Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'm thinking all my shielding qwill be for naught. So I am considering HB1's for my 4003.
So I have a couple questions, if anyone knows the answers:

1. I see the HB1 has various colored wires coming out of the grey lead. How do I wire these to the hot and ground of the grey cable going to the control cavity?

2.The HB1 screws right into the old hi gain bridge pup plastic base. How do I then adjust pup height? Use a foam base? Or still with the same screws from the higain surround? Not sure I can picture the setup.

Thanks for any info.

If you're going to swap your hi-gains for HB1's just because of pickup hum, then you have yet to deal with your grounding issues. My single coil Ricks don't hum, UNLESS I flip the bass 90 degrees on it's axis and hold it parallel to the floor while aiming it at the amp. If you do install HB1's, all of he pots and caps already there are the wrong values, and will need to be changed out to optimize their tone.

Thanks for the info.
I am working out my shielding process step by step. Once I have tried everything, if it still buzzes, I might go the HB1 route.
I have read that after switchibg to HB1's people have gotten good results by :
1. Changing nothing in the harness (4001)
2. Going to 500k pots (4003)
3. Buying a totally new harness from Dane or elsewhere online (4003?).

I guess I'd have to take that step by step, too.

The only thing about 4001 harnesses that makes them better than 4003 harnesses made in the last several years is that they have 500K tone pots. The volume pots are still only 250K, and the tone caps have always been .047uF, which is not optimal. AFAIK, I'm the only one building custom harnesses optimized for Rick basses with HB1 pickups, and offering coil shorting as an option.

Then you may be getting a pm from me soon if I can't get rid of this noise.
Thanks, Dane!

Just put the HB-1s in the bass and see how they work out for you before making any other changes. Do it one step at a time so you know what is doing what.

HB1's are out of phase with RIC single coils, so you'd need to reverse the red and blue wires if you're mixing it with a hi-gain.

So i would do both hb1's. Not mix.
So what is the answer to question #1 above? Which wires in the bundle do I connect to the gray cable going to control cavity?

The red wire goes to the switch, and the blue/shield wires go to the back of the pot. I seem to have an extra HB1 in stock too...

OK. Thanks for your help. I appreciate it. I may be contacting you in the next several weeks if I can't get the bass quiet.

I have an idea.

Instead of getting a custom 4003 harness for the HB1 pups, could I use the Rickenbacker boutique's 4004 harness in my 4003 body with the HB1's? Just keep the other two volume knobs on the 4003 as dummies?

So it would be like 4004 guts in a 4003 body. No more AC hum and other noise noise that way.

I did this sort of thing in my new Japanese Blue Flower Pbass back in 2006 with excellent results. Switched out all the original guts for better wiring/cap/pots and put in a '61 American Pbass pup. No more noise and sounds even better with the new pup.

So I don't feel like I would be destroying anything by doing the HB1pups/harness on the 4003.

lumgimfong wrote:I have an idea.

Instead of getting a custom 4003 harness for the HB1 pups, could I use the Rickenbacker boutique's 4004 harness in my 4003 body with the HB1's? Just keep the other two volume knobs on the 4003 as dummies?

So it would be like 4004 guts in a 4003 body. No more AC hum and other noise noise that way.

I did this sort of thing in my new Japanese Blue Flower Pbass back in 2006 with excellent results. Switched out all the original guts for better wiring/cap/pots and put in a '61 American Pbass pup. No more noise and sounds even better with the new pup.

So I don't feel like I would be destroying anything by doing the HB1pups/harness on the 4003.

Well, you would be two knobs short of a full set!
You'd also lose the stereo output.

Yeah, I thought about that.
Well, I think I'll just first install the pups and if it isn't bright enough I'll change the pots/caps or just get a new harness from Dane.

RIC uses the same tone caps and out of spec pots in EVERY SINGLE INSTRUMENT they make, unfortunately, so a new 4004 harness will make ZERO difference in the tone if used with a 4004 pickup.

So the hb1 is used in both guitars and basses? Are they the same?