Pictures of your Rickenbacker bass

gregson1 · Post by **gregson1** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 12:06 am

My current Rickenbacker lineup. '97 4003 (w/Toaster & Horseshoe) and '77 4002.

jnbass · Post by **jnbass** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 12:45 am

Hey Greg-

My cheapo Samsung monitor couldn't make out your '97 colour. Turq Glo?

Love that 4002!!!

rickenbrother · Post by **rickenbrother** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 6:47 am

Thanks Jeff and Jared.

...I sense the possibility of the first Rath modifaction of 2004, to his 4003S/5 blue beast...

Nice 4002 Greg.

Jared, the Rick family will welcome the 4004Cii5 with open arms...they would do the same for a 4002/5 Shadow Ltd. Edition, and maybe a Rick 8 string.

cheyenne · Post by **cheyenne** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 7:04 am

Got this really cool copier,fax,scanner,printer,everything but the kitchen sink machine for Christmas, so now I can show some of my old Rick photo's from back when I was young and dumb and not thinking to the future. Here's a '72 fireglow,# LI-948, and a '74 mapleglow,# NE-3072. The '72 has a non original pickguard and treble pickup surround. The mapleglow is all original and had kind of a funky mineral stain in the finish on the upper cutaway, with red side position markers. I wish I'd have stuck them under my bed and kept them.

gregson1 · Post by **gregson1** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 9:15 am

Jared--Yes, the 4003 is Turquoise. One of these days I'll actually get a good photo of that bass.

rickcrazy · Post by **rickcrazy** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 11:52 am

Joey: A great picture. Greg: The 4002 is very tempting. Scott: Those two are too much. My two 1974 4001s are ND and NF, so yours was between the two. Both have red side markers too - clearly this is a common feature on 1974 Ricks. As for the '72 one, that's exactly what my very first Rick bass, made in December '72, looked like. I let it go in early 1986.

rickcrazy · Post by **rickcrazy** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 12:31 pm

http://pub206.ezboard.com/fthedudepitfrm64.showMessage?topicID=116.topic

An incredible picture of Grant Arthur's January 1971 21 fret 4001. Enjoy.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 2:23 pm

Greg, what does your 4002 sound like? I've never heard nor seen one in the flesh.

paul_yan · Post by **paul_yan** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 8:25 pm

Sweet sweet 4002, Greg!!!

The '71 4001 BG 21 fretter posted at the Dudepit is so tempting!

gregson1 · Post by **gregson1** » Sat Jan 03, 2004 11:55 am

How's it sound? Depends on which jack I use!

The strings are Elixir Nanowebs 45-65-85-105. I use my fingers to play. I normally use an Aguilar DB659 preamp into an EBS AC-300 active cabinet (15" w/ horn tweeter) with a 4003 (w/toaster & horse shoe). Settings on the preamp were made for that bass. So, this morning when I connected the 4002 to the DB659, I couldn't get a decent tone out of it to save my life--until I boosted the gain on the outbound side of the effects channel quite a bit. Nice and growly! When turning down the gain a little, the tone went smooth and warm. It's a lot like a nice passive jazz bass. I don't slap much, but if the stings were raised a bit, it could do the job. All the way up the neck, plays nice and chords ring out nicely. No pickup noice, which I do get with the single coils on the 4003. The other thing I noticed is that it was in tune right out of the case. I haven't had it out to play in almost three months.

I went a step further and jacked into the Lo-Z output using a microphone cable to a 1/4" adapter to the passive input to the DB659. With levels on the pre set at midrange, it was kind of thin sounding, but very clean, until I adjusted the treble Tone knob on the bass from max treble 3/4 the way to max bass. Very nice, but not very loud.

I was once again reminded that when using the Lo-Z output, that Treble Tone knob is the only control that functions on the bass. The output from that jack is taken only from the secondary winding on the treble (bridge) pickup. You CAN also simultaneously use either the Mono or Stereo Jack with the Lo-Z jack, should you need that. Nice to have options, I guess.

Sound and tone are so subjective. With this bass, I can really dig in when I play. I could do a nice fat walking bass line when playing over the end of the neck and strong rock riffs when playing over the bass pickup. The neck is narrow and nicely rounded. Despite this, it doesn't favor a light touch. I'm sort of wondering how it would sound and play if I put a set of Roto's on it?

jnbass · Post by **jnbass** » Sat Jan 03, 2004 12:47 pm

oh yeah...

atomic_punk · Post by **atomic_punk** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 7:20 pm

I've been meaning to post decent pictures of my Ric here for a while and finally got around to taking them! And while I am no Paul Yan, I think they are pretty nice. It's a '73 MG 4001, ML serial number, Jeff Rath had it before me and restored it to the state it is in now. Of course he got rid of the Ric-O-Sound and made it 2 mono outputs! Once he got bit with the 5-string bug, he let it go to me! Let me know what you think of it! Wish it had the full crushed MOP inlays!

jnbass · Post by **jnbass** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 7:26 pm

Hey that rug looks like checkered binding!

ojobob2 · Post by **ojobob2** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:03 am

nice steve. Like my 73 - only not black and not battered! question: does yours have really mini frets? mine does i dislike it. Guys do all the older basses have the smaller frets (well smaller than modern 4003's anyway.

atomic_punk · Post by **atomic_punk** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 4:37 am

This one does have pretty small frets compared to some of my other basses (Jazz Bass especially) and it doesn't bother me all that much, I have adjusted my playing style a little to accomodate it! I just wish the inlays looked as nice as the early models!