Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Yeah I also don't believe half of the stuff I read even though a lot of people here really seem to revere that book, I've never seen it, but HS sounds like a Ric to me also and sounds like vintage McCartney playing. GO could be a jazz, I don't like that bass line anyway.
I also believe all those Ric players previously mentioned had the cap installed in their basses, sounds like it and I don't think the cap removal was a widely known mod back then even though it would have been obvious to any good guitar tech with an electronics background.
I also would have stuck with Ric basses back in 77 when I bought my first one had someone taken out the cap although the first one I played without a cap; a late 84 4003, took some getting used to for me, I actually didn't like it at first as I was so used to compensating for the cap with the tones on my amp and also compensating by playing stereo which does not eliminate the cap from the circuit but gives you much better control over the individual pickups sounds'.

So with what I've learned here, even assuming that these guys had the cap installed, none of them used the bridge pickup soloed, and when it sounds like they did, it was actually a Fender Jazz.

BTW, a Bass VI (actually the model designation was Fender VI, there was no 'bass' there) can sound a lot like a Jazz.

Regarding the cap mod. I bought my bass in '72, and around the same time started doing guitar repairs. I had never seen anyone bypass the cap. Since I do have a background in electronics, I knew what the cap was doing. I remember bypassing mine, and at an audition for a booking agent I was playing through a Kustom amp. With the treble pickup soloed it sounded like a P bass! I was a bit shocked. I was the first person I knew that bypassed the cap, but that's not saying others didn't! It wasn't a well know mod however.

I also realized how thin the toaster sounded in comparison, which makes sense sine it is a guitar pickup, and also they were designed to get a very natural acoustic guitar sound.

But at the same time I couldn't get that "Ricky bass" sound without the cap, so I wired up a switch to bypass it, so I could have it both ways. Later I did mods for people using the treb tone control, since most people never used it.

Back then no one ever used the treble PU by itself with the cap. You really couldn't!

It's interesting how back then, people were not always happy with the sound of the Rick PUs. They sounded good with flats, since that was the sound they were made for, but lacked bottom with RWs. It was very common to see people with either the toaster replaced with something else, or to see a Rick with something like a P Bass pickup added.

I wrote a letter to Seymour Duncan, back when he had a pickup rewinding service (before he started making standard models) and asked if he could rewind the toaster, and maybe add a stacked coil. Interestingly he not only offered to rewind it, but he said he could make a new humbucking version, which he now makes. I ended up replacing my toaster with an early Carvin humbucker, and later added a P Bass pickup in-between the two Rick PUs. I liked tinkering with my bass....

Nowadays I think people enjoy that vintage Rick sound a bit more. I know I wish I left my basses stock! I never could get that Squire sound, or Paul's for that matter... So I figured why not changed the sound of the bass. At the time I needed a wider tonal pallet.