4004Cii Bridge Pickup Tone

[Isaac]

Played a show last night, and the bass sounded much better. Soloing the bridge pickup was useful, used it in a couple of songs, but it was not as loud as the neck pickup or both in parallel, so I need to find a way to adjust the balance. Not a lot of adjustment for pickup height on these basses, but I'll do what I can. I'm still thinking that switching the pups will be a good thing.

[rickyfricky]

Mr. Dane Wilder rewired my 4004 cii, and it made a WORLD of difference.

[aceonbass]

Mr. Dane Wilder rewired my 4004 cii, and it made a WORLD of difference.

[woodyng]

Hey Woody.....please tell the class WHO rewired your Ricks...

Some (atomic) Cat in Kansas City,i think....

The first time i heard the difference was when i bought a customised Laredo Dane had worked some miracles on,from another forumite. I then had him build wiring harnesses for 2 other 4004's after that. ( as well as a new wiring harness for my Fernandes 8-string bass).
It makes a major difference in the sound,and is a very reasonable price.

[Isaac]

500K pots make sense for humbucking pickups. A push-pull switch to tap the remaining humbucking pickup would also be nice. What size cap would work better than the .047 that comes stock?

[woodyng]

500K pots make sense for humbucking pickups. A push-pull switch to tap the remaining humbucking pickup would also be nice. What size cap would work better than the .047 that comes stock?

I believe Dane used a .022 of some kind. (Sprague,maybe?)

[aceonbass]

I use Cornell-Dubillier or Ajax .022uF caps. The 500K CTS pots I use are not off the shelf parts. They're custom made and spec out to within 10% of rated spec, and matched in pairs to within 1% of rated spec. It's unlikely pots purchased online will meet these specs.

[Isaac]

Agreed that stock pots would be unlikely to meet those specs, but how many people would be able to hear the difference? I don't know whether or not I could.

[aceonbass]

Stock pots aren't even close to those specs since RIC uses the same pot and cap for everything they make. If you can tell the difference between a Rick and a Fender, you can tell the difference.

[woodyng]

Agreed that stock pots would be unlikely to meet those specs, but how many people would be able to hear the difference? I don't know whether or not I could.

you can hear the difference even at low volume,so it is quite noticeable. It really makes the 4004 sound more like a traditional Rick,not completely,but a lot closer. When i got my 3rd 4004,i thought i might leave it stock,but after playing a few practices,i had to convert it like my other 2. It just sounded murky,and that was with a fresh set of RW DR Sunbeams.

[Isaac]

Seems to me that most of the difference would be in the higher resistance of the pots, and not in how closely they adhere to a spec. Sure, a 500K pot with a 20% tolerance might be as low as 400K, and that's not all that different from 330K, but is that the spec we're talking about? Or is it a proper taper, or something else?

[aceonbass]

Well, yes it is in the higher resistance in the pots, but the fact that 330K pots are too low, and most 500K pots are short of that, matched pots that are closer are far more consistant than off the shelf stuff. At least that's what my customers are telling me.

[Isaac]

Are they also true audio taper, or the approximation that is more or less standard in the industry these days? Again, I don't know that I'd be able to tell the difference, and I don't use my controls all that often, anyway.

[aceonbass]

Industry standard these days is usually audio taper, which is what my CTS pots are. If you don't have your controls cranked all of the time, then you're probably getting what you want out of them. Anyone who cranks their controls, then goes to the amp for more is missing out though for sure.

[Isaac]

My impression is that most audio taper pots these days are not really audio taper. Instead, they're dual linear, which actually approximates audio taper pretty well. I generally have my volume and tone controls on full, and change the volume and tone by changing the way I play, but there are exceptions.

This page explains what I mean by a dual linear approximation: http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/p ... tscret.htm