Modifying Ricks

[jingle_jangle]

John, "scared"? Har.

As another, older d***head once said,

Bring 'em on!!!

[jnbass]

better "cover" that aluminium horsie...

[alanz]

The BronzGlo™ Abomination©

[markbass99]

Here's one of my mods, 4004 Laredo converted to five string, black hardware. The blue boy finish will be converted to bright white with exposed walnut wings this summer by Paul W. - Brian Crisman is working on a similar 4004 mod with eight strings and possibly white also.

[teb]

My 2030 with home-built (out in the driveway and garage, last February in Wisconsin) new maple body. Pickups, electronics and all other stuff are all the originals, though I moved the bridge pickup back a bit for more brightness. If ever desired, in about a half-hour I could convert it back to the original stock body. It will do a good, general-purpose rock and roll or funky, dirty sound, but also has just about the best clear, clean tone of any bass I've ever played. I've thought seriously about putting toasters on it, since they would look great, but I'd be an idiot to mess with the sound of this one.

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Ric%20Bass%20test%202005.mp3

[teb]

This one is my favorite guitar in the entire world. It's a '91 360/12WB FG. I sent it out to Mark Arnquist to have the 12-saddle bridge installed, the nut replaced, the frets pulled, the fingerboard stripped and new frets installed which run all the way out to the edges of the fingerboard to give me maximum room for my big, bass player fingers (low E to high E width at the nut is just a shade less than 1.5"). I built new back-painted pickguards with polished edges to match the TRC. The neck pickup is a toaster, the bridge pickup is a converted high-gain with a toaster cover. They're rigged to the five-knob system just like any 360 and output to the regular mono jack. I added a toaster in the middle position, but it's not connected to the other pickups. It has it's own volume control (the sixth knob), no tone control (doesn't need one - all the way up, all the time) and runs to a second mono jack where the Ric-O-Sound jack used to be, all by itself. I usually run two cords with the neck/bridge circuit run through a JangleBox and into one amp channel and the second pickup circuit and cord running into a different amp channel. I like the JangleBox, but to my ear it leaves the sound a bit thin and weak on the low end. This way, I can add as much pure middle toaster sound to the mix as I think it needs to fill out the sound. With a combination of maximum finger room and the sound possibilities, this one is the Ric twelve I've always wanted.

[thx1955]

Gorgeous Fireglo Todd.

[maplered]

Whoa John, that looks great. I'd love to have one of my 4003's converted to a V68.

[rollingricker21]

JB's pic of the Ric with the split pickups is what im talking about!

I really think Ricks have a lot of potential for modification.

One day I hope to put a musicman humbucker on a rick and turn it into a slapping machine.

[sloop_john_b]

Well I can't say that i've seen a Musicman pickup in a Rick before, but I have seen Darkstars in a 4004 - perhaps the 4004's design would lend itself better to the Musicman pickup.

Carmen, the MG 4003 I sold you was next in line for the v68 treatment, until my 4005 came a-knockin.

[maplered]

That MG 4003 would be perfect for that. Will Dale do the work for anyone if I contact him?

[sloop_john_b]

He certainly will! You can contact him at [email protected]

[thx1955]

That "v68" conversion looks superb, fantistic job Dale, now if it was Fireglo it'd be Hmmmmmm

[jaymi]

I have seen a musicman pickup in a Ric...it was an old punk band and the player was using a 4001 MG...the rear pickup surround was gone and it looked really odd...