Bass Mute - Anyone use it?

paul_yan · Post by **paul_yan** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 4:43 am

The Rick-O-Sound is only practical when you want a stereo bass sound on a recording.

Jeff is absolutely right.
In a live situation, it's virtually unusable if you want one pickup appearing on one side of the stage and the other pickup on the other side. Only the audience in the middle facing the stage can hear the effect anyway, provided your soundman pans your stereo signal left and right.

But I know some people use the ROS in another manner---neck pickup into a clean amp and treble pickup into a dirty one and try to get a desired balance out of the two. The 2 amps stand side by side together in such a setup...I call it "flexible mono".

ojobob2 · Post by **ojobob2** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 6:20 am

The "stereo" idea of ROS is a bit misleading. Its not really like stereo - ie a left and a a right channel, more a way for you to separate your sound to (in theory) get more definition and clarity. Im pretty sure thats the original idea behind it anyhow.

You can set both pickups on full volume, set Bass tone to lowest setting and treble tone to highest, and you get a well defined separation of bottom and top end. This is definatly gonna be more evident when the treble pickup has a cap fitted.

ojobob2 · Post by **ojobob2** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 6:30 am

Someone had a worse stereo system than Rickenbacker tho.....

There was a british maker from the 1970's called Shergold - i think a later version of Burns.....

I saw one of their basses in a London store recently - really good quality basses tho quite ugly -

There was a bass model called the Marathon that had like a P bass style split pickup. Each coil was sent to a separate mono jack. .... This would mean that if you were playing a bassline mainly on the E and A strings, and you then palyed a note on the D......the sound would jump to another amp?!?!?!!?

I guess thats how it worked. Of course totally stupid. Theres this whole site about them www.shergold.co.uk

Have a look, really odd guitars

dano · Post by **dano** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 10:37 am

I would never even attempt to use the ric-o-sound stereo box at a gig, definately too much of a hassel and who is gonna notice besides me? For recording though, this box has proven to be quite versatile.

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 11:22 am

I have 5 Ric basses ... none of them have the ric-o-sound ... and only one has the mute ... my '68 ... if it wasn't so old and collectable I would remove the mute ... but it still has the original '68 mute and it works better than the new ones do ....

mortivan · Post by **mortivan** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 12:56 pm

Victor Wooten played a bass on "A Show of Hands" tuned A-D-G-C that had a similar stereo output (2 strings per channel) from piezo pickups.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 6:02 am

I used to play with a stereo out to two different channels of my SVT, of course it wasn't stereo but it gave me more control over the tones of the individual pickups, I played live like that also, but had to completely shield my basses because of noise. I later found out that a ric-o-sound box was supposed to quiet down the noise. I got most of the sound out of the treble pickup and got the bottom out of the bass pickup. I now get pretty much the same sound mono. I wouldn't play stereo live because I keep the treble pickup much louder than the bass pickup, even mono I do that. I am not sure (I am too lazy to trace the convoluted schematic) but I think that running stereo the treble cap is bypassed, I think also with the switch up it is too, it sounds like it anyway. This would explain to me also why I used to run stereo, much fuller sound from the treble pickup.
And yes Paul I've always noticed that with the switch in the middle and both volumes on full there is much less mid, that is because you are getting almost all bass pickup like that, as a matter of fact if you take off your pickguard (with bass pickup still in it) and keep the switch in the middle and both volumes on full the treble pickup's sound is diminished almost to the point of insignificance except for tinny treble, but that is where you get that deep trademark Ric sound with a treble to it, especially in a 4001 with the cap intact. If you take off the pickguard (with bass pickup in it) with the switch in the middle and back off the bass volume the treble pickup gets much louder without touching the treble volume, this freaked me out the first time I realized that. That is why when I play, I leave the treble volume on full and cut back to maybe 80-90% on the bass volume, the treble pickup gets much much louder, much more so than in proportion to how much the knob bass knob is turned, it's got to be the way they are wired. I have never tried this with a 4003 though, but I am sure the same thing happens.
Hey Jeff, how about wiring each pole piece of your 2030 into individual amps?(be a little work though) 8 amps would sound sound great, 8 jacks would look cool too, especially on the front. especially with the added mute you are planning to put on your bass.

ojobob2 · Post by **ojobob2** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 6:27 am

Bob, the same thing happens on a 4003 for sure - I too always have played with both pickups on , but with treble on full and bass on about "8 out of 10"

I used to play with just the treble pickup only (tone control always wide open) - The bass had the clearest sound with the most power to it.

I then of course realised you can add more bottom by adding in the bass pickup , however if both pickups are on full - the bass sounds muffled and like the real tones are holding back as it were. Its like the bass pickup cuts into the treble and overrides it.

Thats definatly where the Rico sound can help - by allowing you to have both pickups full on - for the best possible sound i guess,,

but i dont have a double SVT so i kinda cant do it

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 7:17 am

Owen there's a vintage 70's SVT set up on Ebay with two cabs right now, wouldn't cost too much to ship to England I don't think. Seriously though it is in great shape, I'd snap it right up if I had some money, I'd drive out there, where ever it is. Was at about $1500. the other day, a bargain. You'd need to buy another head for stereo.... and a roadie.... and a truck...and.... actually I used to move my double set up in a 1987 Buick station wagon, with room to spare.

bigbajo60 · Post by **bigbajo60** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 8:15 am

I used to do the "each pickup to a different channel of the same amp" trick that Bobampeg describes, except it was on an old Mark IV Peavey head.

Loads of flexibility in the tone going that route.

Goose the bass a little on the brigde pickup...
Get the neck pickup to offer up a little more cut...
Get a little more drive going on either one...
Lovely to be able to do that! Not many other stock basses out there that allow for this sort of sonic experimentation!

ojobob2 · Post by **ojobob2** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 8:40 am

Bob --- Id need a roadie, a truck, er...a wider frontdoor on my house....oh and some cash!! haha

....Ill stick with my Trace Elliot for now

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 8:52 am

heheheheheh how about these??

ojobob2 · Post by **ojobob2** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 9:04 am

Very tasteful Jeff....

.....but why in this thread>>>???

bear · Post by **bear** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 9:13 am

Had the roadies in the equipment truck and motorhome for the band so the first venture into Ric-O-Sound live, back in the days, was with '68 4001 and a '71 4005 running into an Acoustic 360 (a pair of folded horn 18" powered cabs) and a Garnet B-190 (IIRC) tube head running into a pair of Garnet (Marsland speaker loaded) 2x15 cabinets. Monster Ric-o-holic Tone fix. It got pretty stupid past that for awhile before I scaled down to an SVT and a Marshall, partnership in an audio store so the exotic stuff crept in. Macintosh tubes, Malatchi mixer pre-amps , etc.
Used the Ric-O-Sound last month in a studio session miking up a Vox T-25 and T-60, I think a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive was on the Horseshoe, and got a great Brit Ric tone for the track.
YMMV etc.

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 9:33 am

owen ... Bob had said something about wiring each pole of a pickup to a different amp ....

anyway if you put like 6 or 8 pickups in then you can run each pickup to a different amp ... a real wall of sound ....

ala spinal tap ...