On my 1970 21 fret the toaster p.u. reads 8.1 K and the (early version) high-gain p.u. reads 6.1 K.
The high-gains on my mid 1974 4001 read 5.6 and 5.8. These have bags of poke and sound totally awesome.
Ric pickups?
Moderators: rickenbrother, ajish4
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rickless
I am quite ignorant in the world of pickup design and have been reading your messages with great interest. Tell me if I am correct. The newer the pickup, the hotter it probably is, and this is attributed to more copper windings around the magnet. The greater amount of copper winding, the greater the resistance (measured in ohms) the electrical current will experience traveling through that greater distance of copper wire. Therefore, the higher the ohm reading (resistance), the hotter the pickup and therefore the greater chance of overdriving the preamp (hopefully in a good way). I have a SamsAmp RBI and being that it is a tube amp emulator, will such a hotter signal increase the "good" overdrive many of us like to attain?
I have never opened up a pickup and I have never measured the resistance of a pickup. Do you connect an ohmeter to the two leads hanging off the pickup that get soldered to the attenuators (volume/tone)? If I wanted to increase or decrease the gain of my pickup by adding or taking away copper wire, how do I do this. I'm terrified of ruining my equipment.
OK. All that being said, where am I right in my assumptions, and more importantly, where am I wrong?
As the comedian Ron White (Blue Collar Comedy Tour) says, "I told you that story to tell you this story." I have many different bass sounds that I have been able to attain, but I have always wanted to nail Geddy Lee's 1970's sound and have yet to get it accurately. I do not yet own a Ric. Would I be able to buy a newer Ric, which I understand would have hotter pickups (have read several threads saying the Hi-Gains have been wound progressively hotter through the years) than Geddy's early to mid 70's Hi-Gains, and add the 0.0047 microfarad capacitor (between the treble/bridge volume attenuator and the pickup selector???) and adjust the windings of the pickup to replicate Geddy's bridge pickup? I believe (if anyone knows, please correct me) his main 4001 was a 1973 made in the later half of the year after they switched the neck pickup (I forget if it was the position or away from toaster). Regardless, the Ric I like of his has the high-gains in both neck and bridge positions and the neck p/u is after the move away from the neck. Does anyone know or more likely have a good guess on what approximate resistance I would need to shoot for to replicate his bridge pickup based on the year of his 4001 or possibly based on just hearing his overdriven sound? (He ran bridge p/u to overdriven amp and neck p/u to clean amp.)
Sorry this is so long winded, but you guys are the experts and this seems like the perfect thread to bring up these many questions I have had for quite awhile. Thank you for your time in answering these questions and sharing your knowledge with this electrical novice. Please correct me anywhere my assumptions have been wrong.
Oh! By the way, this is my first post! My name is Jon. I've been reading the Ric Forum for about a month now with great interest. This place is great! I don't think anyone else knows their favorite guitars like you guys know your Rics. I have wanted a Ric bass for years. They look great and sound even better. I'm making sure I know everything I can, so I can make an educated decision on what to buy since these bad boys are pricey. Putting it simply, I want to nail Geddy's sound as accurately as possible for playing Rush tunes. (I know about the "Geddy's hands" thing, that's why I said "as close as possible")
Thank you!
Rickless
I have never opened up a pickup and I have never measured the resistance of a pickup. Do you connect an ohmeter to the two leads hanging off the pickup that get soldered to the attenuators (volume/tone)? If I wanted to increase or decrease the gain of my pickup by adding or taking away copper wire, how do I do this. I'm terrified of ruining my equipment.
OK. All that being said, where am I right in my assumptions, and more importantly, where am I wrong?
As the comedian Ron White (Blue Collar Comedy Tour) says, "I told you that story to tell you this story." I have many different bass sounds that I have been able to attain, but I have always wanted to nail Geddy Lee's 1970's sound and have yet to get it accurately. I do not yet own a Ric. Would I be able to buy a newer Ric, which I understand would have hotter pickups (have read several threads saying the Hi-Gains have been wound progressively hotter through the years) than Geddy's early to mid 70's Hi-Gains, and add the 0.0047 microfarad capacitor (between the treble/bridge volume attenuator and the pickup selector???) and adjust the windings of the pickup to replicate Geddy's bridge pickup? I believe (if anyone knows, please correct me) his main 4001 was a 1973 made in the later half of the year after they switched the neck pickup (I forget if it was the position or away from toaster). Regardless, the Ric I like of his has the high-gains in both neck and bridge positions and the neck p/u is after the move away from the neck. Does anyone know or more likely have a good guess on what approximate resistance I would need to shoot for to replicate his bridge pickup based on the year of his 4001 or possibly based on just hearing his overdriven sound? (He ran bridge p/u to overdriven amp and neck p/u to clean amp.)
Sorry this is so long winded, but you guys are the experts and this seems like the perfect thread to bring up these many questions I have had for quite awhile. Thank you for your time in answering these questions and sharing your knowledge with this electrical novice. Please correct me anywhere my assumptions have been wrong.
Oh! By the way, this is my first post! My name is Jon. I've been reading the Ric Forum for about a month now with great interest. This place is great! I don't think anyone else knows their favorite guitars like you guys know your Rics. I have wanted a Ric bass for years. They look great and sound even better. I'm making sure I know everything I can, so I can make an educated decision on what to buy since these bad boys are pricey. Putting it simply, I want to nail Geddy's sound as accurately as possible for playing Rush tunes. (I know about the "Geddy's hands" thing, that's why I said "as close as possible")
Thank you!
Rickless
Welcome aboard, Jon.
You gotta be looking for this:
Your reasonings on RIC pickups are pretty spot on.
As for Geddy Lee's '70s sound, I think that Badass bridge on there is a sonic factor too, though I prefer the look of the RIC bridge/tailpiece. I'm sure some of our forum friends will chime in on the subject soon.
***Get "Rickful" soon!***
You gotta be looking for this:
Your reasonings on RIC pickups are pretty spot on.
As for Geddy Lee's '70s sound, I think that Badass bridge on there is a sonic factor too, though I prefer the look of the RIC bridge/tailpiece. I'm sure some of our forum friends will chime in on the subject soon.
***Get "Rickful" soon!***
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jwr2
Jon: If you take a brand new 4003 off the shelf or a 1970's used Ric ... both of them will approximate Geddy's sound. There is a difference but not a huge one.
Geddy plays many basses and sounds good on all of them ... most fans agree he sounds best with the Ric ... I was looking at a Rush web site and they had several threads about the Ric bass sounding better and "Geddy please bring back the Ric" ...
To get the Geddy sound these days you may want to employ a sans amp or bass pod or other front end device to add drive and distortion.
More windings around a pickup means a thicker tone ... there will be some increase in volume, but not as much as you might think. Also more windings will distort sooner when overdriven. Less windings on a pickup gives it the jangley 60's sound.
It's kinda cool to have several basses so you can have some of each.
Geddy plays many basses and sounds good on all of them ... most fans agree he sounds best with the Ric ... I was looking at a Rush web site and they had several threads about the Ric bass sounding better and "Geddy please bring back the Ric" ...
To get the Geddy sound these days you may want to employ a sans amp or bass pod or other front end device to add drive and distortion.
More windings around a pickup means a thicker tone ... there will be some increase in volume, but not as much as you might think. Also more windings will distort sooner when overdriven. Less windings on a pickup gives it the jangley 60's sound.
It's kinda cool to have several basses so you can have some of each.
Hi Jon,
There is a photo of him in Richard Smiths Rickenbacker book with a Jetglo '72 (it says) 4001 Ric with Grovers I think that bass also had two high gains, and I think it also had the bass pickup in the old position, and I don't remember the bridge being different. (I am out of the country and my book is in Mass.)
By his sound do you mean the thin very trebly sound he had in the early days? If so I think an intact early 70's Ric with the .0047 uf. cap in place would be your best bet and I would lean heavily on the treble pickup. The early 70's Rics sound different than the later 70's Rics, the later ones are thicker sounding.
There is a photo of him in Richard Smiths Rickenbacker book with a Jetglo '72 (it says) 4001 Ric with Grovers I think that bass also had two high gains, and I think it also had the bass pickup in the old position, and I don't remember the bridge being different. (I am out of the country and my book is in Mass.)
By his sound do you mean the thin very trebly sound he had in the early days? If so I think an intact early 70's Ric with the .0047 uf. cap in place would be your best bet and I would lean heavily on the treble pickup. The early 70's Rics sound different than the later 70's Rics, the later ones are thicker sounding.
Welcome aboard, Jon! I too was trying to nail the Geddy tone with my Rick (a '92 4003), and I did end up unwinding the pickups (from 12K ohms to 7.5K) and adding in the .0047 cap. The result was a very close approximation of that '70s sound, though it should be noted that there are other structural differences (both with the pickups themselves as well as the neck/body/etc) between the '70s models and the '90s and beyond models (and indeed, from year to year) to take into consideration. I did eventually take out the .0047 cap because I wanted to get a little more low-mid beef back into my tone, but it's still a very bright bass. (Now I'm thinking of taking the plunge and installing a toggle switch to switch the cap in and out, to switch between beefy clank and classic clank.)
Welcome Jon, you will find this forum is different than "those other forums". I think the members here really do care about our chosen musical labor of love.
Here is a photo of my '73 4001 that has a new pickguard so that I can have a VVT control arrangement along with a switch to choose between the .0047 cap and a piece of wire for the treble pickup. This gives me a lot of sonic choices and it is totally reversible just by reinstalling the original pickguard. There is no stereo in this setup so I have dual mono output jacks which is handy fo a variety of uses.
Here is a photo of my '73 4001 that has a new pickguard so that I can have a VVT control arrangement along with a switch to choose between the .0047 cap and a piece of wire for the treble pickup. This gives me a lot of sonic choices and it is totally reversible just by reinstalling the original pickguard. There is no stereo in this setup so I have dual mono output jacks which is handy fo a variety of uses.
The toaster is original, the only thing not original is the new pickguard and controls, and I replaced the Grover tuners with Hipshot Ultralites. I did do MA's bridge mod to be able to adjust the intonation easily. I wish this 4001 had the wide inlays as then it would be even nicer looking as it does have the checker binding, kind of hard to see in this low resolution photo. I do have much higher res photos available; it is too bad we can't post bigger files as this site is a great repository of all things Rick.
I got Richard Smith's book in front of me and the picture of Geddy has a mic stand in front of his bass so it is hard to tell whether the neck pickup is a toaster or hi gain, but it is in the 1/2" position and I can't tell if the bass has the checker binding as the resolution isn't so good in the photo.
This one is for you, Rick bass experts. The treble pickup hereunder is on Ebay. The seller says it measures 4.8 K. That's right, 4.8 K. Assuming the pickup is totally stock, what's the only Rick bass model it could have come from?
A Rickenbacker bass is much like the Jaguar E car - perennially ultra-fashionable.
