Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'll most likely be getting my bass next week, but she's wearing a replacement bridge, so it might tke me a little bit to clear certain purchases with the accountant (whip cracks in background.) I'm curious to see how it works myself!

The above picture of Kevin's 4000 and 4001 reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask for ages. Here goes: why is it that on the 4000 model the neck enters the body with a slightly different orientation (when you view the bass from the front, that is) than on the 4001/4003 model? The fact that the bridge assembly on a 4000 is located slightly more to the left (again when viewing the bass from the front) than on a 4001/4003 confirms what I'm saying. What's the story here? Anyone?

If I had a 4000 I would be tempted to put a 4003 high gain and a jazz/mute pickup and wire it volume, volume, tone ...

I put the Bartolini mute pickup in my 4003, and while it does add a little something extra to the sound, I find I don't use it. In fact, right now it's disconnected except for the ground wire (otherwise, the bass has stock pickups in the standard wiring configuration.) The next time I find myself taking off the bridge I'm going to take it out.

I tried the bartolini mute pickup as well ... I didn't like the sterile character of the sound ... it was better than the seymour duncan Ric pickups which are also sterile sounding ... but the seymour duncan jazz pickups have a nice sound ...

Sorry for reviving an old thread for a dumb question but...

Jeff- what tailpiece do you use? I found one for my '77 from a kind-hearted forum member off of a '75 4000.... but the solid metal ribs over the mute might seem to get dead in the way of the pickup. I know Rick made a couple of different ones... which one should I look for, keeping in mind I don't own power tools beyond a cordless drill?

I use a 4003s5 tail piece or a regular 4003 tailpiece or an allparts tail piece ... I have to remove the suprestructure to accomadate 5 strings instead of 4 ... but to fit in the jazz pickup I remove the jazz pickup cover and trim about 3/16" off of the bobbin and put some foam rubber under it and yes you do have to remove the tailpiece to put the pickup in there and you have to attach the ground wire to a new location ...

In my opinion a normal 4001/4003 does not need this mod ... but the 4003s5 with its 15k ohm overwound pickup is helped by this mod ...

Jeff...

Basically I'm setting it up to run to the normal ROS jack, so I can have an additional rig set up with a footswitch to kick in an almost rhythm-guitar sound in addition to the straight 4001. That way, if there's space to be filled I can essentially double myself. The bass itself will run 100% mono but the Jazz pickup can be routed to it's own setup.

I was going to do it and run the bass VVVT but a close friend who played in a 3-piece for a long time suggested it. He ran a signal splitter... mine will essentially be on-board.

Bob ... if you are going to try all of that I say take all of the existing electronics out and leave them wired stock and then put in your electronics and see if you like it better ... then if you don't you can easily replace the original stuff ...

I might have explained that wrong!

The only difference is that the Ricky pickups will be wired to the mono jack, like a V63. All vol-tone controls stay the same. Then, the Jazz p/u would be sent direct to the ROS jack, so when I don't need that pickup I just don't plug it in.

By onboard signal splitter... I should have said that I'll have my choice in terms of what I plug in.

When you remove the mute superstructure... how do you do it?

A dremel with the cutting disk ... and then I have to grind it down with the sanding wheels ... it is a fair amount of work and you have to be slow and careful not to ruin your tailpiece ... it is only necessary if you want to palm mute or have 5 strings ... it is not necessary to get a jazz pickup in there ...

Oh Ok... I very seldom play with a pick and never palm-mute, so no troubles there!