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Dingwall Super J Thread!

#41
Minty said:
We need to put it in reptrospective, and appreciate the Jeckyll & Hyde split personality of this bass:

A) In passive mode it's like sweet mellow marimbas, different from the J/J, honkier, lower and sweeter.

B) Punch in the actve mode and you have to be careful with your bass and treble controls, too much of those and you can shake the foundations. But it's all good, it means there will be no guitards, drummers or keyboard hero's to ever outsound you!

They'll be looking for :help: !!
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Ha nice. I might just have to talk to Sheldon about the P pickup as well. Could do some quick connect lines and then just swap out the pup and pickguard before a "p bass" gig and be set. Of course, having an AV62 p bass kinda takes care of that, but i might miss the fanned frets :D
 
#43
Minty said:
Don't forget Sheldon's pickups are neodymium very responsive and powerful wound to the best reproduction of the p bass sound which in my views are more versatile than original vintage F's
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I respect what he's doing for sure, but i'm not sure how you can get more vintage accurate than a vintage Fender pickup :smug:

While his Super Phatty pups sound close to a regular old single coil poles exposed jazz pickup, it is different
 
#48
First church gig tonight. Thoughts:

It's noticeably smoother sounding and slightly more polished in the mids than your average Fender Jazz, but not as much as I was thinking. I had to boost the bass a bit on the Aguilar DB 750, which is already a pretty bassy sounding head. Cut a bit of mids, and for a couple of the gospel numbers it was pretty slick sounding.

Beforehand i had a slight fiasco with a string change...about an hour before the practice session, took out some DR Sunbeams to replace the GHS stainless strings that ship with every Super J 4. Got them all on and while I was tightening up the E string, it just popped! I've never witnessed a string-break before in the few years i've been playing. Wasn't sure if it was a bad string or what. GC wouldn't exchange it for a good string (at least, not with one that I was happy with), so i trumped over to GC on the way to practice to get ANOTHER set of DR Sunbeams. Got the E string on there fine. Tuned to E, and then about a second after reaching that pitch, it snapped again. It's like the windings were coming loose from the core. It was pretty strange. Even made sure to bend it before hand like the DR packaging suggests. Pretty dumbfounded as to wtheck's goin on! So i just went with the stainless strings and they were fine. Kinda against my alder/rosewood 60's creed, but I suppose this bass has so many modern touches (esp. the morado FB) that it's not really gonna do a super-60's thing (though, it really did a great take on a 60's jazz smoothed tone, which was aggressive enough for me and the 4 piece i was with).

Used the parallel setting most of the time, but for some jazzier songs/accompaniments, i solo'd the bridge pup and got a nice nasally growl. Smoother than the average bridge pup solo'd, but still aggressive enough to make a difference. Cool all around!
 
#49
An in action shot

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#51
ac3320 said:
Update: got the Aguilar OBP-1 installed. Custom hybrid treble knob as well (pretty sweet feature).

Thoughts: The pre definitely adds some useful tones to the already sweet sounding J. Overall, I happen to like the Sadowsky pre better, but it's not OEM on the Super J's, so i'm stuck with the OBP-1. The Sadowsky pre has a more useful knob turnage, as, at least on this bass, just *barely* boosting the treble is like hardcore breaking glass territory. Still able to add just a little, but i kinda wish there were more useful knob turnage like on the Sadowsky. I was surprised that the bass knob did not behave in the same way. Overall, the bass knob could be taken up to maybe 25% or 33% from max and still be useful depending on the genre/situation. I'm sure the treble's unique touchiness has to do with the hybrid treble knob. Other than those difference, the pre does a good job of the "Jazz on steroids" thing. More organic sounding that the Sadowsky pre IMO. By that I mean the bass boost is more pillowy than the meaty/punchy 'just-right'ness' of the Sadowsky pre, and the highs are more piercing (especially when dimed). But I'm happy to have the EQ options on board. Passive it really does sound quite Jazz-ish for a humbucking-equipped bass ;)

I dig!

What would be interesting would be to drop the Glockenklang 2-band in there (currently the standard preamp available with all Dingwalls) to see what the differences are. probably would take the bass to a more "OBP-3" level (not in the availability of the mids, no. I'm talking more glassy than the OBP-1).
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Great post! I've always wanted to learn more about the differences between the two preamps, going so far as to buying the aggie just to satisfy my curiosity!

By that I mean the bass boost is more pillowy than the meaty/punchy 'just-right'ness' of the Sadowsky pre, and the highs are more piercing
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Very interesting... It's almost as if depending on the situation (fingerstyle, maybe), the pillowy attack would be less obtrusive.

How do the two preamps compare when you slap? I'd most always prefer the least sterile, more organic preamps, but your description of the Sad being "punchy" really caught my attention.
 
#55
Sheldon D. said:
Thanks for posting that Minty. The video I shot with my phone was too distorted to hear anything.

Linslee was a real treat to listen to. It was fun watching the reactions of people at the show as they dropped what they were doing and peeked around corners etc.
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Sounds good.
 
#57
Even though I am using an "out-of-normal" set of Circle K strings on a non-Super J Dingwall bass (Prima Artist tuned F# - D) I am very happy with it and I have even used it on a tune in a soon-to-be-released CD, with great success (when the CD is out I will post links to the tune). I even used the F#-D Prima Artist in the soundcheck of a big gig I had. People really liked it and noticed the depth and pitch of the tones.

EDIT: the tune I used the specific Prima Artist is a mainstream pop punk-rock tune (just to clarify that's it's not sth experimental)
 
#58
fullrangebass said:
Even though I am using an "out-of-normal" set of Circle K strings on a non-Super J Dingwall bass (Prima Artist tuned F# - D) I am very happy with it and I have even used it on a tune in a soon-to-be-released CD, with great success (when the CD is out I will post links to the tune). I even used the F#-D Prima Artist in the soundcheck of a big gig I had. People really liked it and noticed the depth and pitch of the tones.
Click to expand...

Great, that is encouraging. Thanks for the feedback.
 

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