Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

My early 80's 360 has what appear to be the original pickups. The bridge reads a little under 7k and sounds clean and clear, while the neck reads around 14.3k and is incredibly muddy. I put in a 500k neck volume pot and .022uF neck tone cap to try to get a little more clarity, dropped it as low as it can go, and it's still way darker and muddier than I want. I was looking at swapping the pickups around, but I'd have to splice in wire. While I had the pickups out, I noticed that the magnet on the neck pickup is considerably larger than the one on the bridge pickup. Would swapping the magnets between the two pickups be a reasonable option? I'm also going to have a local pickup winder unwind the neck pickup a little as well.

The pole spacing is wider on the bridge pickup, so swapping the two isn't really the solution. Have someone unwind the neck pickup to 7k like the bridge. While you could try 1meg pots and a .01uF tone cap, this is really just a bandaid solution.

Thanks for the reply...I did notice that the spacing was different.
Anyone know if that big a winding discrepancy a common thing for that time period?

82360 wrote:Anyone know if that big a winding discrepancy a common thing for that thine period?

I was wondering that too; that's a huge difference between the two pickups. Are you sure the neck pickup is original and/or hasn't been re-wound since new?

jps wrote:

82360 wrote:Anyone know if that big a winding discrepancy a common thing for that thine period?

I was wondering that too; that's a huge difference between the two pickups. Are you sure the neck pickup is original and/or hasn't been re-wound since new?

I'm not 100% sure, but they look period correct, and they look consistent with each other. I'll have a better idea when I get it looked at by a local pickup builder...hopefully as he's removing a good bit of the winding.

Also still curious if anyone thinks that swapping the magnets would be a good option to also increase the output of the bridge pickup. The neck pickup magnet is considerably larger than the bridge magnet...are the magnets typically easy to remove and reattach?

82360 wrote: Also still curious if anyone thinks that swapping the magnets would be a good option to also increase the output of the bridge pickup. The neck pickup magnet is considerably larger than the bridge magnet...are the magnets typically easy to remove and reattach?

The pole spacing may be different between the two pickups so the holes in the magnets may not line up if you were to swap them.

So now I'm wondering if these HiGains are original to my 1982 360...
I haven't seen photos of a HiGain without the center hole in the magnet, and the face/bobbin top looks like it may be Bakelite.

Your bridge pickup is not original. The poles on RIC hi-gains are so much further apart on a guitar bridge pickup that the outer poles nearly touch the outer edges of the pickup bezel.

The photo is strangely deceptive...the bridge pickup polepieces are considerably more spaced out than the neck pickup is