CameronJ

And the D-Bird is not the design that Dingwall is famous for. It’s their least established model. Dingwall existed for several years, producing only original shapes before even touching on the idea of doing an homage to the P Bass, J Bass and T Bird. And even that came about mostly as a result of so many people asking them to do it. Sheldon Dingwall actively avoided doing so for a long time. If I’m not mistaken Aria and Yamaha, among other well respected Japanese brands, have in the past been involved in lawsuit cases regarding instrument designs. To hold them up as a squeaky clean example while trying to bash Dingwall is somewhat comical. When selling old Aria and Yamaha copies, sellers often literally include the word “lawsuit” in the sale titles: https://reverb.com/uk/item/78845-vintage-70s-aria-lawsuit-precision-bass-copy https://www.talkbass.com/threads/vintage-mij-p-bass-lawsuit-era-yamaha-pulser-bass.940185/ We all know it’s not that simple though. As has been mentioned, Dingwall is a small company. Even if they know they have a very strong case in court, the legal costs involved in going up against someone like Gibson are far too high to be worth it. Especially not for the sake of a design that isn’t one Dingwall built its success on. If someone were challenging Dingwall about their AB1/ABZ, Prima or Combustion shapes it might be a different story.

Are you joking?

Aguilar do nice 5 string P pickups as well. Also worth seeing if Yamaha will sell you their pups on their own as frankly whatever comes standard in my BB735 sounds amazing. I’d suggest doing the same with Maruszczyk who don’t seem to advertise their pickups as standalone purchases but they sound pretty phenomenal from the demos I’ve heard.

Or indeed a D-ick.

This. Better to avoid the risk altogether, make a design change and retain financial health!

This seems to be the defining sentiment shared by most of us witnessing this whole “Play Authentic” debacle. No doubt also shared by the various guitar companies out there who are under threat from Gibson, Dingwall included. Gibson should be grateful that a company like Dingwall, well-known for producing such high quality instruments, would even consider one of their designs as worthy of tribute. Furthermore, the D-Bird (or D-Roc) sounds nothing like a Thunderbird. They almost couldn’t be more different in terms of pickups and electronics, though I doubt a judge would appreciate that as a major factor in court.

Bloody hell. I haven’t checked on this thread in a few months but it seems like a damning report for the Boden bass Oh well. GAS gone!

It still slightly pains me that Sire have effectively said we can have a V10 in any colour as long as it’s brown

Yeah I’ve seen a few people reply to Sheldon’s Facebook post saying they prefer the old shape. In some ways I do too but I’m sure this wasn’t a a decision which was taken lightly. Talking of Sandberg, the lower horn on the new D-Roc shape bears a passing resemblance to Sandberg’s Forty Eight model.

I quite like the design tweaks. Makes it look more distinctly “Dingwallish” while still being a pretty strong nod to the Thunderbird.

Just had confirmation from Sheldon that the 5 string Standards are about 12 months out! They’ll be with the new revised body shape though.

Trouble is, Bass Direct only have the ProVintage in white at the moment, when the best colour is clearly sunburst May be a little while before BD gets more in stock but they will eventually I’m sure

Alas, I can not play like Tibbers.

Was literally just about to post re: Dingwall. They’ve tweaked the shape of the bodies and headstocks on the “D-Bird” and renamed it the “D-Roc” Before and after photos: To be be honest (and this hasn’t been clarified by Sheldon Dingwall) I actually doubt Gibson have gone after Dingwall yet. I suspect Sheldon just sensed the general stench surrounding this entire Gibson situation and decided to avoid it altogether, whilst making some cool mods to an already very popular model. Good on them I say.

Ah, yes. I was eyeing these up very recently too! Sounds great and the Xotic preamp is nice.

@bubinga5, fancy giving a Lakland a try? I played a 55-60 last week and was blown away by the feel and sound. Still thinking about it! Edit: and it was a Skyline so cost ~£1,300ish