Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Another batch of 4003 NOIR basses are available at Sweetwater.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... usive-noir

I heard that there were only 15 made this time. Pure speculation, of course. Priced at about $2k which is cheaper than the last batch IIRC.

[EDIT]: Looks like they are no longer available. Who else got one?

--jack

According to my sales rep, the fretboard is rosewood as the description states vs the ebony boards of the original run.
Can anybody verify?

I am guessing the Sweetwater bass may have been a trade-in of a 4003 Noir that was basically untouched. I don't believe there is another 4002 Noir run, though there is a new finish color Matte Black that is being produced in various models.

Basses are 2018 and not 16/17.
I received some pretty detailed pics, fretboard appears to be rosewood

...

That fingerboard does look like Makassar Ebony to me.

Ash

Ashgray wrote:That fingerboard does look like Makassar Ebony to me.

Ash

+1

Taylor or another acoustic builder put a vid out a few years ago about how we all got used to thinking of ebony as a pure black-brown slab, but parts of the wood will have lighter streaks running throughout.

May not be ebony but I wouldn't rule it out on those looks alone.

I’m sure if the board was ebony SW would be promoting that and not advertising as rosewood. Could be the reason for the lower cost. Also RIC did promote the original Noir as a limited run. A rosewood board would be away around that. Though it all seems a bit cheesy

The pics that I got from Sweetwater of mine sure looks like Ebony. Not sure though. Mine is scheduled for delivery today.

--jack

Just chatted with SW. the boards are rosewood.

Pity this one was US only also. I could'nt find a US adress in time so I missed out on this one also. Would have been nice to have all the Black specials.

It is Macassar Ebony.

RIC_FACTORY wrote:It is Macassar Ebony.

Thanks for clarifying!

--jack

Sadly, simply by virtue of Sweetwater being a "big" corporate entity (compared to a mom n pop music store, or a private individual selling something), I'm not surprised one bit they took the easy way and probably just looked at whatever standard material they have on 4003's and figured it was the same wood. NOPE!

So was this a new run, or just a single instrument returned and resold?

jdogric12 wrote:So was this a new run, or just a single instrument returned and resold?

A new run. Word on the street is that there were 15 NOIRs in this batch.

This is the first time I've bought a guitar from Sweetwater. I'm really impressed with the setup on this one. I didn't tell them what I wanted, but it came setup perfectly for me.

--jack