Ron,
That's cool. I actually love my Jazz V allot but I've been gassing for a Ric 5er for a while now. Can only get it on credit. So...my only real option now is to get a 4003 new and mod it or have Jeff mod it. I know that sounds crazy...buy a new 4003 to mod it to a 5 stringer...but oh well.
Barry: If you want to do it yourself I have parts you will need ... it is more fun to do it yourself then to have me do it ... but I have done several ... I have some 5 string nuts, tailpieces, bridges, and saddles ... and I have some extra pickup pole pieces ...
Dang! You guys (especially Charly) are REALLY MAKING ME WANT TO DO THIS!
Jeff,
I've got the Gotoh tuners already. Since I'm planning on replacing the bridge and most likely the pickups I'm thinking all I'll need is the nut, bridge and pickups (best bass gear for those). Do you have a narrow 5 string bridge that would work with a 4003 that you be willing to part with along with the nut? Let me know. Thanks!
-Barry-
I have all the parts you need ... or I have the web sites you can order them from ... or you can buy Ron's 4003s5 ... or I can mod a bass for you ... the choice is yours ...
Jeff,
Well...A Fire or Mapleglo is priority for me so that kinda rules out Ron's. I also have to use my WWBW card so that means I can only buy the 4003 from them. I"m almost positive I want to do it on my own.
Hey email me at my listed email address and let me know $$ for the parts. I have the gotoh tuners but need the nut and bridge (chrome).
It seems like all's well that ends well. I find a buyer for my s5 and so I'm happy. Good luck, Barry. Let us know how the project turns out. But if you get stuck, Jeff has done this for many people. I've sold one bass that underwent the 4-2-5 conversion and one bass that is on its way to Jeff. He'll do right by you.
If you think all is going well, you've obviously overlooked something.
That's cool man, glad you found a buyer! I'll tell yeah...I like every 4-2-5 on Jeff's site. They all look great. My main problem with Rics overall is the tailpiece and bridge. My old 4 string 4003 I bought already had a badass II on it (stupidly sold it). I loved not having to fool with the stock bridge. I figure if I do it myself it'll be much easier just replacing the 4003 bridge outright and covering the route with pickguard material...just like my old 4003.
I use that bridge on a 2030-5 and a 2020-5 ... both have awesome sustain ... in fact my 2030-5 with the kahler bridge has more sustain than my 4003-5 with the ric bridge and tailpiece ...
Then I get a carvin 6 string bass nut and cut off the high c part and shim it and it works great ...
then you still need to figure out the pickups ... for the neck a toaster will work or high gains can be converted from 4 pole to 5 pole ... this is tricky because you can damage a pickup if you are not careful ... I could modify a couple of pickups and send them to you ... or you could use hb1 pickups, but then you also have to change out the 250k ohm volume pots to 500k ohm volume pots ... I believe the 4003 sounds best with Rickenbacker high gain pickups on it ... although some day I will build a 4003 4-2-5 with a t-bird pickup in the treble position ...
I was thinking about the Kahler but also some other imports look a little easier to install....also building a pickguard around them to hide the bridge route. That Kahler bridge looks a bit daunting for me. Thanks for the advice about the Carvin nut. That should make things much easier. As far as pickups go I'm seriously considering using some Bart Replacements as their string excursion is a tad bit wider than regular Rick pickups. I definitely won't attempt modding the stock pickups...I know I'd screw that up.
Also the gotoh tuners are a little too big for the holes in the Ric headstock ... you have to enlarge the holes about 1/16" or so ... check the size when you remove the ric tuners ...
