Part of the reason two pickups sound different when run together is both the phase relationships, and also the impedance drop you get from running two coils in parallel, which is what's happening with two pickups on.
The phase stuff, assuming both pickups are electrically in phase, is a summing of the signals, whereas the common frequencies in both pickups are emphasized, and there may also be some frequency cancelations as well.
But mostly it's an impedance thing.
The other thing to watch for with pickups is magnet polarity. This is actually how humbuckers cancel the hum, because the coil doesn't really sense the string at all, but senses a disturbance in the magnet's field, which of course is caused by the string. (the strings do become magnetized after a while however, and then do get sensed by the coil... you can even remove the magnet from the pickup!)
Flipping a magnet will also reverse the pickups polarity.
Personally I never liked the sound of two passive pickups mixed equally because of these reasons.
Custom Ricky Double Neck Wiring Question
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david_schwab
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Thanks David and Jeff for all of the good info and ideas. I must evidently have a phase problem on the bass neck because it doesn't seem to happen on the guitar neck and it does seem to be more of a drop in bottom end. It looks like the solution for me is to reverse the wiring on one of the pickups and keep it master Volume and Tone. I like being able to change the sound from 4003 to 4004 at the flick of a switch.
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jwr2
Thanks Dave. The bass sounds a bit like Squire's Tobias. The guitar, due to it's longer 26 1/2" scale, has a somewhat richer, more resonant sound. My brother, who's a guitarist, described it as "tone-y". Even though it's all Rickenbacker, it doesn't sound exactly like any Rick I've ever heard. I got a 4002 pickguard pattern from a forum member and morphed it into this guard. Modifying the tailpiece to accept one of Ed Roman's brass Ricky bridges was the hardest part for me. I probably have five or six hours in it alone. I don't know how much it weighs but I'm guessing it's slightly lighter than a 4080. As you can see, the Robot had no problem lifting it!
The rear strap button is just off center by the bass bridge. The front strap button is held in place by one of the six screws holding on the bass neck. I felt that, given the relatively small upper bout, it would balance better this way. It certaily looks cleaner without the strap peg mucking things up. It is neck heavy but doesn't take much to keep it in balance while playing. The 5 string spacing is the same as on any 4003/5 although at the bridge I moved it out to 2 3/16".