Hah, and I always thought I'd be the first one to put a glock preamp in a dingwall! I almost ordered one, but I will probably put the new villex system (passive pickups with passive 3-band passive cut/boost eq) so no preamp in this bass. I'd love to hear some samples though, I play my dingie through a Glock Heart Rock head and a Glock Double 212 cab and love this gear.

This is JUST what I want to do to my AB1-5. Groovemachine: How much drilling, routing, soldering is involved? Is this a major re-build? Do you have a circuit diagram you can share? Dragonlord: I'm a little confused by the Villex web-site: can I install a 3 way passive boost/cut without going to the Villex pickups? Love the FD3s and the current passive set up, I just have to tame the beast at the Markbass when I need a less-Hi Fi sound. Thanks guys...

I've got Villex pickups and tone-filter circuit in my graphite Stick and I'm pretty sure the circuit is designed specifically around the pickups. So not sure if it would work as well with other passive pickups. Just an opinion, I could be wrong. Cheers, EG

Ozroscoe: Please give me your email adress, I will send you some drawings and a short description. H.P.

[quote="Ozroscoe":1768onig] Dragonlord: I'm a little confused by the Villex web-site: can I install a 3 way passive boost/cut without going to the Villex pickups? Love the FD3s and the current passive set up, I just have to tame the beast at the Markbass when I need a less-Hi Fi sound. Thanks guys...[/quote:1768onig] What you've just asked I've done it on my Zebra (sporting FD3's). Now the Zebra is passive, with a vol, 4pos rotary switch and the PRTB. It tames and thickens the sound of the FD3's (not muddying things up, but giving a larger percentage of thickness and hugeness)

[quote="Ozroscoe":3fajwnur]Dragonlord: I'm a little confused by the Villex web-site: can I install a 3 way passive boost/cut without going to the Villex pickups? Love the FD3s and the current passive set up, I just have to tame the beast at the Markbass when I need a less-Hi Fi sound. Thanks guys...[/quote:3fajwnur] Nope, but as fullie suggested, you could install the passive tone booster. But if what you need is a 3-band eq, the glock should be perfect.

Well finally got it all done - just as Groovemachine reported: AB1 + Glockenlang: a huge improvement! Could have been a major hassle but it turns out that there is a new Glockenlang distributor in Australia and I piggy-backed on his first shipment. I also found a great luthier who managed to stuff it all in the existing hole. I'm not brave enough to look in there and am dreading my first battery change... In fact if I was braver when ordering a bass I'd never played from a store I'd never dealt with halfway around the world it would have at least been an ABII. As Groovemachine first reported I can tell no difference between passive mode now and my standard sound before the upgrade. In fact active with no boost or cut IS passive. The treat for me is to just be able to tickle in a little more bass and mid to tame the beast when I need to. An unexpected bonus is that the Glock passive treble cut works much better than the original tone control, which to my ear was a little woolly with the treble dialled out, so my passive sound is improved. One other thing I didn't expect is that I'm now playing with the bluEQube on (high treble) whereas before I always had it switched out. I guess the beauty of all of this stuff is that it's not about the logic or switches its about the sound and feeling. Thanks H-P for the recommendation and your help via email - really appreciated. You've helped turn an excellent bass into a great one. Thanks Sheldon for the prompt shipment of knobs and help with set-up. If there is anyone out there who wonders how a boutique can survive and thrive against the big players then they haven't experienced customer service a la Dingwall! Off to rehearse...

Nice report Ozroscoe. Thanks. We've been testing a Glock the last couple of weeks. It's a pretty nice system.

[quote="Sheldon Dingwall":w11swpcb]Nice report Ozroscoe. Thanks. We've been testing a Glock the last couple of weeks. It's a pretty nice system.[/quote:w11swpcb] Awesome news! If you haven't contacted Udo at Glockenklang yet, he's extremely helpful and he will be willing to make you versions with different eq points - like he did with the Groove Shoppe on their own basses. Although I haven't tried their onboard preamp yet, I'd love to see Dingwall offering glock preamps based on the performance of my heart rock head. Looking forward to hearing any updates on this!

Hi Ross, good to see that you are happy with the Glock, I was pretty sure about this! As you said it is a huge improvement, but the advantage is that you don`t loose the original AB sound. BTW: I`m from Germany, but don`t get any benefit from Glockenklang... H.P.