Ric-O-Sound differences between vintage and modern?

[milo]

So I just picked up my dream Rickenbacker from another forum member, a 625. I'm really loving it right now and since I had both of the Fender Princetons in the same room I decided to plug into the Ric-O-Sound output. I rarely do this with my 360WB so I figured I may as well give it a go. Using the same cable for both guitars the 360WB works as expected and as I always thought it was supposed to. The 625 just works like an A/B/Y box and sends the same signal to both amps. Is that how the early versions worked or is something shorted inside the jack or wiring? At first I couldn't get the cable to plug all the way into the ROS jack and since that's sometimes an issue with Telecasters I loosened the nut on the jack and slightly rotated it so that the two contacts cleared the sides of the hole drilled through the body.

I don't mind going inside and trying to fix it as long as I know it should work the same way as the newer ones (didn't some early '60s models have two mono outputs?). If this isn't normal is there something that commonly causes this to happen? I'd prefer to keep the parts original if possible, rather than going the shotgun approach with replacing jacks and hitting all the solder joints.

Thanks.

[aceonbass]

It's not normal unless someone's wired your 625 in mono with two mono jacks. A picture or two of the internals will tell the tale.

[cjj]

The mono jack has a switching arrangement in it that is supposed to short the 2 pickups together when the plug is inserted. Sometimes the switch tab can get bent a bit and it doesn't disconnect when the plug is removed. Bending the tab a bit can fix this...

[milo]

It's not normal unless someone's wired your 625 in mono with two mono jacks. A picture or two of the internals will tell the tale.

I kind of assumed that since I was getting a pan feature from amp to amp, but the same pickup combination so it wasn't just mono and mono.

The mono jack has a switching arrangement in it that is supposed to short the 2 pickups together when the plug is inserted. Sometimes the switch tab can get bent a bit and it doesn't disconnect when the plug is removed. Bending the tab a bit can fix this...

Thanks for that info. I don't always do well reading the switching parts of schematics, but I had come to the conclusion that this may be the case. It looked like the treble pickup would just feed itself back in with the bass pickup if the switching tab was messed up and (at least to me) made sense that the balance would still work but I wouldn't get the separation of pups. I'll open it up and give the jack a better look. I just hate to go inside old stuff too many times without a plan.

[collin]

That guitar is definitely original Mono/Stereo, unmodifed etc. Just for the record

[milo]

Thanks Collin. There was no question in my mind at all about that. I just wasn't sure if "stereo" on a 1964 model meant it could be sent to two amps and simply panned between them with the mixer knob, or if they always worked with one pickup to one side and one to the other like the modern version I have.

From looking at the schematic and then seeing confirmation above about the switching jack I'm sure it just needs a tweak on the switched tab of the jack.

I love the guitar and odds are I'll rarely use the stereo function except for fun, but was curious in general and now that I know how it should work I'll tweak the contact. Maybe briefly try jumping the strangle cap just to hear the full bridge pup while the guard is off, but I've found some magic settings as it is.

[jdogric12]

George's 360/12 was dual mono, wasn't it? (hence the dual mono on v64's) Wha happened?

[collin]

George's 360/12 was dual mono, wasn't it? (hence the dual mono on v64's) Wha happened?

I doubt it - other early prototype 12-strings had RoS (think Townshend's 360S/12), and RoS was not a new feature then, and would have been included on deluxe models as a feature.

That doesn't explain dual mono on the V64s, so I don't know why that is.