4003 neck pickup

[armybass]

I do not have any suggestions only a comment that I too have the same frustrations. I notice it more on some Rics than others. The 89 Ric I just got has a toaster pup in the neck and it is the worst of all the Rics I have played as far as a lower output neck pup. It is also boomier and less articulate than any other Ric I have had. I guess maybe it is just that the bridge pup is so hot it makes the neck sound weaker?

[geofio]

They are always like that if it had the same output as the bridge pickup it would be overpowering.

[iiipopes]

Measure the pickup with an ohmmeter. This is easy to do: unscrew the plate, flip it over, set the selector switch to the bridge pickup, and you can read the true nature of the neck pickup off its leaf terminal of the selector switch. It should read steady, and depending on the year of manufacture, somewhere between, oh, say, about 8 kohms to 11 kohms - maybe more, maybe less. But it should read steady. If it reads too far outside these parameters, or reads infinite, or the needle or readout won't settle down, then you may have an open coil and need a new pickup or rewind.

A pickup with an open coil will still put out some signal, due to the nature of induction. But as you observe, it will only be a fraction of the signal put out by an intact pickup.

[rictified]

They are always like that if it had the same output as the bridge pickup it would be overpowering.

Yup and I set them pretty much for equal distance from the strings depending on the sound I get with both on, most of the Rick sound comes from the bridge pickup, predominantly the mids, the neck pickup adds the bottom. I usually back the neck off a bit otherwise the sound can be very bassy. Remember the original Rick bass was the 4000 and it had no neck pickup, they just added it to give them a little more bottom or at least that's the way I see it.

[Isaac]

Measure the pickup with an ohmmeter. This is easy to do: unscrew the plate, flip it over, set the selector switch to the bridge pickup, and you can read the true nature of the neck pickup off its leaf terminal of the selector switch. It should read steady, and depending on the year of manufacture, somewhere between, oh, say, about 8 kohms to 11 kohms - maybe more, maybe less. But it should read steady. If it reads too far outside these parameters, or reads infinite, or the needle or readout won't settle down, then you may have an open coil and need a new pickup or rewind.

A pickup with an open coil will still put out some signal, due to the nature of induction. But as you observe, it will only be a fraction of the signal put out by an intact pickup.

Yeah, I had that problem with my 4004Cii. Extremely weak on the neck pickup due to an open coil. Now I'm running it single coil, and it's much better.