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What could make the Ibanez BTB multiscale actually compete with Dingwall

#21
I'm trying not to sound like a complete hater, but those BTB basses are hideous IMO. So many manufactures lean into the super modern and/or metal aesthetics for multiscale basses, and it is a complete turn off for me. The EHB body is much more pleasant to look at IMO, though I'm also not a fan of headless basses.

I'll give any bass a shot if it looks good and plays well. Electronics and pickups are easy enough to replace. But Dingwalls look amazing, play amazing, and most importantly, sound amazing out of the box. With an Ibanez, there's a good chance I would want to replace the pickups and electronics if I were using it live.

But that said, I wouldn't. Because I don't vibe with the aesthetics at all. So, I guess to answer your question directly: make it not look like something that was found in the reject pile when designing Prince's custom guitar. That'd be a good start for me 🙃.
 
#25
Hard to compare a thousand-dollar price difference.

For me (and of course, everyone has to carp about pickups and preamps, it's gotten knee-jerk around here, often where neither bass has been test driven by at least some of the posters), but for me, BTB's are BIG instruments, and this makes them a hill to climb for some before they play a note.

I tend to give Ibanez the benefit of a doubt: Who else makes as many very different bass product ranges as they do? And indeed, that may very well be what's holding them back? What store can keep a lot of them on hand to try? And like so many Far East producers, if you like this or that one, you better buy it now, as next year, it will be replaced with something else similar but not the same. The Asians aren't much for keeping particular models in the catalog for very long. And lots of players experienced EMG, Barts, or Nordys as OEM in Ibanez basses for the first time: Imagine Fender offering off the shelf axes with Nordstroms? Oh, you can't either?

As always, play what suits YOU: You have the only vote/opinion that matters.
 
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#26
Geri O said:
The “confirmation bias” term is a lazy/easy way out when one doesn’t understand the perspective of someone else and doesn’t care to.
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No. It's because I've done a ton of testing (at a professional level for perceptual awareness) and found it to be a significant factor in the reasons why people choose certain items over others. There is a lot of research on this.

It has little to do with the Dingwall/ Ibanez comparison.

Feel free to desist with the lazy ad hom in the future.
 
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#28
Ibanez competes with pricing and availability.
Dingwall is out of reach for me, even used. BTB multi-scale is not.
Ibanez also distributes far further than Dingwall. I've seen BTB multi-scales in store, never seen a Dingwall in person.

I already got along well with BTB necks and shape, so I'll say shape/ergonomics issues mentioned are subjective.
The quality of my 605MS was as good or better than my premium BTB1835, even though it's cheaper.

Here's what I think the BTB MS does well:
Pickup config, the dual coil is a clever idea for MS.
T1 pups are hot, I set them further from the strings than my Aguilar DCBs, I usually run passive.
Ibanez monorail bridge is nice.
Zero-fret is always a big win for me.

Here's what I wish it had:
More pickup configs (why aren't there more 3 pickup basses?), something similar to what Ibanez does for AZES guitars.
Radiused pickups.
Mandolin frets à la Lee Sklar.
Passive based design, it's easy to handle preamp stuff elsewhere.
I do think 37'' to 34'' sounds more 'balanced' in demos (this maybe solvable with string gauges)
BTBs could stand to be a bit smoother for broader appeal.
Smoother neck to headstock transition (fretboard to finish on the 605s)

Ibanez seems to iterate for the better, so we'll see.
 
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#29
crazycloud said:
No. It's because I've done a ton of testing (at a professional level for perceptual awareness) and found it to be a significant factor in the reasons why people choose certain items over others. There is a lot of research on this.

It has little to do with the Dingwall/ Ibanez comparison.

Feel free to desist with the lazy ad hom in the future.
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Confirmative bias is definitely a thing. Often a behavioral characteristic of narrow minded people. Simply put...

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, emotionally charged issues and deeply entrenched beliefs.​


It's difficult to deal with these types of people, as they can become hostile when presented with "other opinions", or evidence that challenges their rigidly fixed positions. Don't ever challenge a Talkbass orthodoxy....or else! :laugh:
 
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#31
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Dingwall ships the wood off to China where they make necks and bodies out of it and the final assembly and QC is done in Canada again? That's what they did on the first Combustions, at least.

If that is still how they do it, my guess would be wood quality is the thing that makes Dingwall stick out and surpass the BTB with ease.


And this is coming from someone who has owned and gigged a BTB for 5 years, but sold his Dingwall about 4 months after he got it.
 
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#32
For the record, I love Ibanez BTB’s. It’s the line from Ibanez I have bonded with. I see the potential with the multiscale BTB’s to be the Dingwall slayer so to speak. In my honest opinion it’s not quite there yet. Mods could potentially help. I guess a decent conclusion would be that the BTB sounds like exactly what it is which is an Ibanez BTB with an awesome B string. It’s not a Dingwall and it’s not trying to be. The BTB 806 ms is the most comfortable 6 string I have played.
 
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#33
Cory rich40 said:
I used the BTB on a 210 combo amp that was putting out maybe 300 watts at full potential in 8 ohm mode without the extension cabinet and felt quite underwhelmed. I plugged the Dingwall into it and it immediately seemed to have a lot more presence. Both basses shine through a 410 or greater rig.
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Dingwall pickups are reverse-P split coils under their shells. They don't sound exactly like P pickups, obviously, but there is a certain familiar prominence in the mids that can help punch through a mix, and in your case, may give the bass more presence through a rig with less bass extension.

This can be less obvious in the near-ubiquitous Dingwall+Darkglass distortion combo, but if you listen to demos where a Dingwall is compared to another multiscale bass like the Spector Dimension or Kiesel Aries it becomes apparent just how much midrange the Dingwall has inherently.

Can't comment on the BTB multiscale specifically, so it's a little bit of a guess there. Most of the BTB's I've played have been on the middy side, so it could also just be that the Dingwall is brighter sounding in your case. 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
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#34
el murdoque said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Dingwall ships the wood off to China where they make necks and bodies out of it and the final assembly and QC is done in Canada again? That's what they did on the first Combustions, at least.
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Pretty much. Most of the Ready to Play series are built in China. The exceptions are the SP1 and the brand new Jacob Umansky Sol Signature which are built in Indonesia.
 
#35
el murdoque said:
If that is still how they do it, my guess would be wood quality is the thing that makes Dingwall stick out and surpass the BTB with ease.
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The maple and ash and other US hardwoods go back to various Asian manufacturing facilities via the now empty containers that once brought guitars and basses to the US. They effectively get to ship it for nearly free as the containers need to go back, and these large manufacturers like CorTek buy a lot of wood.

Hypothetically; if the wood used in a Dingwall is 'better' than that of a BTB, and they're both NA maple (etc), how is that wood 'better'? You might argue one company gets the better selection, but again how is it better, and if you were a NA timber merchant looking to get the best price for your stock, then the biggest buyer is likely the one who's going to pay that. And because they're a bigger buyer, maybe they get the choice stock, because they're the bigger buyer and it makes good sense to keep the big buyer happy.

Comparing the Dingwall to the BTB is a bit of a fool's errand as they have radically different construction, PUs. PU placement and electronics.
 
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#36
crazycloud said:
The maple and ash and other US hardwoods go back to various Asian manufacturing facilities via the now empty containers that once brought guitars and basses to the US. They effectively get to ship it for nearly free as the containers need to go back, and these large manufacturers like CorTek buy a lot of wood.

Hypothetically; if the wood used in a Dingwall is 'better' than that of a BTB, and they're both NA maple (etc), how is that wood 'better'? You might argue one company gets the better selection, but again how is it better, and if you were a NA timber merchant looking to get the best price for your stock, then the biggest buyer is likely the one who's going to pay that. And because they're a bigger buyer, maybe they get the choice stock, because they're the bigger buyer and it makes good sense to keep the big buyer happy.

Comparing the Dingwall to the BTB is a bit of a fool's errand as they have radically different construction, PUs. PU placement and electronics.
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I can only offer a view from a very limited perspective.

I have owned a BTB 6 string from the series that comes with those "bad" Bartolinis and the Ibanez preamp, I think it was a 686.
On that bass, I noticed that the back of the neck would dent super easily, especially the maple. From treating the bass normally, like I treat all my basses for decades with no issues at all, it would collect dents in an alarming rate and I had to baby that bass a lot more than others to prevent it from going on.

The Dingwall NG3 six sting I had, on the other hand, was rock solid. As rock solid as they come.

I would assume that on the Ibanez, while the workmanship and everything was nothing to frown upon, especially for the money, they might have opted for wood from trees that were grown too fast or not stored long enough - I'm no wood expert, though.
 
#37
crazycloud said:
They effectively get to ship it for nearly free as the containers need to go back
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Nothing ships for free. If anything cargo costs more on a lightly-loaded vessel because the operating costs are constant and divided among fewer clients. There was a time when the containers used in shipping were left behind in North America because it was cheaper for shippers to build more in Asia than return the empties, but that was years ago.

crazycloud said:
Hypothetically; if the wood used in a Dingwall is 'better' than that of a BTB, and they're both NA maple (etc), how is that wood 'better'?
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All kinds of reasons. Wood is graded for appearance and strength. Cold-climate hardwoods tend to be more valuable because of tighter rings and greater strength. The same tree can produce lumber at different grades. Quarter sawn lumber is more valuable than rift sawn, which is more valuable than plain sawn.
 
#39
ardgedee said:
All kinds of reasons. Wood is graded for appearance and strength. Cold-climate hardwoods tend to be more valuable because of tighter rings and greater strength. The same tree can produce lumber at different grades. Quarter sawn lumber is more valuable than rift sawn, which is more valuable than plain sawn.
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I'm well aware of this, I meant comparing like with like. Companies like CorTek are very experienced and know how to select and use timber.
 
#40
crazycloud said:
I'm well aware of this, I meant comparing like with like. Companies like CorTek are very experienced and know how to select and use timber.
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Sure but they're still going to get wood in bulk (I dunno whether they receive cut lumber or raw timber), grade the cut lumber and save different grades for different instruments. Even if Dingwall and Ibanez BTB basses come out of the same factory, the Dingwalls are likely to have better wood as long as Dingwall's paying for it.
 

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