Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Wow, David's just found out how to quote!

Well done, mate.. now there's two of us who bother to use the feature.

The wrath of Rath! Aren't you the guy who regularly converts innocent Rics into narrow spaced 5 stringers? HA HA, just kidding!
I have one of my Rics set up with an EMG double coil in the bridge position and an EMG BTS preamp. Sounds incredible. Plenty of growl. I've had people ask "why does it still sound so much like a Rickenbacker?"
Anyway, to answer the original question, I'd go with the Sadowsky outboard pre. It's by-passable and it's bass and treble boost only with an additional volume knob and tuner out. Nice piece.
BTW - I'm looking at ditching the EMG and going with a HB-1 neck and 90s horseshoe bridge pup (if I ever find one) and the Sadowsky pre.

Mark.. I think I saw you quote for the first time and went looking for the way to do it!

Tom, that's what I'm saying. A Rick sounds like a Rick, even with something like EMGs. Low impedance pickups make the sound the bass makes.

Jeff, I like your sound, I do. A good Rick rock sound. If I were playing that type of thing I would use a sound something like that, and I have.

I sure don't play easy listening jazz! I'm more of a prog rock/fusion/alternative player. But as a builder, I wanted a bass that can do many things.

Now for the record I'm not a total EMG fan. I have a few issues with them, mainly that they are designed for a certain sound, i.e., the P sounds like a P, and the J sounds like a J. I'm looking for a more transparent pickup that just sounds like the bass.

Second, they all have widely varying outputs, so it's a bit hard to mix a 40J with a 40DC. But they are loud and don't hum much, and pretty much sound like the bass they are in. I plan on winding my own pickups in the near future to replace the EMGs.

For an example of a not so clean EMG sound, listen to this clip:

http://www.david-schwab.com/music/i_close_my_eyes_3-8-04.mp3

It's not an aggressive song, so the bass is pretty laid back, but it's still quite dirty sounding.

And for some growl and punch I like this sound:

http://www.david-schwab.com/music/newfunk.mp3

This is a loop of an unfinished song. As such it's a very rough mix (as is the first clip), and the bass could have a bit more bite.

But these were recorded direct into a digital mixer, with only some compression. The overdrive on the first track is a VST plugin.

Now for a real fat EMG sound with growl and bite, this clip has my fretless 5 with a single EMG DC in the "Music Man" position. There's no distortion on that bass track.

http://www.david-schwab.com/music/Song2.mp3

Incidentally, I'm playing all the parts on these tracks.

I never claimed to not be opinionated ... there is no right and wrong when it comes to pickup preferences ... but I tried active basses and decided I prefer passive basses ... I tried putting different pickups into Rics and decided I didn't like it ... if you do go with active get a good 3 band preamp ... the musicman 3 band is a good one and the dean 8 string bass has a good one too ... my Dean hammer 10 has a 2 band and I don't like it or the pickups ... I will probably wire it like a t-bird bass with 2 fat hot series humbuckers in pasive mode and 500k ohm volume and tone controls ... plus when you go passive you don't have to mess with those damn 9 volt batteries ... hey I just realized when it comes to my bass playing i am passive aggressive ... hahahahaha ...

Why play a ric If you have to modify it with different electronics,different pickups ...for looks??

why go out and get an SS Chevelle with a 454 and put a 426 Hemi in it,It really doesnt make sense.

Go out and get a Cuda with or add a Hemi to it.

A Ric is known for its sound]tone] by changing electronics,pickups...that sound is gone...AND THATS THE FACT JACK!

if you put active electronics in a Ric you will decrease its resale value ...

Jeff, well put. I agree, and we disagree, and that's what makes us all individuals. But I also wouldn't want all my basses to have the same pickups either. When I get my Ricks back together I'm leaving them stock.

But this has all been the culmination for me, to find the sound in my head. If I put passive pickups in my five string, I'd be sitting there thinking "where's all the sound gone?"

I started modifying my Ricks because I couldn't get the sound I wanted... although they got a good Rick sound.

Then I bought the Ibanez, and replaced the electronics in that. I loved the sound, but the narrow neck started bothering me, plus is wasn't a very stable neck.

So I started designing my own bass. And still, I keep changing them!

As you can see here, the bass on the left started out like the bass on the right, with an EMG 40P in the neck and a 40 J in the bridge. Then I made the fretless with the single DC humbucker and loved that sound, so I added a DC to the bass on the left. But then the 40J didn't cut it, so I started moving things around, and eventually pulled a EMG- J from my Ibanez and stuck it in that slanted position you see here.

Sooner or later I'll find the right combination!

if you put active electronics in a Ric you will decrease its resale value ...

And making them 5 strings won't?

Sorry.. couldn't resist!

That was why I said go with the EMG control. It will fit right in the existing tone control hole. There should be room for a battery somewhere...

I don't mod my basses to increase their value ... I do it to improve playability and sound ... but if you do mods to a Ric make them reversable if possible ... I had to modify my basses because Rickenbacker and Fender have never made a bass that suites me right out of the box ...

If you want an active bass with a Ric shape then have something like this built ...

Why play a ric If you have to modify it with different electronics,different pickups ...for looks??

Well from my own experience, I bought a Rick and I liked it. It had a great neck, and just felt right. It was a cool looking bass too. Now as far as why I bought a Rick? I did wanted a P-Bass, but then I saw Sir Paul had a Rick, and I liked his sound, and then I got into Yes, and I liked that sound too! And back then every one and their mother played a P. Not too many people had Ricks.

Then a guy in High School went and bought a Rick, because I was saying I wanted one. And he had a new SVT. So he brings them to school for a concert, and after I played the Rick, it was love I tell ya!

Now after I got my Rick, I played it a while with the flats it came with, and I loved the sound. But... I also wanted that Rick prog rock sound, so off went the flats, and on went some Rotosounds.. they weren't that common in 1973 either. Now my amp at the time was a B-15, which sounded good, but not loud enough... obviously. So I bought a brand new Peavey amp, just called "Bass" (what would be a Mark I.. I guess).

It sounded good, but I never got that Yes sound... I guess because Squire played through a Marshall.

As time went on I was seriously lacking in bottom end, first I added a P bass pickup, and then I replaced the toaster with a Carvin humbucker. It had a lot more bass, and still sounded like a Rick. One day I was messing with the treble pickup and broke the windings! Oops! So at first I replaced it with some generic single coil I took from some Eko guitar, which worked better than you would think!

Then I replaced it with a Hi-A pickup, which was the former name for Bartolini. This pickup kicked serious butt! It was loud, and thick and growly, and still have a nice bright top end.

So now I didn't have any stock Rick pickups on my bass. Then the frets started wearing from the Rotos, and the bass had too much fret buzz, so I refretted it with jumbo wire.

At each step it was to fix a problem... for instance, the stock bridge kept falling over and was hard to intonate, so I replaced it with a Badass II. Keep in mind that this was not a vintage bass at the time! And the mind set was these were better parts.

Then I installed a Bartolini preamp, and added phase switches, varitone, series/parallel for the Hi-A... after a while I had like 10 knobs and 12 switches! My friends called it the "Space Bass"

Also back then the original idea of "hi tech" basses started, with Stanley and his Alembic, and I remember seeing Jack Cassidy's bass in BP magazine, and wanted all this hi tech stuff too!

The next project was to add small red LED's as side markers. I never finished that, and the bass languished for some time, because I had picked up another used '73, which was left stock for a long time.

So... that's *my* saga. These were my main basses. I only played Ricks, but I wanted more out of them at the time. Modding guitars was a popular thing to do back then, with brass parts and the first replacement pickups and such, and I had grown from that stock Rick sound.

This did get me into guitar repair and then building them, so my Ricks were my guinea pigs.
Of course now I wish they were left stock.. but that's hind sight for ya!

And yes, they are great looking basses.

"A Ric is known for its sound]tone] by changing electronics,pickups...that sound is gone...AND THATS THE FACT JACK!"

to make a 70's Ric sound bigger louder and fuller take out the bass cut capaciter ...

Lemmy's original Rick had a T/Bird pickup in it (I LOVED that bass!), and the guy out of Ned's Atomic Dustbin used to use a Rick 4001 with an EMG in the treble pickup position, and that still sounded just like a Rick...but I'm a firm believer in the sound coming from the wood; as long as you're fitting a pickup that allows the sound of the instrument to come through you shouldn't go too far wrong. The only problem I have with actives is when they're ****, eg some issues with dynamics with some circuits.....but it's when the aesthetics go that I start to get worried (although some would say that about Lem's bass, which was my all-time favourite Rick, looks-wise...anybody got any T-Bird pickups? )

Got to say, I love the Epi Jack Casady, I think it sounds fabulous and I want one! Probably the best sounding instrument I've played in years. And as for my Alembic, well that sounds fabulous too; low impedance doesn't have to sound sterile....

Well that's my 2 cents anyway (runs for cover....)

Guys there's lots of ears out there and tone is such a personal issue. As we all know what sounds great to one person may sound like **** to another. The development and progress of the electric bass has brought many pioneers in differnt styles to give us the wide varitey of tones we have today. Personally I began playing in 1980 using Ricks, Fenders and Hofners. I then discovered active basses around 1989 and decided to sell them all to go active,(Big Mistake). I really liked the "active sound" and still do, but about 5 years ago I started yearning for the passive sound again. I began my quest of rebuying all the passive basses I had sold and am so glad I did. Personally I would not alter Rickenbacker pickups or electronics to make them active. To my ears there is such a difference between an active vs. passive sound, I believe you can have the best of both worlds by owning both. To my ears I love the sound of a stock Rick. Just my humble opinion of course.

I agree with Joseph,keep passive ,passive and active, active,Ive had many of basses over the years and the one thing that is constant is always having to restore some mod someone did to some poor bass.
If you want to make something sacrificial go find a Cort or a Squire to do your mods on.... Most of the reason people do mods to there instruments is to personalize them,to try to be different.