330/6 Not as bright sounding as expected

[(iiipopes)]

Your hi gain pickups are wound much hotter than Weller's early seventies ones.
They produce a much darker tone to begin with. It'll be quite difficult to get that sound by changing the pots only.
Unwinding them to 7 or 8 kOhm should clear that up.

Thanks for that Wim, I'll bear it in mind.

Regards,


Graham.

Seventies 330 high gain pairs are very mismatched on all the ones I’ve owned, so the neck is 12-14k and the bridge is around 7-8k.

Agreed. That was the case with both my 320 and my 360-12WB FG Ckbd before I modified and switched out pickups: neck pickups @ 14K and bridge pickups @6.2K.

I also agree that the cause for the dullness may be deficient pots. I have had to replace "nominal" 250 Kohm pots that also only read 160-175 Kohms, well outside the industry 20% tolerance, to bring back the proper loading and resonant peak, er, jangle, of the pickup circuits.

[(gt40graham)]

Thanks for all the advice guys.

This is my plan: many moons ago I fitted my '79 4001 with a switchable pot for the tone cut capacitor. As it happens, I find my bass is way better without the capacitor so I'm going to reinstall the original 250k pot minus the capacitor and transfer the switchable pot and the capacitor to my 330. This will give me the correct value pot for the bridge p/u plus the option of the switching in and out, the capacitor. I'll also check out the windings of both p/u's whilst I'm at it.

Regards,


Graham.

[(holty)]

I’d be very interested to hear how you get on with this. I’ve been having the same thoughts about my ‘92 330 , being a little darker in tone than I thought it should be. Let us know how you get on.

[(Tubwompus)]

Recently, I was recording a rhythm track, just one of those, “rake it with a brick” kinda things.
I wanted the typical “bite” that a strummed Rick will give you.
I did a pass with my 330 and it did the job but it was lacking a bit of top so I did another pass with my 350v63. It had the top I was missing but lacked the meat of the 330. The solution was to just have them both. Nice, broad spectrum and still VERY Rick-y.

[(sloop_john_b)]

Hate to break it to you guys, but the answer is to just use a Tele.

[(aceonbass)]

Hate to break it to you guys, but the answer is to just use a Tele.

[(parker_knoll)]

I have an early '80s 350 and a 2006 330.

The 350 has the bass cut cap on the bridge, but actually I find the 2006 really nails the bright attacky Jam tones.

I find:

- Rics really open up when you hit them hard - don't be wimpy in your picking and strumming
- minimum 10 gauge strings
- you do sometimes need to upgrade the pots. Stock is actually 330k, whereas 500k with NO TONE POT at all works great on both pickups IMO. Who needs the tone pot if it's already too dark?
- the bridges are very variable. For about $20 you can get a Bigsby bridge. Try that, you may find it helps, it may not.
- try a hot Toaster pickup. Toasters are totally puny as stock (some people like that), but get 'em wound up to 12k or so and they really rock. It cost me $50 to get my pickup rewound.

[(iiipopes)]

Recently, I was recording a rhythm track, just one of those, “rake it with a brick” kinda things.
I wanted the typical “bite” that a strummed Rick will give you.
I did a pass with my 330 and it did the job but it was lacking a bit of top so I did another pass with my 350v63. It had the top I was missing but lacked the meat of the 330. The solution was to just have them both. Nice, broad spectrum and still VERY Rick-y.

Or to install a push-pull on the treble pickup so you can have the capacitor in line or bypassed at will, as on current production 4003 basses, and a my thread on the RIC factory forum:
http://www.rickenbacker.com/forum/viewt ... f=2&t=7928

[(parker_knoll)]

And then they stiuck a strangle cap on it to reduce the output still further!