Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

vax2002 wrote:In those days, amps were very good at going live and electrocuting people. hence pickups were often isolated or covered where your fingers sat at least .
Trust me with 240 v as it is in the uk that was the last place you wanted your fingers, in the hole round the pickup.
Hence why they were often covered by chrome surrounds, earthing them came later .

You didn't have to touch the pickup to get electrocuted, just the strings and then go to sing at or touch a microphone. If the musician's amp and PA equipment were not grounded the same, the musician, often bassists, got zapped. Modern equipment is much better at the getting grounded properly.

rickenbrother wrote:Modern equipment is much better at the getting grounded properly.

Yeah, it's the venues where we play that one has to worry about properly wired and grounded outlets!

jps wrote:

rickenbrother wrote:Modern equipment is much better at the getting grounded properly.

Yeah, it's the venues where we play that one has to worry about properly wired and grounded outlets!

Very true!

rickenbrother wrote:

vax2002 wrote:In those days, amps were very good at going live and electrocuting people. hence pickups were often isolated or covered where your fingers sat at least .
Trust me with 240 v as it is in the uk that was the last place you wanted your fingers, in the hole round the pickup.
Hence why they were often covered by chrome surrounds, earthing them came later .

You didn't have to touch the pickup to get electrocuted, just the strings and then go to sing at or touch a microphone. If the musician's amp and PA equipment were not grounded the same, the musician, often bassists, got zapped. Modern equipment is much better at the getting grounded properly.

How many times did we all get the lip shocks?!

johnallg wrote:

rickenbrother wrote:

vax2002 wrote:In those days, amps were very good at going live and electrocuting people. hence pickups were often isolated or covered where your fingers sat at least .
Trust me with 240 v as it is in the uk that was the last place you wanted your fingers, in the hole round the pickup.
Hence why they were often covered by chrome surrounds, earthing them came later .

You didn't have to touch the pickup to get electrocuted, just the strings and then go to sing at or touch a microphone. If the musician's amp and PA equipment were not grounded the same, the musician, often bassists, got zapped. Modern equipment is much better at the getting grounded properly.

How many times did we all get the lip shocks?!

I got a slight shock this afternoon! I was playing a Gretsch Black Falcon into a Gibson GA-50 when I reach over to grab a pick off of a '65 BandMaster that was next to me and I must have brushed against an input jack on it so the shock was quite brief but it was certainly there.

In the old days amps had two electrical wires, positive and negative.
There was no such thing as earthing.
The strings could pick up inducted current and give a slight shock, but if you stuck your finger in the pickup, you got the lot and it was often fatal.
I feel this had more to do with pick up covers than sound.
Most basses had exposed parts covered near where your fingers plucked the strings, including Fenders, Burns and Ricks.
It probably had more to do with surviving the gig than anything else.

Rickenbackers designed it to look good, the whole bass looks good, I prefer mine on as playing each side of it gives two distinct sounds and it makes a great hand rest if you like to pick play.

Actually the shocks occurred (occur) when the hot and neutral were backwards at the outlet. The amp had neutral to the case as ground, and the PA had the same. If the outlets the two amps were plugged to were wired opposite, meaning the hot were on opposite sides of the outlet, you would get shocked when you held the strings and touched a mic. The phase reversal switches were meant to switch which wire from the plug went to the chassis as ground so when this happened, you threw the switch on one amp and the "grounds" were then the same and no shocks. Or so it was supposed to work. Not very well, which is why we now have the 3-wire system with a dedicated ground. Now bar and other venue wiring....