50 gauge on a 4001

[nextcliffburton]

Hey guys I have been using 45 gauge rotosound strings on my 1980 4001. I was thinkin on upgrading to 50 gauge to get a heavier aggressive tone but I heard that I could be bad because of the trust rods in 4001. Anybody have any knowledge on this? Thanks!!

Jake

[weemac]

This will cause a fair bit of discussion!
Personally I would not go any higher than the 45-105 rotosounds on a Rickenbacker, it may handle it fine but many necks would suffer... However the 1980 4001 was about as strong as you could get!

Aggressive tone has more to do with type of string (roundwound vs flats) and your setup on the bass (crunchy and low action or clean and higher)
Of course the amp settings play a large part too.

The most aggressive bass I have has 40-100 strings on it..

[86kubicki]

A 4003 should be able to handle the tension, but 4001's seem to vary as far as their ability to handle heavier gauges. I had a late 70's 4001 that couldn't handle anything above 45-100 without developing some weird neck issues. It might be the sort of thing where you just have to try the strings out and see how your bass reacts.

[rickenbrother]

I'm hesitant to put a heavy gauge string set on a 4001 unless I'm tuning down. I've done that without any problems.

[paul_yan]

Jake, I once had 50-70-85-105 D'Addario nickelwounds on my '98 4003 for a while. The first 2 strings did get fatter sonically, but not more aggressive. I'd suggest dialing in more treble, along with more distortion or overdrive to add aggressiveness. Good luck on your quest for the ultimate tone!

[aceonbass]

I don't know why a 1980 4001 would have a stronger neck than any other. It has the same old style truss rods as any 60's 4000/4001. The standard Roto Swing Bass string set imparts about 40 lbs more tension to the neck than a set of similarly gauged nickle strings like the stock or EXL-170 D'Addarios that many use.

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

i used to use 50-110 on my '68 and '64. mind you my band tuned a semi tone down , so the ricks did a good job of not exploding into raw materials ! i figured they roughly equalled in tension in that tuning as the 45-105 did in A440. (just a guess, you scientists !)

my '68 is probably the thinnest neck on this forum and it took the strings well. i would not recommend 50-110 in standard tuning though unless you put a C-clamp on the first fret to keep it from popping !

maybe the R&D dept. at RIC has some specs on these questions. i'm sure they do testing as such to see how far people will go.

[weemac]

I don't know why a 1980 4001 would have a stronger neck than any other. It has the same old style truss rods as any 60's 4000/4001. The standard Roto Swing Bass string set imparts about 40 lbs more tension to the neck than a set of similarly gauged nickle strings like the stock or EXL-170 D'Addarios that many use.

I was just refering to the neck to body joint really. Look at a later 70s 4001 and thay have more wood (less routing) than any other Rick 400x bass before or after (excluding unrouted 4000s and early Ciis) Even 4003s have a bit of wood missing to get at the truss rods.
Also many later 70s basses have marginally bigger necks than earlier ones.

I've always found that Rotosounds are a bit lower tension than similarly gauged D'Addarios
I remember trying 45-100 D'Addarios on one of my Ricks and soon removing them and refitting the old Rotos as the D'adds pulled the neck foward and I did not want to adjust anything.
And when I put Rotos on one of my Waterstones after having D'adds on it I had to back the rods off a bit.
I'm not knocking D'Addarios but to me for their guages, I've found them to be some of the stiffest strings around...

Eden.

[aceonbass]

D'Addario does make a steel round wound string. Maybe that's what pulled your neck forward? I know for a fact that EXL-170's are right around 160lbs of tension and that the Roto Swing Bass is around 200lbs.

[weemac]

D'Addario does make a steel round wound string. Maybe that's what pulled your neck forward? I know for a fact that EXL-170's are right around 160lbs of tension and that the Roto Swing Bass is around 200lbs.

I'll have to give them another shot sometime as I don't mind the sound of them....

Eden.

[VRICKY63]

D'Addario does make a steel round wound string. Maybe that's what pulled your neck forward? I know for a fact that EXL-170's are right around 160lbs of tension and that the Roto Swing Bass is around 200lbs.

Where do you get your facts Dane ? Or are you just butchering numbers ?

[cassius987]

D'Addario does make a steel round wound string. Maybe that's what pulled your neck forward? I know for a fact that EXL-170's are right around 160lbs of tension and that the Roto Swing Bass is around 200lbs.

Where do you get your facts Dane ? Or are you just butchering numbers ?

Dane's numbers sound pretty good, although 200 is higher than I'd guess "on the spot" (but that means absolutely nothing). The main thing is that he really needs to mention what gauges he's talking about for the Rotos. For reference, the D'Addario ProSteels set EPS165 (45-65-85-105) puts a total of 171.4 lbs of tension on the neck. If I had to guess at Rotos I'd say they carry an extra 5-6 lbs/string, meaning around 190-200 lbs. The D'Addario Nickel XLs he's referring to total at 172.6 lbs so he's actually quite close for just pulling that number out on the spot, or so I assume.

For what it's worth, I concern myself not only with how much tension is added to the neck total, but also the variance between the respective strings. Lower variance ought to be better for combating neck curve although *no* variance isn't necessarily ideal. I also tend to enjoy the sound of a little more tension in a string as opposed to a little less...

[aceonbass]

My numbers are approximate from memory. I got them from the Just Strings website. Another thing to consider, even if the the neck can still be adjusted flat with a higher tension string,is that the neck can still be pulled forward by flexing slightly in the area where the neck joins the body wings. The routing there takes a lot of strength out of this area. This usually causes a shallower neck angle, resulting in the strings hitting bridge pickup surrounds without the notch, and action that can't be adjusted any lower at the bridge.