Advice/info requested: "upgrading" the pickups on a 4003

[megarat]

Hey all, longtime lurker, first-time poster. It's an excellent forum here, and I apologize in advance if the question I'm asking has an easy answer to be found elsewhere, but I haven't been able to uncover it with basic searches, so please refer me onward if that's the best response.

I'm the proud owner of a recent (2012) 4003, which I love to death, but I keep pining for more of that 4001-esque sound that drew me to the Ric in the first place. Hence I'm looking at the two pickup options available for this bass: the bridgeside RIHS pickup, and/or the neckside toaster pickup. I have a number of questions I'd like to get answers to before pulling the trigger on this.

(1) What empirical changes should I expect with each of these replacements? I don't mean "It'll make it better", as that's a matter of taste, but I'm interested in direct effects on the tone and/or timbre of the instrument. It sounds like replacing the hi-gain neck pickup with the toaster will reduce the midrange, but I can't get a feeling for what changing the bridge pickup will do. Can anyone offer any insight on this? Or are there any before/after sound files or demos available?

(2) Some have said that if you're going to replace the neck pickup with a toaster, you should also move it to the 0.5" position, and that some 4003s are pre-routed for this placement. I don't know if mine is pre-routed or not, but should it be, moving the pickup to this position implies that I would need a new pickguard as well. What's the typical solution for this?

(3) It's also been said that, with a neck pickup replacement, it needs to be "capped" or else it will be drowned out by the bridge pickup. My 4003 has the "vintage sound" capacitor installed, which is activated by the push-pull switch. Is this the cap being mentioned, or is this referring to something else?

That's all I can think of for now, any help would be appreciated, and I'll probably have more questions along the way.

[geofio]

why not just use the stereo out and eq the individual pickups the way you want them. that is the idea of that output. then you can have any balance of tone/level from both pickups.

[antipodean]

Hi Craig, and welcome!

There are a few flavours of the "classic" 4001 with 1/2 inch neck pickup spacing:

- Magnetic Horseshoe (HS) Pickup and toaster (pre '69) - this is a tough sound to emulate as the old HS had a unique sound that the current RI HS doesn't really match;
- Bridge low resistance (6-7.5 kohm) hi-gain and toaster ('68/69 to late '73), though early hi-gains;
- Two low resistance hi-gains ('74 and '75, when 1 inch neck spacing was adopted).

The biggest "issue" with the current 4003 mimicking these later two "classic" 4001 (apart form pickup placement) is that the pickups are way too hot. You should be able to get them rewound to a more vintage spec for around $60 per pickup (that's what Fralin quotes per coil) plus shipping. This will get you close to the right sound, particularly as you already have the vintage tone circuit. Changing pickup placment will require a new 'guard which will cost another $50 from Pickguardian, plus shipping. To my ear the difference between the RI toaster a low resistance vintage hi-gain and a modern rewound hi-gain is pretty minimal (I find the RI toaster a tad warmer), particularly relative to the difference between the vintage and RI HS.

On the other hand, the RI toaster is a great pickup that will do the right job as a neck pickup, but you'll be left with an overly hot bridge pickup and have spent $150 on the toaster, which is $30 more than getting both pickups rewound.

[clankchris]

This may sound silly, but before even touching your pickups you might want to go with higher value pots. Higher values = brighter, more "open" sounding pickups.

My '03 4003 is supposed to have 330K pots all around, but they actually measured in the upper 200's. Since I only use a little of my neck pickup, I left the tone and volume pots stock.

I changed my bridge tone pot to a no-load, and I changed my volume pot to a 750K. I liked it so much that I later put a 2meg there now(can't use a no-load as volume, or I would).

Here it is with the 750K volume and no-load tone in it. With the 2meg, it's such a high value you'll probably lose usefulness of your bridge's volume(I didn't care so much)

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single ... i&newref=1

That was with a Darkglass B3K(overdrive) and a Vox AC30(Chris Squire actually recorded with one at some point) plugin going into a "Marshall" cab. I get very similar results using the B3K through my Gallien Krueger amp and an SM57.

P.S. - I do hope you're already using stainless strings.

[vax2002]

Replacing pickups can make the bass more jazz bass like, but that is why you Buy a Rick, you walk in a room with a band playing and you know instantly the player has a Rickenbacker in his hands, they are not smooth, they are like a uncontrollable madman in a cage.
Learn to harness that sound and work with it and your bass sound will be the envy of the neighbourhood.
Or you can tame it, make it sound like other smooth, lifeless twangy, funky basses and then soundlike everyone else.

Stick with the stocks, use slightly lighter gauge strings, lower the action and lift the picks and they come to life.
A bit like poking the madman in the cage with a stick.

[clankchris]

Mark, you should write ads for Ric!

[rickenbrother]

Or you can tame it, make it sound like other smooth, lifeless twangy, funky basses and then soundlike everyone else.

That's exactly the same thing I say to myself as I walk around the NAMM show and stop by the high $$ boutique bass guitar manufacturers booths and many of the bass amp manufacturers booths that have some of the high $$ boutique bass guitars in them. They ALL sound the same! I've even suggested to some of the people, even the top guy at bass amp booths that they should have a Rickenbacker available so I can hear what their amps really sound like. All I hear are the electronics of the bass guitars in the booths, mostly played by, as someone else working another non bass oriented booth called them, "Helicopter bassists". I did get to hear what a Tec-Amp really sounds like at the NAMM show. Two thumbs up!

[megarat]

Hey all, thanks for the feedback, it's been good food for thought. vax2002, your comments particularly resonated with me, as I'd rather not do too much monkeying around with this bass if I can avoid it, and I have to admit to myself, I'm still an acolyte in the land of Ric and have a lot to learn about making this bass sit up and bark.

That said, I'll probably order the pickups anyway, just to have them on-hand for the opportunity of upgrading later should the urge get critical. What level of expertise is required to do the exchange? I'm pretty facile with a soldering iron and good at following instructions, but I'm not an EE and not much good at reading schematics.

Thanks again.

[jps]

I'm still an acolyte in the land of Ric and have a lot to learn...

Thanks again.

[vax2002]

Personally I go for a Medium Light string gauge, then adjust the neck to get a flat action without over buzz, slight buzzing on the odd fret is fine IMO.
Then adjusting the pick-ups you can get them closer to the string than heavy gauge, you need that point where they clip and break up and then like setting up a tappet on an engine you back it off until only the highest peaks slightly clip the pick.
This gives you that percussion click on every pick, not over powering but there with a long sustain.

If your stings are too heavy like some are these days, you have to back the picks to far away and the bass looses that Devil hoodoo magic.

Once you get it right, you will know, as soon as you play at a gig, every bass players head spins straight round.