Dingwall Z3 Black to Natural reverse Flamed Maple Top

Dingwall was founded by Sheldon Dingwall from Canada, and together with his team, Sheldon  is right at the forefront of designing basses. There are a lot of things that make Dingwall stand out from the rest of the bass pack: Their unique looks, lightweight build and super-fast and highly playable necks are just some of them. But their most unique quality is definitely the dedication to fanned frets.

So, why do I need fanned frets?

Well, if you have ever played a 5 or 6 string bass, you have probably noticed that the low B-string often sounds more dull than the E-string, and the high C-string  sounds brighter and thinner than the G-string.

This is because they use the same scale length across the entire fretboard, when in reality, the B-string needs a longer scale length and the C-string should have a shorter scale length to sound its best. Dingwall’s fret design combats exactly this pitfall by varying the scale length across the fretboard.

The Dual Density Swamp Ash Body 

One of the major issues bass builders face with swamp ash is the weight inconsistency, resulting in a very wide range in terms of weight – and how each individual bass performs compared to others of the same model. 

Now, Dingwall sort the Swamp Ash planks by weight and uses the most dense wood for the bass side and the light pieces for the treble side. This gives you a very high degree of consistency throughout the production, but it also increases the sustain, clarity and punch of the B and E-strings thanks to the high-density wood, and similarly, the low-density wood results in a nice and warm sound when playing the high strings.

The fingerbord is Wenge, which in may ways represents the best of both worlds, combining the detailed treble sound of Ebony and the warm tone and feel of Rosewood. In short, this bass simply manages to mix fast and warm, which is quite an achievement for any bass. The bass is incredibly tight, and due to the Wenge fretboard and Maple neck combo, it takes out a bit of pronounced compression you typically get with an all-Wenge solution. To me, it makes it even more versatile and open-sounding – with the maple neck, it just breathes naturally. Having said that, it all comes down to personal taste and preference because the Wenge/Wenge combo is incredible, too.

The FDV Alnico Pickups are the standard pickups on the Z-series. They sound traditional and organic compared to the neodymium, but still tight, clear and very punchy. 

The 4-position rotary switch lets you choose between Bridge, Bridge/Middle , Bridge/Neck Parallel and Neck. Well, this alone would be more than enough to get you safely and blissfully through any gig, but to top it off, you also get three toggle switches that allows you to choose parallel or serial wiring on each pickup, taking tonal versatility to a whole new level. And don’t worry if you are not a natural knob twister – it will soon become second nature because the advantages you get are quite servere.

The preamp is a 3-band Glockenklang, which just seems to be the perfect fit for the Z3 with Bass, Mid and Treble controls for fine-tuning exact spots when needed.

The preamp is the 3-band Glockenklang seems just to fit the Z3 perfectly with Bass, mid and treble just to hit the right spots when needed.