This video was the most helpful explanation of the advantages of fanned frets that I've seen so far. Thanks!

The blue one for sure (1505ms was it?) definitely had the clearest tone. Thanks for doing this.

even the non fanned fret bass had a great B string. The Dingwall B string was a bit boring, or more subtle sounding.

Your best vid yet! Great job man

Ibanez 1505MS sounds amazing in this comparison. Aggressive, yet clear.

Thank you so much for making this vid, exactly what I was looking for!

Dude, most B strings sound fine in open position, its a question of how the B sounds as you get closer to the 12th fret and whether it retains clarity..otherwise you are owning a 5 string only for the lowest 4 notes. If you want to play without the left hand stretch thats where you play the instrument...so it would have been nice to not just play the B in open position , doh!!

Great video. I especially appreciated when you said, “Here’s the B strings again WITHOUT the commentary”. I needed that. I ordered an Ibanez GWB205 9 months ago, and it is my 1st 5 string and 1st fretless. The neck is a dream and has become my go-to bass. I’m deciding on a Ibanez FRETTED 5 string now so thank you for a very smart demo. Tho I don’t know which was the “best” B string.

Cool vid brotha!

Thanks for this video man, super helpful. Been considering getting every product demo’d in this video (including that Mesa amp).

I hear a difference, and I liked the blue bass the best, but I think that's because that bass has single coils with a nice sharp attack to them. I don't think it was the difference between scale lengths.

I really appreciate you doing this! I always wondered what the difference would be especially on the B string. The Dingwall with that 37.5” scale definitely has the best sounding B string. I thought about buying a Dingwall but ended up with a EHB1005MS.

Low sounds best on dingwall, but I thought Ibanez sounds way better than standard 34. And I like the overall package of the Ibanez. But definitely getting a dingwall if I resinate with the Ibanez. I think both have a place.

The Ding Wall had a lower souding B string... Loved the tone...

Unfortunately they all have different pickups and electronics so it's not a comparison of "just" the scale length. However I kind of liked all of them for different reasons. I think the longer scale lengths had the stronger fundamental, but I weirdly thought that the 34 inch scale lenght had the overall brighter and more pleasing timbre.

Because I couldn't hear any discernible advantage to the Dingwall having such a long scale B, I'm going with the EHB1505 as I think I like the overall sound of the Ibanez better.

I thought the Ibanez sounded bright as or more bright than the others. Came back and it. the b strong on Dingwall sounded like a grand piano and Ibanez a baby grand piano. Both great.

I thought the Dingwall sounded the best but I wonder how much the pickups had to do with it.

You can get a nice tone from anything with the right pickup and EQ. But from my first 5-string in the mid 80’s, I’ve judged B strings in terms of pitch definition at the first few frets, and tone up past the 7th to 10th fret. The longer and thinner the string, the more clarity. I played a 32-30 inch Ibanez today (EHB1005SMS), and with a touch of EQ, it had a nice tone on the low B. But when I played slow, sustained quarter notes, it was hard to tell a low B from a C, a C# or a D. Also, it got dark and mushy earlier as you went up the fingerboard. That’s where 37” Dingwalls always win.

I thought the standard scale length B string sounded the best. It "sang" better in my opinion, but everybody has their own preferences. Thanks for making this comparison video.

great comparison vid! Dingwall definitely had the best the clearest sounding Open B. You can really hear the lack of tension in the other two. Didn't notice much difference in the double stops. I just returned an EHB 1506ms, the fanned frets playing in the upper register (love chordal tones in the upper register) hurt my fretting hand too much. The Nordstrands have a wonderful clear punchy tone. Disappointed I couldn't keep it. Thanks for doing the comparison.

Hi the dingwall is 37" not 37.5". Each string advances in length by .75" inches. 34, 34.75, 35.5, 36.25, 37. Aside from that I would probably never have gotten a dingwall if I were dedicated to playing the lowest string at B or A#. There are too many easily obtainable options that sound great and can handle playing B or A# in their shorter length.

Just had this thought: a disadvantage to the headless is that you can't hang it with a wall hanger. Small thing, but I like to have my basses out

The Ibanez 1505MS sounded the best (most clear) to me. I expected more from the DIngwall. Btw. I do own a EHB1500-DEF, it's a fantastic instrument!

Dingwall is good for low F sharp tuning, but for low B, 34" bass is fine. Soundwise, I like 33 to 35 inch Ibanez the most.

Great and informative video! I'm so torn on one of the ehb ms basses. I love the sea foam but I've heard the pickups are hit or miss. I almost want to make the extra leap in price, the tone of a Dingwall is unmistakable but it's a nice chunk of change to say the least.

Thanks for the review Kevin. It takes a really good bass to dethrone a Dingwall, but the EHB has some great advantages it seems. It's significantly cheaper than the Dingwall, and way lighter. Under 7.5 lbs is ridiculously light for a 5 string. And the headless design let's you use any string, unlike the Dingwall. Also it seems the EHB uses standard soap bars, so could easily be modified with something like Fishman Fluence pups, unlike the Dingwall's proprietary shape. It seems the Dingwall might do extreme downtuning better, due to it's huge scale length.

I'm late to the party here, someone else I'm sure has already said this: At 5:50 approx. you had played the first two basses B string with downstrokes of your thumb. Then the Dingwall, you played up strokes with your index finger! HA! Do I win the internet today???

The three basses sound pretty good, and I did notice a difference, for the better, on the multi-scale basses you showed. But I'm not yet convinced; I've never played any multi-scale basses before, and with the 5-string and 6-string basses I played I had a bunch of different experiences, from basses having weak or shallow B strings, to basses having amazing B string tones. The G&L M2500 for example has an amazing B string tone, and the Sadowsky J basses do have amazing B strings too, but I find myself getting a hard time getting a good tone out of 5-string P basses. So I don't think multi-scale is a necessity for getting good B string tone. It might help, however, if the B string scale length is big, like you showed us. One thing that someone should do at some point is to actually do a more-or-less scientific experiment on this; Maybe build a board with a few pickups positioned in different places, and tune the B string with different scale lenghts, like 30, 34, 36, maybe even 39, and then compare the results in a frequency spectrum visualizer to see how these variables change the tonal characteristics of the string vibration. Anyway, thanks a lot for taking your time to do the video 🙂

Probably the Dingwall but it's tough because the pickups all have very different sounds to them.

the basic sound of these basses is so different that it's difficult to compare but I was really surprised how great the B sounded on your 34". I guess that one also had more treble though. The dingwall has more 500hz-ish mids to my ear, maybe I'm wrong.

What pickup combination did you use with the basses? Only neck? All of Both? Only Bridge? Why was this not mentioned in the video?

We need a vid with distorted high end comparison between all these since that's probably why someone would even be buying a Ding in the first place

Hi Kevin, thanks for the review. I have two 5 ers, an Indonesian Squier VM Jazz and a USA Dimension Delux. I know these are "Apples and Oranges" by comparison, but neither of the B strings "Wow" me, though as you would expect, the USA Dimension has better sustain. So for me, I would have liked to hear the B strings ring out to hear their sustain. The majority of the notes were cut short by the following ones or you just muted the note at the end of the demo. On the brief notes where you can hear a bit of sustain, the Dingwall seemed to be holding the note better, but it was a bit difficult to tell. The one thing I did get from the demo was that the sound of the Ibanez sounded "thin" for a B string. It may just be the Pick ups, but if so, that would be a deal breaker for me. A final question, what is the price of these two basses? are they similar value? Thank you - Subbed.

There is a passive control on the Dingwall bass I know because I own one

I'm not sure which bass here has what string brand, gauge, material, etc..? But those details can have a huge effect, your end results with these basses by definition are going to vary a lot without addressing string details/not to mention what tuning they're used in. Not everyone is in, or likes A440 anymore ya know? Thoughts?

Not really a fair comparison because the dingwalls strings sound old and lifeless and the ibanez definitely had newer strings

You would need the exact same string/bass/pick ups for a fair comparison. That Dingwall sounded dead to me. And Novax didn't invent anything, some 16th century orpharions were multiscale.

Actually blue Ibanez sounds best to me. Incredible, I was kinda biased to Dingwall a lot :S

The Ibanez EHB1505MS sounded clearest to me, but then I'm playing an Ibanez SRMS805 right now and could be biased. I was expecting to be impressed by the Dingwall and I wasn't.

I was searching for one of these basses and the Dingwall had such a great look, but the tone was a one-trick pony, the Ibane z, considering I was never a fan, I fell for the Ibanez 1506MS almost instantly! Great vid brother!

The longer the B string , the more "solid" it sounds.

Surprised that I don't ear that much of a difference between the ebh1505ms and the Dingwall. You would choose the Ibanez over the Dingwall?

The 2 Ibanez sounded the best. The standard scale sounded brighter and was a bit better to my ear, but Im also not a bass player. I'm a guitar player.

I'm a huge Ibanez fan. But, let me tell you, strings on that Dingwall sound like they're old and lifeless. So, maybe a fair comparison is to get new strings for all basses. Second, the blue Ibanez sounds more clear cuz the pickups are single coils and have more bite. But, sounds like the Dingwall is on passive mode, so to get more clarity the preamp needs to be turned on and Eq'd properly.

I'm really surprised how dark the other 2 basses sound compared to the EHB-1005. It was definitely in passive mode? I've played Dingwalls, and they feel great, but I've yet to be impressed by the tone. I find them very bland and uninspiring. They probably have a technically better B string, but the overtones you get with the 1005 feel like they'd help you more in a mix (at least for my preferences). On both the B string, and the double stops, I preferred the 1005. It just sounded the most alive to me. This is surprising, as I don't really like humbuckers, and especially not Bartolinis. Ibanez should just go all in and make a bass with a 37" B.

Novak did not invent the fanned fret system. Fanned frets were used on lutes 300 years ago

B STRINGS!!!

Personally I want to go E - High C.

i liked the fanned ehb best, dingwalls was boring and black ehb was good too

were strings new on all 3 bases?

A Bongo Music Man is a 34" Scale. I wonder why it sounds so much "better", "Body" has something to do with tone also. The Basswood/Maple in the EHB is very open and wide sounding with a lot of "thunk". The EHB with African Mahogany and Panga Panga Top on the EHB 1505 sounds more direct but held back by the bolt-on system causing a "spongy noise" which gets feathered into a bass freq. by the chambering systems in their body. The Dingwall has decided to work with the bolt-on system by tuning the bass way lower than the average mid-range frequency found on most bolt-on instruments. This causes the top end of each Dingwall note to have a bolt of attack on top caused by the bolts in the body which is modern and cool, Unfortunately, the neck is so large on a Dingwall Ng series that it usually sounds like a pattle which I like to have control over and can not be taken away. This keeps sounds clear but makes having a EDM tone unpossible. Somehow the Bongo Musicman Addresses all of the above issues using basswood and maple only in a nice comfortable 34" scale, it's kinda nuts! Tl;Dr I wonder what a Bongo Music Man B Note would sound like in comparison! *alt+tabs out and plays Dragon Ball Z*

kmn

Nice video but not a fair comparison of any kind at all, and not even useful the slightest. What you REALLY should do - and I am still dumbfounded why not anyone has done this on ANY demo at all yet - is to change out the nut on the Dingwall to accomodate all B-string. Cut the nut slots to fit all low B's. Dingwall has the longest scale 37". Yes, all of the 5 strings should be a low B-string , same make/model and gauge. Only then you could do a fair comparison, because then all wood, all active/passive pickups, and the different scales for the same b-string, would be equal all across. It's not rocket science. If anyone of those basses, especially the headless ones should have a zero fret you could stick ANY gauge string on top of that one, and let all be low B's. Alas, Ibanez made a major gaffe on that one. Comparing different low B's at different scale lengths with different pickups even, wood etc, is kind of moot and futile, not to say quite silly. You could do the same with high G-strings only on one bass and not having to change the nut out because the other thicker nut slots will keep the thin gauge G-strings too. As someone said earlier, the low B traits are when playing higher up, not just open position, the notes doesn't stop short in sustain, and isn't as prone to knock out of intonation/tuning. They do not go up higher in pitch initially when leaning in and whacking the strings as with equal scale and shorter than 36". Shorter scales B-strings does. I have found that the low B string - regardless of gauge - just starts to sound decent enough from 36 inch scale and upward. The tricky part is to get hold of that long strings, they are not dime a dozen. So that's why Ibanez stuck with shorter scale, and headless because then the strings you buy will fit, whatever they are. But a slight concession, compromise in tone, and sustain... for the low B only.

I just looked up the specs, don’t read the specs! Unless the viewers are.....well....IQ under 70. Have a great week other than that.

Nordstrand for president!

I love Multiscale. The Multiscale system has been around since the 1600s. The fact that it was patented is ridiculous. The first instrument was a bandora circa 1619 . It’s not known who invented it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-scale_fingerboard.