Fan or Foe?
Maybe I’m more prone to play fast and loose with journalistic principles in Act 3 of my bass reviewing career, but when I commented above on Sheldon Dingwall’s bass designs, I probably buried the lede. As the pictures (and video) make clear, there’s something about the John Taylor Signature (and every other Dingwall) that is perhaps more glaringly obvious than anything else: the frets, they ain’t straight. Dingwall, from its earliest days, has been a stalwart proponent of the Novax® Fanned-Fret® system, a concept I first encountered to much confusion back when seeing guitar/bass (at the same time!) phenom Charlie Hunter back in his Bay Area days. Inventor Ralph Novax’s ingenious concept can be boiled down simply: parallel frets require an inherent compromise because each string shares the same scale length. Novax opined that each string, already tuned differently and varied in gauge, would benefit from an individual scale length that enabled its harmonic potential to emerge, improved intonation, and consolidated feel throughout its range, i.e., lower strings ought to be longer, to increase tension and enrich overtones, while higher strings should remain pliable and harmonically familiar. This concept found fruition with a 1989 patent for a “Multiple Scale Fretboard,” and the Novax Fanned-Fret system was born, as was one of Dingwall’s most committed design principles.
That’s great and all, but it must be super weird to play, right? So goes the inner dialog of any player new to fanned frets. Chalk it up to the miracle of the human mind and body – or the elegance of the design – but adapting to a fanned-fret bass is way easier than you think it’ll be, with one exception: chords. If you’re the sort of out-of-work bass player that loves playing chords above the 12th fret (I’m kidding; I do it, too), then you will be occasionally flummoxed, as the steeper angles and closer spacing up high make familiar fingerings tricky. Beyond this, though, the transition is mostly painless. Dingwall mitigates the potential vexation even more with its brilliant ergonomics, which place the lowest frets of the 36.25″-scale E string close enough to a player’s head that even the short-armed won’t have to stretch uncomfortably for those low F’s.
Delightful DNA
As noted above, a big issue for boutique builders’ lower-range instruments is whether they’ve managed to retain the favorable qualities of the fancier stuff. Happily, I can report that the John Taylor Signature does exactly that, with only a few subtle elements betraying its modest origin.
Made from nyatoh, a mahogany-like tropical hardwood, and finished with a stunning metal-flake black finish (and accompanying oh-so-‘80s accent stripes and headstock art, courtesy longtime Duran Duran collaborator Patty Palazzo), the John Taylor signature is a handsome instrument that’s just brash enough to make a visual statement without verging into silliness. Its 5-piece maple neck is topped with a lushly figured pau ferro fingerboard, rendered unmistakably Duran Duran courtesy the 12th-fret “Rio Eye” inlay. Each curve and texture seemed perfectly balanced; modern and progressive, but grounded in universally appealing aesthetics. As his reputation suggests, there’s a reason Sheldon Dingwall is a living legend, and the JT’s beguiling design is prima facie evidence of his expertise and refined eye.
Dingwall’s considerate design isn’t limited to the body, either. The JT’s electronics are no less alluring. The 3-pickup bass sports Dingwall’s own FD3n humbuckers, but rather than a blend pot or simple switch, Dingwall employs its ingenious Quad-Tone pickup-selection scheme. The 4-position rotary switch, well-placed next to the volume knob, offers legitimately different tones in each position, courtesy in part to some clever wiring. With it, one can solo the neck pickup, put the bridge and middle pickups in series, place the outside pickups together in parallel, or solo the bridge pickup. Additionally, the JT bass offers an always-on passive-style tone control, two bands of boost/cut EQ, and an active/passive switch. Herein lies another of the JT’s more subtle delights: the Rupert Neve Designs® Preamp.
If the name “Neve” doesn’t get your audio-nerd heart a-fluttering, then off to Google with you. In short, English engineer Rupert Neve is one of a handful of true audio legends, up there with your Les Pauls, George Martins, and the like. The list of records you know and love made with his legendary recording consoles, mic preamps, compressors, and EQs runs into the thousands. Neve passed away in 2021, but not before founding Rupert Neve Designs, a company dedicated to preserving the revered elements of his vintage designs, while continuing to advance the field in his spirit. Full disclosure, I love RND gear. I use a Portico 5017 in my home studio and favor an RNDI when I need an active DI at my recording studio. In short, I’m a fan, which made it even more surprising when, at the NAMM show, Sheldon himself told me that the John Taylor Signature would be the first bass to feature an RND onboard preamp.
I was excited not only because I dig RND gear, but because I don’t like most onboard preamps. Maybe one day Bass Gear Editors will afford me the space to rant about this, but in short, they’re mostly a little lame and are responsible for more bad bass tone than their benefit can reasonably justify. That’s not to say I think the concept is intrinsically bad – there’s legit reason to want a buffered output, and a dash of EQ can be important in certain environments – but the implementation is often a bit … meh. Happily, confirmation bias aside, the RND is not meh, at all. The two filters are musical, smooth, and centered on well-chosen swaths of the bass’s frequency spectrum. Even big boosts of both the bass and treble circuits yield musically useful tones, unlike many lesser designs that result in a peaky, phase-incoherent mess when similarly tasked. Rather than invest the 18-volt power supply (there’s two 9V batteries onboard) in sheer amplitude, the RND engineers designed a nuanced and musical circuit that wrings as much euphony as possible from an onboard design. Densely packed onto a small surface-mount board, the circuit is based on the stellar Texas Instruments OPA145 opamp, a JFET-based design with excellent slew rate, noise, and distortion specs. Oh, and speaking of those batteries, is there a cooler access solution than the Dingwall design, which uses an oval cover, a couple of depressions for fingers, and a quartet of strong magnets, rather than tiny wood screws, or – yuck – one of those hinged plastic door deals?
The electronics installation is perhaps the only dimension of the bass that hints at its entry-level (for Dingwall) price. It’s not pretty, with nearly every wire much longer than it necessary and the cavity shielded with paint, not copper foil. I can’t say whether this has real-world consequences – I didn’t hear any excess noise or sensitivity to RF – but it doesn’t have the sort of meticulous, obsessively ordered quality that many high-end basses boast. I’m not mad at it, but if you’re the sort to lose sleep over the bits of your bass that nobody ever sees, you’ve been warned.
Lap, Strap, Thwap!
Fanned-fret adaptation aside, the John Taylor Signature offers superb ergonomics and playability. On my lap, it balanced as well as any bass I’ve encountered, requiring no intervention from my right forearm or left hand to stay perfectly positioned. The neck profile is just-right, meaty enough to feel substantial, lithe enough to encourage speed. As mentioned before, the design mitigates the long-scale length of the lower strings well. On a strap, its charming nature remains, and at just a tick over 9 pounds, all-night sets aren’t a scary proposition. If you can get with fanned frets, you can get with the Dingwall. It’s a joy to play.
The most important question is whether all the elements outlined above combine to make a good-sounding musical instrument. The John Taylor Signature offers the characteristic voice that’s made Dingwall a favorite of many: exceptional clarity, rich frequency response, significant sonic variety, and remarkable evenness throughout the register. The symbiosis between the multi-scale design, top-shelf electronics, and coherent construction result in a remarkable bass that delivers piano-like focus and harmonic texture in spades. The miracle, though, is that it delivers this burnished, three-dimensional sound without relying on hyped treble or edgy pickups. Its overall personality is decidedly in the “modern” camp, but dial-out some treble with the tone control, boost a splash of bass, and solo the neck pickup and you’re at least in the P-bass zip code. Favor a slightly scooped, aggressive sound for slap or overdriven pickstyle? Dig the bridge/middle pickup position, which offers a StingRay-adjacent tone that cuts. Want a broad-spectrum, record-ready fingerstyle tone for modern pop? Try the outside pickups blended and the tone halfway up and revel in the warm-but-focused lows, balanced mids, and slightly attenuated, syrupy top. Wanting to explore the JT’s heavier side (Dingwall is a favorite amongst metal musicians), I grabbed a pick and paired it with a Jad Freer Capo and Mantic Vitriol and immediately understood why burgeoning bashers the world over lust after one; the tight feel encourages quick low-register picking, while the exceptional clarity maintains pitch definition and tone, even when drenched in distortion.
Hungry Like the Wolf
The Dingwall John Taylor Signature is an exemplar of the way modern manufacturing, globalism, and a motivated luthier can find synergy in developing instruments at lower price points. Rather than roll out a cash-grab novelty bass for wistful Gen X’ers, the John Taylor Signature should be understood less as a Duran Duran-inspired bass and more as a do-it-all, affordable entry point to the Dingwall universe that benefits from some back-in-vogue ‘80s aesthetics. Between the excellent RND preamp, nearly faultless build quality, and exceptional playability, those seeking a fanned-fret companion on their musical journey would be hard-pressed to find a better option.
