in passive mode is pretty cool - I'm pretty much a tone wide guy, but it sounded very good and didn't get muddy, so well done. It kind of reminds me of the Tonestyler.

I removed the stock strings as they are a couple of years old and a bit dead. They were also a bit loose for my taste, especially when tuned down a half step. They remind me of DR High Beams which are too scooped for my preference.
As I mentioned in my other post, I put a set of EB Cobalts on which sound great. They have been working well on all my other basses as of late (prior to that, I was a DR SS Low Riders guy). I tune down a half step, so I like a heavier B. I've been running 135 100 75 55 40 which is pretty balanced. I picked up a 45 and 60 for the SJ5 in case the 40 and 55 were too slack with the shorter scale length, but I'm going to keep it as-is. It's nice to have a bit more flexibility on the high strings for bending, and the Cobalts are pretty stiff to begin with. They still feel very balanced tension-wise.

The bass played great upon arrival, and I ended up adding a small bit of relief to the neck and raised the action a bit after I restrung it. I also dropped the height of both pickups down, especially the neck (probably about 1/8", maybe 1/16" on the bridge). The Cobalts are loud strings, so there is plenty of punch, and lowering the pickups added more clarity. I'm sure I'll fine tune it more as things settle in.

No issues adjusting to the fanned frets - it's easy playing up the the 19th fret or so. I actually only notice it when playing the first fret of each string on the A, D, and G due to the slope of the nut, but it's not an issue.

I stayed up way too late last night playing it which is a good sign, and I can't wait to test it at higher volume to really get a feel for how it projects and responds.
Click to expand...

I definitely echo your thoughts. I'm a big fan of the Glock preamp, and I really love how they handle the treble boost/passive tone cut. Enjoy! :bassist: :bassist: :bassist: :thumbsup:
 
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#17,331
J Posega said:
I know this is the Dingwall club, but I thought I'd report in on another fanned bass I got to encounter.

After dropping my wife off at O'hare to catch a flight to the UK, I went to Milwaukee to stay overnight with a friend before driving eight hours back home. I stopped at a Music Go Round, which had an impressive selection.

They had an ESP fanned fret 5, the $999.99 model. 37-34" scale, felt like maybe 7 or 18mm spacing, Nordstrand pickups, ESP preamp.

It's a nice looking bass. Neck is wenge and some other wood, 5 piece. Tuners were Gotoh I think. Individual bridges. Hardware is black.

First problem: it's heavy. Around 10 lbs, at least. (Well, really problem 1 is that it's got a guitar-store setup, so the action was higher than most players would like).

Problem two: They clearly didn't "design" a fanned fret bass. They took an existing body shape, put things at an angle, and added all the extra length to the nut end of the neck. Upper strap button only came to about the 15th fret. I only played it sitting, but I could tell it would've dove to the floor on a strap, even with the heavy body. It felt like I had to lean over towards my left side to reach the lowest frets.

Problem two-and-a-half: the neck is slightly thick front to back, bigger than a Combustion. This would not be a problem, per se, if problem three was not a thing, and if it were properly setup. But as it is, it just made the reach to the lowest notes feel like more of a strain.

Problem three: the nut was not contoured along the top, and so the G string edge sort of dug into the palm when going after low B and E notes. It also has one of those ugly deals where the headstock is cut like a straight fret bass, and they've got that hideous bit of fingerboard sticking out behind the nut.

Problem four: overly complicated, so-so electronics. Not sure what variety of Nordy pickups are in the bass, but they sound great. The ESP preamp though? Blech. Barf. Ew. I remember why I hated active basses for so long now. The preamp is pretty standard: volume, blend, bass w/ detent, mid w/ detent, treble... but no detent for the treble pot. I kept it dimed and everything else flat. There are also two switches, but one didn't make any audible difference, and the other just made things louder? I think the battery was either almost dead, or the preamp was defective.

Even with a so-so to bad preamp, it's a decent bass. It's just not an amazing bass, and I certainly would not pay 2/3 of a Combustion for something that was not designed to be multiscale. Ergonomically, it's a disaster. Tonally, I could see it being a really great bass, but it's not physically nice to play. It's kludgy, and that isn't only due to medium-high action - it's another case of jumping on the bandwagon, like a lot of 35" scale basses. Builders need to learn that they can't just slap a longer neck on a 34" body and expect it to play well.
Click to expand...

I'm not surprised by any of this.

It's also why, after having my AB for a bit when I was looking to have something built, I only considered other builders for moments before calling Sheldon. While the fanned frets get all the 'fanfare' so to speak, there's a whole lot of really high quality engineering that goes into these basses beyond inserting wire at funny angles.

Part of that engineering is a rethinking of some geometries to make the fanning more comfortable and ergonomic for the player, given the extended 37" scale lenth (aka making it feel like the basses they already know and love) and seamless to switch to or from.

But that really discounts the amount of engineering applied to other aspects of these instruments. On my Z/V Forgetting the squirrel-frets, if you look at the neck alone; 5pc neck stock for wood stability implemented with best practices, graphite rods with a very specific installation method. The geometries of the neck are complex...compound radius across the fanned frets, compound headstock angle (not tilting on a perpendicular axis, but slanted), asymmetric neck profile carve that also plays nicely with the compound neck carve (it changes from the nut position to up past the 12th fret.

I've always thought that dropping a fanned neck on a 'standard' body shape, size, etc. is probably worse than half-a55ed.
 
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#17,332
J Posega said:
I wouldn't know what to play if it wasn't a Dingwall.

Little Guitar Works - if I were ponying up new-custom-Dingwall kind of money, I'd look long and hard at a Little with a fanned, Torzal twist neck
Click to expand...

I didn't know that Little was dong fanned necks. I know about the twist. I've always wondered what the exposure is design-wise on doing fanned and twisted. THAT is a geometry. ;)
 
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#17,335
BurningSkies said:
I'm not surprised by any of this.

It's also why, after having my AB for a bit when I was looking to have something built, I only considered other builders for moments before calling Sheldon. While the fanned frets get all the 'fanfare' so to speak, there's a whole lot of really high quality engineering that goes into these basses beyond inserting wire at funny angles.

Part of that engineering is a rethinking of some geometries to make the fanning more comfortable and ergonomic for the player, given the extended 37" scale lenth (aka making it feel like the basses they already know and love) and seamless to switch to or from.

But that really discounts the amount of engineering applied to other aspects of these instruments. On my Z/V Forgetting the squirrel-frets, if you look at the neck alone; 5pc neck stock for wood stability implemented with best practices, graphite rods with a very specific installation method. The geometries of the neck are complex...compound radius across the fanned frets, compound headstock angle (not tilting on a perpendicular axis, but slanted), asymmetric neck profile carve that also plays nicely with the compound neck carve (it changes from the nut position to up past the 12th fret.

I've always thought that dropping a fanned neck on a 'standard' body shape, size, etc. is probably worse than half-a55ed.
Click to expand...
THIS!^^^^^:thumbsup:
 
#17,339
BurningSkies said:
I didn't know that Little was dong fanned necks. I know about the twist. I've always wondered what the exposure is design-wise on doing fanned and twisted. THAT is a geometry. ;)
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think he's doing his fanned, twisted fretboards in two piece or something.

They're truly a sight to see. I should've tried to get to his shop when I was in Austin.

He will also build just a neck... I'd consider that as a future move for my SP. Anything to help keep the wrists working long into the future!
 

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