Tailpiece Lift

[heinpete]

They DID fix it, in the early 80s.
...

...and as we can also see in your pic, they had introduced the two piece neck already , but it was only recently reintroduced.
It seems at RIC they have some rather random product development stategy , but somebody should have recorded the advances at some stage... On the other hand, this way RIC can claim something "new" every 30 years at least (as with the two peice neck).

[Baker69]

I have seen some very reasonably priced after-market complete Tail-Piece assemblies for less than £ 50.00, has anyone fitted one of these and are they actually stronger than the genuine Ric one's? They appear to be a casting but I don't know what material they use, the one I looked at was quite heavy?

The only difference I could tell between these and the originals was that the string saddles were in a matching chrome finish as opposed to the gunmetal or zinc coloured saddles fitted on the real one's. I presume they are an exact size though so the bridge assemby could be swapped over.

[heinpete]

...those chrome saddles come with the Allparts copy bridge.

I have seen some very reasonably priced after-market complete Tail-Piece assemblies for less than £ 50.00, has anyone fitted one of these and are they actually stronger than the genuine Ric one's? They appear to be a casting but I don't know what material they use, the one I looked at was quite heavy?

The only difference I could tell between these and the originals was that the string saddles were in a matching chrome finish as opposed to the gunmetal or zinc coloured saddles fitted on the real one's. I presume they are an exact size though so the bridge assemby could be swapped over.

[Baker69]

[quote="heinpete"]...those chrome saddles come with the Allparts copy bridge.


Possibly, the one I saw was un-packaged and un-branded.

Anybody tried one???

[ken_j]

...those chrome saddles come with the Allparts copy bridge.


Possibly, the one I saw was un-packaged and un-branded.

Anybody tried one???

A friend has used a few with no issues. There are some cosmetic differences though.

[aceonbass]

The AllParts tailpiece/bridge assembly is actually a knock-off of the RIC tailpiece, as JH has said that their part actually has evidence of having been copied from the RIC casting. It's also a trademark violation due to it's having the same shape and "look". That said, the chrome plating bubbles up and reacts to sweat after a few years, so it isn't as good as RIC's part. Although it does appear to be made of zinc, it doesn't have the later design improvements by RIC to beef it up. Since I find it easy to tell the difference, It just makes a real RIC look like a 70's Japanese copy. In my opinion, when RIC added the two screws to the rear, they should have removed the post-aluminum tailpiece's two added screws in front of the E and G string pass-throughs. This would have resulted in a fairly clean look with only two screws showing. I've found they don't even have to be the larger size screws used on the rest of the tailpiece, so I use slightly smaller ones. This is why I now like to use C64 tailpieces for all my RIC basses with the two screws added. Five and eight string conversions, as well as four strings, look really good, and stay firmly planted to the top of the bass with just two screws showing. As far as the sound of the bass, I once added the two extra screws to a 5-string conversion without disassembling it and noticed the difference in sound when the job was done. If the lift doesn't bother you, then fine. Apparently some cannot tell the difference in the sound, but I can. I don't think the Schaller unit used on the 4004 is a good solution. I don't even like them on the new 4004's with the narrower neck. If you look at the E and G saddles, they are adjusted all the way in, which still puts the strings just a little closer to the edge of the fretboard than I like. I would like to see RIC come up with a different bridge for those basses too without having to import one. I don't really blame RIC. They tried something and had complaints based purely on cosmetics, so knowing JH, I'm not surprised they never went back. I just use a C64 tailpiece with two added screws, and whatever strings I want (in this case RotoSound Swing bass). If your tailpiece lifts, then fix it, but don't just go along with the status quo and believe that it doesn't make a difference, because it does.

[heinpete]

Thanx Dane for your thoughts and experience. Can you show a C64 tailpiece from underneath, is it as beefy as the current 4003 tailpiece in the same areas?

[cassius987]

He's talking about adding screws to the rear of it. They definitely lift a bit without reinforcement, unlike the modern 5-screw version.

[Ivan3000]

What about a disguised screw somewhere? Maybe underneath the saddles? Or a screw at an angle hidden in the back underneath part of it.

Regarding the modern tailpeice. A simple fix to some problems would be removing the toothy bit.

[johnhall]

Everyone has "simple", "easy" solutions, not one of which we haven't already thought of or tried already.

Unfortunately, no one yet has addressed *ALL* of the issues associated with this part, ranging from purely mechanical to those of consumer acceptance, the marketplace, the economics, and basic logistics.

There simply does not exist a "one-size-fits-all" solution and if we move ahead with any one of the various possible changes we see, someone is going to be unhappy.

Then there's this: there are tens of thousands of these basses out there with the stock tailpiece that no one seems to have any problem with, along with an order book for them in the range of 18 months delivery. That doesn't mean we don't want to improve the product but it does make you wonder what the extent of the problem really is.

[heinpete]

Everyone has "simple", "easy" solutions, not one of which we haven't already thought of or tried already.

Unfortunately, no one yet has addressed *ALL* of the issues associated with this part, ranging from purely mechanical to those of consumer acceptance, the marketplace, the economics, and basic logistics.

There simply does not exist a "one-size-fits-all" solution and if we move ahead with any one of the various possible changes we see, someone is going to be unhappy.

Then there's this: there are tens of thousands of these basses out there with the stock tailpiece that no one seems to have any problem with, along with an order book for them in the range of 18 months delivery. That doesn't mean we don't want to improve the product but it does make you wonder what the extent of the problem really is.

...the clou of the whole story lies in the last sentence! There is no problem as long as the product sells!

[aceonbass]

Peter......My digital camera is without a charger right now, so I can't post any pics, but the C64 tailpiece is identical to the current 4003 part with the exception of the two extra holes visible on the 4003 part. The current casting is pretty beefy, and less likely to lift, but when I put a C64 unit on my 4003 using the stock strings, it lifted 2mm before a drilled it and switched to RotoSound strings.

[bassduke49]

2 cm? That's a bit more than 3/4"!! Yikes!

[cassius987]

Then there's this: there are tens of thousands of these basses out there with the stock tailpiece that no one seems to have any problem with, along with an order book for them in the range of 18 months delivery. That doesn't mean we don't want to improve the product but it does make you wonder what the extent of the problem really is.

I've never personally seen a modern version of the 5-screw zinc tailpiece that had any lift to it at all and I've been up close and personal with lots of new Rics in the past couple of years. So I do have to think the problem is probably overblown for that version of the tailpiece.

I think you guys at RIC have your work cut out for yourselves trying to deliver an update while simultaneously trying to avoid a backlash if you veer away from tradition, especially in the aesthetics department. I do not envy your job.

[mikko]

Then there's this: there are tens of thousands of these basses out there with the stock tailpiece that no one seems to have any problem with, along with an order book for them in the range of 18 months delivery. That doesn't mean we don't want to improve the product but it does make you wonder what the extent of the problem really is.

A lot of people don't have a problem OR they just don't care or realize they have some kind of problem. Majority of musicians I know, and there's quite many of them, don't care about intonation or know how to adjust it, don't care about string height etc. It's just bad instrument if it's hard to play because set up is not correct out of the box. This kind of people hardly care about some tail lift. Like some people don't make any difference between a small transistor radio and high end stereo system as long as some sound is coming out of the device.
I had tail lift, about 2mm and increasing, but I fixed it by adding two screws and now it's good and stable. So I have no problem and I'm happy with my instrument, I'm not complaining.
I noticed the tail piece material was rather soft. Different materials are the most probably already studied many times over the years, but I'd like to know why the current material is the best compromise?