Toaster, GFS, Ric HB - where's the twang?

[larrylarry]

I have a Ric 620 with the high gain pickups. I'm looking for more twang! Output level is not a big issues nor is dealing with a bit of single coil hum.

I already replaced the pots with 500k pots. I'm getting more twang from my Tele and Strat - but I wanna play my Ric

Any suggestions of what to try, and where to get them would be great...

[jcreasy]

OK... I'm stoopid. What does changing the pots do?

[jps]

Are you looking for twang or is it jangle that you are after? I would try scatterwound toasters and boost your treble while cutting some mids.

[larrylarry]

The pots that were in it were 300k. I changed them to 500k to help bring out the treble.

Scatterwound toasters you say? Where can I buy them?

[jps]

You should be able to get them from any RIC dealer or from the RIC Boutique at their website.

[tennis_nick]

I'd say keep the Hi Gains and experiment with different capacitor values.

a touch of compression can bring out the dynamics (too much crushes em...) of a twangy playing style.

Match that with brighter cap value, you should be golden.

I think 500K would be too Ice picky to be twangy. Fenders after all only have 250K pots. Gibson uses 300K on the volume pots, but they should be 500K... thats for another thread..

[larrylarry]

I keep the tone control wide open all the time. I don't need to cut treble! I don't think a capacitor change will effect anything if I am not backing off the tone control.

The Rickenbacker website has no pickups available and it has been that way for as long as I've been checking (4 months).

The 500k volume/tone pots just let more treble through as far as I can tell. And the Ric high gain pickups are such high DC resistence that they are closer to a Gibson HB than a Fender pickup...

[tennis_nick]

A revelating perhaps? you could just keep your hi gains and unwind them? Or send them to Lindy Fralin, I'm sure he'll do the work for you (for a price of course) and you could have it wound to your specs. if yuo tell him the sound you want, I'm sure he could help. he's a pickup genius! he may just suggest swapping the magnet for an alnico one.

[jps]

Something else to consider, Larry, is the difference in construction of your Rick compared to a Strat or Tele, those being an ash or alder body with bolt on maple necks vs. the all maple neck through construction of the 620. That is also part of the tone recipe.

[soundmasterg]

I find that my 350V63 with toaster pickups sounds like a cross between a Tele and a Strat in that it has some of the quackiness of a Strat with the more powerful and fuller sound of a Tele. That said, it doesn't twang as much as either and never will because of the design of the pickup and the size of the RIC pickups. I'd suggest to try some toaster pickups as they may get you closest to where you want to be without putting a Strat or Tele pickup in your RIC. (Please don't do that!)

Greg

[larrylarry]

I would love to try some toaster pickups but I can't find them for sale anywhere

[ben_brown]

Supposedly you can get them from Mike Parks at The Rickenbacker Page...
http://www.the-music-connection.com/ricpart.htm#pickups