I recently bought a new 4003, and it's in need of a setup. I don't have the experience (and thus the confidence) to do it myself, so I'd like to find somebody in my area who can do it for me and who I can rely on if any problems come up in the future.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Ron
Luthier in Eugene, OR Area?
Moderator: jingle_jangle
For major Rick repairs in Eugene, send it to Mark Arnquist in Everett, WA.
For setups and small repairs on your Rick, Charlie Longstreth at McKenzie River Music is the best. Very knowledgeable on Rickenbacker Basses. He has put six of my Rick basses (and one Rick 330 guitar), both past and present, in fine playing form. He's not cheap but his work is outstanding. Figure a week or so in the shop, as he's always got a backlog.
Greg
For setups and small repairs on your Rick, Charlie Longstreth at McKenzie River Music is the best. Very knowledgeable on Rickenbacker Basses. He has put six of my Rick basses (and one Rick 330 guitar), both past and present, in fine playing form. He's not cheap but his work is outstanding. Figure a week or so in the shop, as he's always got a backlog.
Greg
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rickplayer
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rjg
Thanks, everyone. The only thing I need right now is an initial setup. The intonation is ever-so-slightly off--a tad sharp at the 12th fret and up, particularly noticeable on the G-string. The action's also higher than I like.
But, these are minor things, so the McKenzie River suggestion makes sense. I hope I won't need Mark's services any time soon--I've only had the thing for a month! (No offense to Mark, of course.)
Thanks also to Jon for the offer of transportation. Again, hopefully I won't need to take you up on it, but I'll certainly remember it if the time should come when something major is needed.
You live around Eugene, Greg?
--Ron
But, these are minor things, so the McKenzie River suggestion makes sense. I hope I won't need Mark's services any time soon--I've only had the thing for a month! (No offense to Mark, of course.)
Thanks also to Jon for the offer of transportation. Again, hopefully I won't need to take you up on it, but I'll certainly remember it if the time should come when something major is needed.
You live around Eugene, Greg?
--Ron
I'm in south Eugene, Ron. Who did you go through to get your 4003?
Whenever I go see Charlie with a 'new aquisition', I always suffer a little indigestion until he gives it a passing grade. And he did not initially give my 4002 a passing grade...
...and Mark didn't either. But Mark didn't write the bass off as a lost cause, and ended up expertly restoring it. My '77 4002 is a very early production run unit that seems to have suffered from a neck to body angle problem from the factory that was only made worse by at least two poorly done fingerboard plane and refret jobs. The neck was visually thinner at the heel of the neck than at the nut. Mark defretted the ebony board, removed the nut, then planed off all but about a 1/16" of the original fretboard. He needed to leave a little height at both the nut and the body end of the fretboard to both prevent damage to the original Mapleglo finish and to help restore the unloaded neck to body angle. Mark wanted to be able to get the string height down to a reasonable 7/64" at the 15th fret, bass side, without bottoming out the bridge in the tailpiece, which he far exceeded on the finished product. Bottoming the bridge in the tailpiece can rob a bass of some of its tone and sustain. Also a concern was string height over each pickup, and then relative output of each of the two pickups so that one wasn't dramatically louder than the other. Starting basically from scratch, Mark removed, reformed and reinstalled the trussrods with a new thicker trussrod adjustment nut shim-plate up at the headstock. He found a nice piece of ebony and glued what I believe to be a maple strip to the bottom of it for additional strength, prior to gluing it onto the bass itself. This lamination of ebony and maple has definitely improved neck stiffness and thickness, front to back, creating a desirable neck profile overall. The correct mother of pearl dots were sourced at a point in time when they were somewhat hard to find. The 34" Scale specs were nailed down and I asked for a stock type/guage fretwire, for as much originality as possible. Dunlop wire was used, but I don't recall the gauge. A 10 degree radius was used on the fretboard. Mark used a black phenolic linen material for the nut, cut with deep grooves. Ebony fretboard was left unfinished and Mark did an outstanding job on the black fretboard binding, fretted back to stock specs with 21 frets. The overall effect is one of authenticity. It appears factory and the patina of wear is consistent throughout. The bridge did not need to be relocated. When I first got the bass, a BadAss bridge was installed but I had this reverted to a stock style late model 4003 replacement tailpiece/bridge assembly, which had a small amount of shelf wear in just the right places. Mark did his special reversed saddle adjustment screw modification to it by machining out the tailpiece mute string slots and by installing the bridge/saddle piece backwards. This makes intonation adjustments a little bit easier. I had him install Elixir strings, original formula, 45-65-80-100. Finally, Mark cleaned the pots, touched up some soldering, adjusted the pickup heights and the sent it back to me for evaluation.
My initial comments were extremely positive, but I was taking the wait and see approach so as to not get my hopes up overly much. After a month, and as expected, the neck adjustment had shifted a very little bit. Since a neck adjustment was needed, I took the opportunity to change strings to Elixir Nanowebs, a 45-65-85-105 set. I consulted with Mark on this, but actually had Charlie Longstreth do the work locally. Other that the slight neck adjustment and string change with a corresponding intonation tweak, all that was really needed was to slightly lower a high 9th fret, just a little on the bass side. Now, that was 15 months ago, and I've needed nothing done to it since.
Elixir Nanowebs really shine on this bass, giving a little brightness to the very slowly aging and fading original "super high gain" humbucking pickups. I run it straight into a 150W 12" EBS Drome combo, and sometimes add a 350W 15" EBS Active Cabinet in those rare situations where I need to make a little more noise. I play rock, blues and jazz with friends in very low key situations and this 4002 is a perfect sonic fit.
Thanks again, Mark!
-Greg
Whenever I go see Charlie with a 'new aquisition', I always suffer a little indigestion until he gives it a passing grade. And he did not initially give my 4002 a passing grade...
...and Mark didn't either. But Mark didn't write the bass off as a lost cause, and ended up expertly restoring it. My '77 4002 is a very early production run unit that seems to have suffered from a neck to body angle problem from the factory that was only made worse by at least two poorly done fingerboard plane and refret jobs. The neck was visually thinner at the heel of the neck than at the nut. Mark defretted the ebony board, removed the nut, then planed off all but about a 1/16" of the original fretboard. He needed to leave a little height at both the nut and the body end of the fretboard to both prevent damage to the original Mapleglo finish and to help restore the unloaded neck to body angle. Mark wanted to be able to get the string height down to a reasonable 7/64" at the 15th fret, bass side, without bottoming out the bridge in the tailpiece, which he far exceeded on the finished product. Bottoming the bridge in the tailpiece can rob a bass of some of its tone and sustain. Also a concern was string height over each pickup, and then relative output of each of the two pickups so that one wasn't dramatically louder than the other. Starting basically from scratch, Mark removed, reformed and reinstalled the trussrods with a new thicker trussrod adjustment nut shim-plate up at the headstock. He found a nice piece of ebony and glued what I believe to be a maple strip to the bottom of it for additional strength, prior to gluing it onto the bass itself. This lamination of ebony and maple has definitely improved neck stiffness and thickness, front to back, creating a desirable neck profile overall. The correct mother of pearl dots were sourced at a point in time when they were somewhat hard to find. The 34" Scale specs were nailed down and I asked for a stock type/guage fretwire, for as much originality as possible. Dunlop wire was used, but I don't recall the gauge. A 10 degree radius was used on the fretboard. Mark used a black phenolic linen material for the nut, cut with deep grooves. Ebony fretboard was left unfinished and Mark did an outstanding job on the black fretboard binding, fretted back to stock specs with 21 frets. The overall effect is one of authenticity. It appears factory and the patina of wear is consistent throughout. The bridge did not need to be relocated. When I first got the bass, a BadAss bridge was installed but I had this reverted to a stock style late model 4003 replacement tailpiece/bridge assembly, which had a small amount of shelf wear in just the right places. Mark did his special reversed saddle adjustment screw modification to it by machining out the tailpiece mute string slots and by installing the bridge/saddle piece backwards. This makes intonation adjustments a little bit easier. I had him install Elixir strings, original formula, 45-65-80-100. Finally, Mark cleaned the pots, touched up some soldering, adjusted the pickup heights and the sent it back to me for evaluation.
My initial comments were extremely positive, but I was taking the wait and see approach so as to not get my hopes up overly much. After a month, and as expected, the neck adjustment had shifted a very little bit. Since a neck adjustment was needed, I took the opportunity to change strings to Elixir Nanowebs, a 45-65-85-105 set. I consulted with Mark on this, but actually had Charlie Longstreth do the work locally. Other that the slight neck adjustment and string change with a corresponding intonation tweak, all that was really needed was to slightly lower a high 9th fret, just a little on the bass side. Now, that was 15 months ago, and I've needed nothing done to it since.
Elixir Nanowebs really shine on this bass, giving a little brightness to the very slowly aging and fading original "super high gain" humbucking pickups. I run it straight into a 150W 12" EBS Drome combo, and sometimes add a 350W 15" EBS Active Cabinet in those rare situations where I need to make a little more noise. I play rock, blues and jazz with friends in very low key situations and this 4002 is a perfect sonic fit.
Thanks again, Mark!
-Greg