Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I've been dying to know how they recorded "Rain" for a while now - it's one of the coolest bass tracks of all time, IM(very)HO.

As I've said before, the Stone Roses get a similar tone (to my ears)to Rain on their first album, but using a 4005.

According to Richard Smith's book (which is a great book and available at Ric) Rain and Paperback writer were the first two songs McCartney used his Ric on.

From what I've read, a lot of Abbey Road is the Hofner. They were still in their 'Get Back' phase and really trying to record and produce 'like they used to...'. That, to McCartney, meant getting the Hofner out and using that. Don't forget that John and George played bass on a few tunes during those last two years. I've read extensively that George played a Fender Jazz bass on the 'Golden Slumbers'. If you buy the new Beatles Anthology DVD, the extra disk has a section where Paul, George, Ringo, and George Martin are figuring that out, But, if you listen to it...Jazz bass.

And, keep the flatwound son the Hofner. They sound great!!!

From what I've read, Paul was given a Fender Jazz and used it with the Hofner on Abbey Road. It was a right handed bass that he played restrung left handed. George preferred that bass because he could restring it righty when he played bass. The Rickenbacker had just been stripped down to a natural color and was not used much at that time. McCartney then used the Rickenbacker for all the live solo gigs,and the Fender sometimes in the studio.

I've always thought that "Maxwells Silver Hammer" sounded like a Ric with the treble pickup soloed

He did use the Rick some and that probably is it on "Maxwells Silver hammer" ,but he did use the Jazz on "Come Together" along with some others. He also used the Jazz on "Yer Blues" according to the Andy Babiuk (sp?) book. There is a picture of him playing it during the session.

If that is a jazz, that is the dirtiest sounding jazz I have ever heard in my life, that sounds like trademark Ric to me. I trust my ears a lot more than most of these books out there.

I have often wondered about "Come Together" and had pretty much come the conclusion that it was a jazz. A lot of that album does sound like Jazz bass to me, and some sounds like Hofner too, such as I Want You (shes so heavy)

Bob-- I'm with ya on "Yer Blues". I've never associated McCartney's bass lines on that song with anything other than a Ric with dull-thud flatwounds on it. If he really did play a Jazz bass on that recording, then it has to be the only Jazz bass like that in the history of music. It's pushing credulity to the utter limit to imagine a J-bass producing a tone like that. But McCartney was/is a magician with a bass (just listen to how good he could make that Hofner sound) and I guess anything's possible where he's concerned.

I agree and have allways thought that was the Rick on "Yer Blues", but this was discussed over at Voxtalks (archived 03-13-2003) and Tom Hartman says he was there and saw him using the jazz. There is a picture, but it is now just a box with a red x in it. Not that I'm against jazz basses, but it broke my heart to find out that wasn't the Rick on that song.

I always thought that the "Yer Blues", "Glass Onion" sound was the Jazz with the clicky thud of flatwounds.