Rickenbacker 4002 - George Cole Interview?

[squirebass]

I have lusted after these basses since I first heard about them in the early '80s, but they quit making them before I was able to place my order. But I never heard much about George Cole, I was always under the impression that John Hall had a lot to do w its development. Is there talk of reissuing these? If so, I will be quicker to get my order in!

[nixdad]

I have lusted after these basses since I first heard about them in the early '80s, but they quit making them before I was able to place my order. But I never heard much about George Cole, I was always under the impression that John Hall had a lot to do w its development. Is there talk of reissuing these? If so, I will be quicker to get my order in!

Hi squirebass -
I don't believe there's any chance of Rickenbacker reissuing the 4002 in its original form. However, since 2013 they have made a handful of 4002 "Factory Special" instruments, of which only 10 or so have been offered. I'm currently working on a video about the original 4002 basses and the Factory Special instruments which I expect to have done and posted on YouTube by the end of March, 2025.

Thanks for your comments!
Chris

[iiipopes]

I have lusted after these basses since I first heard about them in the early '80s, but they quit making them before I was able to place my order. But I never heard much about George Cole, I was always under the impression that John Hall had a lot to do w its development. Is there talk of reissuing these? If so, I will be quicker to get my order in!

Hi squirebass -
I don't believe there's any chance of Rickenbacker reissuing the 4002 in its original form. However, since 2013 they have made a handful of 4002 "Factory Special" instruments, of which only 10 or so have been offered. I'm currently working on a video about the original 4002 basses and the Factory Special instruments which I expect to have done and posted on YouTube by the end of March, 2025.

Thanks for your comments!
Chris

I concur. Not the least of which is because: 1) the issues world-wide with ebony and other hardwoods, including bubinga, which a few years ago RIC obviated by switching to chechen fingerboards; and 2) Those "specials" had/have current RIC HB pickups, not the end-to-end HB pickups on the original 4002's. They do sound different: wired straight, the current pickups have more gain and mids compared to the originals. Funny story: right after I got my 4002 in the early '90's, I contacted RIC thinking I had a bad bridge pickup. After a long wait, they said they found one remaining pickup on the back of a shelf, would I like it? Yes, please. I don't even remember how much I paid for it. Well, when I got inside my bass, the only problem was a bad solder joint. So I resoldered the joint on the pot tab, and then I had an extra 4002 bridge pickup for years. I finally sold it to an enthusiast who installed it on one of his basses. As far as I know he still plays the bass in which he installed it. With the lesser primary windings, the 4002 bridge pickup doesn't make for much of a bridge pickup, but it is very clear and clean in the neck position of a 4001/3.

[nixdad]

I have lusted after these basses since I first heard about them in the early '80s, but they quit making them before I was able to place my order. But I never heard much about George Cole, I was always under the impression that John Hall had a lot to do w its development. Is there talk of reissuing these? If so, I will be quicker to get my order in!

Hi squirebass -
I don't believe there's any chance of Rickenbacker reissuing the 4002 in its original form. However, since 2013 they have made a handful of 4002 "Factory Special" instruments, of which only 10 or so have been offered. I'm currently working on a video about the original 4002 basses and the Factory Special instruments which I expect to have done and posted on YouTube by the end of March, 2025.

Thanks for your comments!
Chris

I concur. Not the least of which is because: 1) the issues world-wide with ebony and other hardwoods, including bubinga, which a few years ago RIC obviated by switching to chechen fingerboards; and 2) Those "specials" had/have current RIC HB pickups, not the end-to-end HB pickups on the original 4002's. They do sound different: wired straight, the current pickups have more gain and mids compared to the originals. Funny story: right after I got my 4002 in the early '90's, I contacted RIC thinking I had a bad bridge pickup. After a long wait, they said they found one remaining pickup on the back of a shelf, would I like it? Yes, please. I don't even remember how much I paid for it. Well, when I got inside my bass, the only problem was a bad solder joint. So I resoldered the joint on the pot tab, and then I had an extra 4002 bridge pickup for years. I finally sold it to an enthusiast who installed it on one of his basses. As far as I know he still plays the bass in which he installed it. With the lesser primary windings, the 4002 bridge pickup doesn't make for much of a bridge pickup, but it is very clear and clean in the neck position of a 4001/3.

Hey Scott -
Do you happen to remember who is on the cover of the Guitar Player Magazine with the 4002 mention?
- Billy Gibbons w/doubleneck?
- The Ventures?
- Alber Lee?
- Al Dimeola?
- Duane Allman?
- Kenny Burrell?
- Pat Methany?
- George Van Epps?
- Hank Garland?

If you remember, great, if not, please DO NOT dig for it.

Thanks,
Chris

[nixdad]

Chris, I own a 4002. I got it used in the early 90's. It is a 1981 model. For a couple of decades it was my only bass. I gigged it so much I wore the frets out, so I had it re-fretted by a sympathetic luthier who completely understands Rickenbacker basses and had the crown radius lowered from the old-style 7 1/4 inch radius to 10 inches. The neck on my particular bass has a really chunky profile, so lowering the crown radius made it much more playable and evened out some of the response inconsistencies caused by the old neck radius. Like any instrument: it had some great features; it was ahead of its time with some features; and some things just didn't work out. I will not presume to guess, presuppose, or extrapolate any of George Cole's thought processes, but "reverse thinking" analysis of some of the features might help. Somewhere in a box I have the original Guitar Player issue that had the first advertisement for the 4002, and had always wanted one since I was in high school in the 70's.

First, the pickups. They are the first iteration I can find of end-to-end, or split-coil in-line humbucking bass pickups. If someone knows any others, let me know. DiMarzio was only a couple of years behind with the introduction of the Model J in 1979 (with more wire on them then, but I digress....)

The interleafed bridge pickup to its own XLR jack was a great idea, but underdeveloped due to the technology of the day. Leo Fender a couple years earler had taken a similar idea and pioneered the onboard active bass circuits on the Music Man Sting-Ray. So there was never enough output unless you ran the XLR output to a separate preamp before going anywhere else with it. Unfortunately, I have never been able to find a good use of the low-impedance low-level use for this feature on the 4002.

Neck: singular among Rickenbacker instruments for having the ebony fret board, for the "premium" marketing. Then again, by comparison, bubinga was less expensive and that had become the "trademark" fret board wood. 4002s still had "hairpin" truss rods because the newer ones had not been invented yet.

Circuits: Why Rickenbacker developed the convoluted pickup circuits I will never know. Putting a high-pass capacitor on both pickups, even with the resistor bridging the capacitor for a little less tonal rolloff, caused phasing and comb filtering issues. I finally bypassed the high-pass capacitor on the neck pickup to get more fundamental, keeping the parts if they ever needed to be retrofitted for sale. And because the bridge pickup had less impedance due to having less windings in order to make way for the interleafed Low-Z windings, that all but cured the phasing issues.

Finally, why the placement of the pickups? Simple. This was evidently to be Rickenbacker's direct competition to the Fender Jazz Bass, taken up a couple of notches with the different and additional features, finishing with the checkerboard binding, etc. Take a 4002 and a 60's pickup placement Fender Jazz Bass and line them up. The pickups will center on each other with the same spacing between them on each bass. Then with the pickups aligned, hold the basses there, and you will see that respectively the nut and the bridge saddles of the 4002 are both three-eighths of an inch inboard compared to the Jazz Bass. That makes up the difference in the differing scales: 33 1/4 inches for the 4002; 34 inches for the Fender.

Epilogue: and then, on the old RIC forum, Mr. JH posted, "4002? We didn't make many of those. They are as rare as hen's teeth." The effect of that statement was to immediately add a zero to the end of the dollar figure of value. Worse, the best strings for that bass were always GHS Progressives in custom gauges 45-60-80-106, which I purchased as singles from when Progressives first came out right after I got the bass, until they were discontinued during COVID. I have two sets NOS left. Hope all this helps.

Postscript: go to this threadhttps://www.rickresource.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... ne#p882353 to hear my 4002, my Rickenbacker 12-string overdub drone rhythm track, and my low background vocals on the last verse. My mods to my 360-12 are for another discussion for another day.

Hey Scott -
I was able to hunt down a photo of George Cole! He's on the far right. This photo will be included in the video.

Chris

[iiipopes]

Hey Scott -
I was able to hunt down a photo of George Cole! He's on the far right. This photo will be included in the video.
Chris

Thanks!

[nixdad]

Hey Scott -
I was able to hunt down a photo of George Cole! He's on the far right. This photo will be included in the video.
Chris

Thanks!

You bet!