Weak 480 bridge pickup (.0047 mfd cap)

[maxwell]

I'm looking at the solder joints and a couple of them look a little shaky to me - like the solder did not flow well. I'd check all the solder joints related to the bridge pickup. It's not too difficult to heat up the suspicious solder joints and allow the solder to flow a little better. I don't know... just brainstorming. Leave them alone if they look OK to you.

[patinmexico]

Done.
Never looking back, folks! Remove dat damn cap, it's useless!!!

Neck pickup is (still) insanely loud and bassy, but it's cool for fuzztones. The HB1 is nice and clear, and the middle position still has a bit of that Rick chime - although of course, the 480 is a very unique beast.

Thanks y'all!

[scott_s]

Another thing you could try is to simply swap the neck and bridge Hi-Gains to see if that is to your liking. I honor what Rickenbacker was trying to do, but I don't like or need that much tonal variation between pickups. Currently I have a Toaster (7.4k) in the neck position and a Hi-Gain (12k) in the bridge position of my 330, and it balances out pretty well for me.

[kennyhowes]

Nope - the pole spacing is different between the neck and bridge pickups…

[scott_s]

Nope - the pole spacing is different between the neck and bridge pickups…

Rats, thanks for the correction, though!

[iiipopes]

Done.
Never looking back, folks! Remove dat damn cap, it's useless!!!

Neck pickup is (still) insanely loud and bassy, but it's cool for fuzztones. The HB1 is nice and clear, and the middle position still has a bit of that Rick chime - although of course, the 480 is a very unique beast.

Thanks y'all!

The thread went away when RIC reconfigured the factory forum, but I used to have a 25 page thread that discussed my wiring diagram where I put a 500 kohm push-pull on the 5th knob to have the .0047 in-line cap either in or out of the circuit without changing what the controls do. If you would like that diagram, please email me at [email protected] and put "iiipopes mod" in the subject line, and I will send it to you.

[patinmexico]

Done.
Never looking back, folks! Remove dat damn cap, it's useless!!!

Neck pickup is (still) insanely loud and bassy, but it's cool for fuzztones. The HB1 is nice and clear, and the middle position still has a bit of that Rick chime - although of course, the 480 is a very unique beast.

Thanks y'all!

The thread went away when RIC reconfigured the factory forum, but I used to have a 25 page thread that discussed my wiring diagram where I put a 500 kohm push-pull on the 5th knob to have the .0047 in-line cap either in or out of the circuit without changing what the controls do. If you would like that diagram, please email me at [email protected] and put "iiipopes mod" in the subject line, and I will send it to you.

Thanks so very much, but since the 480 doesn't have the 5th knob - and my 360 is of 1990 vintage - it wouldn't really be of any use for me.
Cheers!