admiralchew

As an update to this topic, I had a belated birthday gathering at the weekend and my wife had arranged for a birthday cake that hit the centre of my Venn diagram of pedals, basses and Star Wars. It's one of the more over the top things I've seen but loved all the more for it. The bass even has the Dingwall logo on it!

Good question. It sounds like the controls from the short scale basses. Last time round there were active and passive short scale options too.

I wondered when they’d do another run: https://www.music-man.com/instruments/families/basses/tim-commerford I have an active full scale from the first run and it’s a lovely bass. It’s very light and I love it being string-through. The other distinguishing features are string gauge, adjustable ramp and mutes, so not exactly show-stopping, but it’s as close as I’ve ever gotten to Timmy C’s sound (and I have tried!). There is again a passive option.

I've spent a good amount of time with the AB II this week. The neck profile is very thin front to back and the ovangkol is smooth without being tacky: it reminds me of the sanded and oiled backs to the Geddy Lee signature jazz basses in terms of feel. That and the low action make this an extremely enjoyable bass to play. It sounds excellent too: it's got a brand new set of Dingwall nickel strings which, when combined with the semi-hollow body and wenge fretboard, results in a mellow but zingy tone. The Glockenklang preamp is, thankfully, flexible enough to make that work. It's a little different but I'm enjoying it! The guys at Dingwall sorted through their inventory too and were able to find the broadly matching brown Dingwall strap, which was a nice bonus.

Haha, sadly not. Her brother's a really lovely guy though.

Good question! I’m not sure. The triplebuckers are very impressive though, at least in conjunction with the preamp. I’ve managed to get some nice jazz bass and StingRay-esque sounds from them.

Haha, thanks for the entirely accurate birthday wishes! To say I was surprised and delighted to receive a bass is to massively understate it. It was an incredible gesture. The fretboard, according to the spec sheet, is black flamed maple. Thank you for the congratulations and amazing bass there! I love the woods/colours. You’re right about Jens: it went to Guitar Summit with a note from him that he wouldn’t let people touch it, and when he put a video of the bass up he was wearing white gloves. The craftsmanship and design is extremely impressive. I can imagine his designs splitting opinion but like @tauzero I find the Roya in particular a beautiful shape. The black strings were a nice touch too.

Thanks very much! George is a really incredible player; I think he could sell me any bass with his playing.

Done.

It's not strictly a new bass day but I recently received two basses in quite quick succession and I think they're both very worthy of a new bass day post. I've chatted with a few people on here about them (most because they were wondering what was enough to part me from Cog pedals) and I said I would put this post up when I'd spent time with both basses. I've been lucky enough to play some of the basses I've dreamed about over the last few years but one that's been firmly etched on the list of dream basses and one which I never thought I would actually own is a Ritter Roya 5-string. Owing to some fortunate timing and very optimistic book-keeping I was recently able to welcome this beautiful bass, named by Jens Ritter as The Red Line. It has an alder body, poplar burl top, black flamed maple fingerboard and Ritter's parametric preamp and triplebucker pick-ups. The neck is maple, it's built to a 35-inch scale and it's been given an arresting paint job that gives the bass its name (more photos below). The preamp and pick-up combination is extremely flexible so it's hard to say precisely what the signature tone is (it reminds me of a Pope preamp in terms of flexibility) but I've been having a lot of fun seeing what sounds I can dial in. I've tried to write the details in a matter-of-fact way but the result is absolutely mesmerising. The bass was exhibited at Guitar Summit in Mannheim a couple of months ago and it's one of the most beautiful basses I've seen in person (although I expect I'm horribly biased here). I should say too that Jens Ritter was very patient in answering all of my questions too, particularly as I was mithering him just before Guitar Summit. Here are a few more photos of it: Knowing the Ritter was coming was incredibly exciting but I was just as excited a few weeks later when my lovely wife went above and beyond (and beyond again) and surprised me with the most amazing gift for one my my milestone birthdays: a Dingwall AB II that I had been enamoured with since I first saw it (and which may look familiar to some on here). It's an incredibly generous gift and, frankly, I'm going to have to try much harder for birthdays and have my work cut out at Christmas. It has a chambered walnut body, wenge fretboard and, unusually for a Dingwall, an ovangkol neck. It has three FDV pick-ups and a Glockenklang preamp. It was originally built for NAMM but was instead tweaked and sent to George Baldwin (Hilltide). Here he is using it far better than I could ever hope to: I love the rustic colouring and styling of the bass on the modern-ish body and it sounds magical: it's got a deep growl but is very articulate. It's a wonderful bass all round and it's a nice thought that this will forever be the birthday bass. A few more photos: