Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Yeah! It took me nearly a year using different eq settings, amps, volume levels etc... That little cap is on loads of great songs. I hear people praising the tone on these recordings. It seems people nowadays want volume, volume, output, volume. Tone is the secret. Anyone can crank an amp and melt peoples faces. That's easy. It's good that RIC have reconsidered the 'vintage' sound. The new feature on '06 basses will keep everyone happy. Each to their own. As long as it's a Ricky. I'll listen to it.

Greetings to everyone on this forum and all Rick owners. We are the chosen.... Hahaha!!!

Bartolinis are excellent pickups. I have a set in my Fakeland. Barts are made to a very high standard and the production is very small.

I have to say that I respectfully disagree with you, Mark. I have an (almost) controlled experiment. When comparing my capless:
'87 4003
'76 4001
'03 4001C64S or
'98 4001V63
to my capless '94 4003(with the current version of the 4003 hi-gain pickups), the '94 4003 is boomy, distorted, growly and not as pleasing to these ears.

Thanks for the comments, Jeff. I know the 'older' cap-ped sound is not to everyones taste. I suppose it does depend on what Rick you have, amps, etc.
I just seem to prefer the growly, in yer face noise that the cap gives. It snarls, and that's what I like.
As long as the Rickenbacker bass is around, then I'll be happy, cap or no cap. It's lovely!
(I think we're getting off the original thread topic. Oh well. Ha ha)

The barts I stuck in my 5'er are very nice. Really versitle sound, and defintly better than it was before.

I have the SD in the bridge. It's nothing to get excited about. I have heard an HB-1 in the bridge and it sounds very nice. So if you want to go with a humbucker, you still need not look any father than the RIC factory website.

if you rewire the sd bridge pickup from parallel to series and put in a 500k ohm volume pot it should sound better but I would still take an hb1 or hb2 or modern high gain pickup instead ...

I also will vouch for the Bartolinis. I have the neck replacement model and a one-off Bart humbucker in the bridge, and they are great...smooth and balanced. Coil tap them, and they sound closer to the stock pickups. Also got their p-bass replacement on another bass. I just prefer humbuckers in a bass, period..the mids are more solid, great if you are a pocket-style player. The duncan bridge pickup is butt ugly, so I never even considered it. I don't get why people are so adamant that a Rick MUST have Rick pickups or its being defaced, etc.. it's not a permanent mod, and why stop playing a Rick entirely if the pickups aren't making the sound you need for your music? There's a lot of other good qualities to the bass. And no, I'm not gonna just buy a 4004 instead! I wanna keep playing my old girl..LOL...
As far as the whole cap/no cap controversy goes...it's a simple matter to add a push-pull pot to get both options if you can operate a soldering iron. I'm surprised they didn't do this a long time ago...they could've marketed it as a "4001-to-4003 Ric-o-Switch."

4001 pickups and early 70's SVT . All you'll ever need .

"4001 pickups and early 70's SVT . All you'll ever need."

ya if you play classic rock ...

for me that wouldn't get the job done ...

i use the same setup for everything from country to r&b to rock .

"if you rewire the sd bridge pickup from parallel to series and put in a 500k ohm volume pot it should sound better but I would still take an hb1 or hb2 or modern high gain pickup instead ..."

How do you do rewire an SD in this way? What's a hb1 or hb2? thanks!

Series is the normal humbucking wiring. Parallel gives them a single coil sound that will still buck the hum.

Lee, you can only rewire them if they are 4 conductor pickups. Some pickups have the two coils tied together and do not allow rewiring. The HB-1 and HB-2 are factory Rick humbuckers.

Thanks Ken, that makes sense. I have an SD bridge p'up and dig the sound, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing an even BETTER sound. Mine is just a 2 conductor, so I'm stuck with my current 'diggable' tone.

I thought the SD's were 4 wire but I never really looked (yet).