Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

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crushotep
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Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

Post by crushotep »

Hi,

when I use rick-o-sound on my Rickenbacker 4003 the signal is not splitted completely. So when I choose the neck pickup, there is also a weak signal on the amp connected to the bridge pickup and vice versa.

Is this normal or is there something wrong with my bass? I tried this with two different y cables.
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ram
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Re: Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

Post by ram »

I seem to remember something like that being talked about before. Not sure if it was here or on the Rickenbacker site forum. Something about not total isolation of stereo channels... maybe the ground...wish I could remember exactly. Also wish I could test for you be alot of my stuff isn't available right now due to getting ready to move. Maybe search this forum and the Rickenbacker site for older threads.
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crushotep
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Re: Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

Post by crushotep »

Thank you for your reply.

Of course I did some research before writing here, but unfortunately I didn't find anything. This didn't change with the new key words you gave me :(
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songdog
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Re: Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

Post by songdog »

How long are your Y cables? How are they made? If the cable has two wires twisted together inside one shield, there will be some capacitive coupling and thus weak signal leakage between them.

On the other hand, it's possible that there's some contamination either on the pickup selector switch or the switch in the mono jack that connects the two pickups together when that jack is used. This could allow a little signal leakage. I suppose there could even be some crosstalk between the wiring for the two pickups inside the bass, but since those wires are so short I think it's a less likely explanation.

To isolate the problem you could get a short Y adapter (TRS phone plug to two TS jacks) and try that with two regular guitar cables to the two amps. The short adapter should have very little crosstalk. If this fixes the problem, your Y cables are probably causing crosstalk. If not, the problem is probably in the wiring in the bass.

There's something called an "insert" cable that has two independently shielded wires (instead of both inside the same shield), with a TRS connector at one end and two TS connectors at the other end. That should have a lot less crosstalk.

(Jargon translation, in case you're not familiar: "TS" is "tip-sleeve", a standard mono phone plug; "TRS" is "tip-ring-sleeve", a stereo phone plug like on headphones.)
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crushotep
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Re: Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

Post by crushotep »

Thank you for this detailed answer.

I have one of these: https://www.thomann.de/gb/cordial_cfy_6_vpp.htm
This already seems to be an insert cable. The other one I used was a self-build y cable using an stereo to mono adapter.

This would mean it is most likely the basses electronics.
But I think I can live with that for a while. It won't do any damage, am I right? I mean when I play the treble pickup over a guitar amp/box, the other signal would have to be stronger to do any damage, right?
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ram
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Re: Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

Post by ram »

The only thing we can perceive are our perceptions - George Berkeley
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jdogric12
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Re: Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

Post by jdogric12 »

Been a while since I played ROS but I do remember that happening.
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songdog
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Re: Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

Post by songdog »

crushotep wrote:It won't do any damage, am I right? I mean when I play the treble pickup over a guitar amp/box, the other signal would have to be stronger to do any damage, right?
I wouldn't expect any problem. There's probably going to be more low-end content from the treble pickup (even with the bass-cut capacitor in circuit) than you'll get from the minor crosstalk from the neck pickup. Use your ears, if the guitar amp sounds like the speakers are being pushed too hard you'll need to back off, otherwise it should be fine.
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jdogric12
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Re: Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

Post by jdogric12 »

Unfortunately, a popular bass effect - compression - will exacerbate this problem.
crushotep
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Re: Rick-o-sound not splitted completely

Post by crushotep »

Ok, great, thank you all for you time!
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