Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Yeah, I think his was a tad worse than mine. I bet that effected the sound a little.

And the action!

I'm worried mine might end up like that once I put on my high gauge ernie ball strings on next week.

Does extreme tail lift leave any permanent damage to the guitar?

David,

If I'm going to pay $1200 for ANY bass there should not be an issue of ANY tailpiece lift or anything else structurally wrong with my bass. That is why you buy a top quality product. It seems to me that this is an ongoing problem with Rick basses. You shouldn't have to buy a replacement bridge, or have to physically put two extra screw holes as others have done to fix the problem.

There is supposedly a new tailpiece coming out to fix this. Is RIC going to swap a lifted tailpiece to those who need the new one??? I would hope so, but probably not. So you're going to have to fork out another $100 or so and either do the work yourself or pay a luthier to do it.

There's no tailpiece to lift on 4004's, just a solid bridge!




(sorry)

Hahaha Brian. Good call.

Seriously, I had a new 4003 and put Pyramid flats on it. Within 2 weeks there was some slight tail lift. There was no problem at all tone wise, that's not my beef. It just bothered me that it was there.

I have an inexpensive, but very well American made 1982 Peavey T-45 bass that has had Pyramid flats on it for the past 2 years and not the slightest bit of a problem.

Seriously, when I briefly owned the MID V63 it had the beginnings of lift.....well within "acceptable" standards but it was there. It just bugged me. Then setting up the bass was a total PITA compared to a 4004. Loosen strings, tweak intonation, retune, check, repeat, repeat, repeat, etc. Not a BIG deal but enough to make me realize that I am firmly in the 4004 camp.

I also agree that the tailpiece is an obvious problem and the fact that it is still in production is, to me, a smudge on Rics stellar reputation.

I'm dreading the news of tailpiece distortion causing chips on the recent 75th DCMs. Then there will be more of an uproar.

"There's no tailpiece to lift on 4004's, just a solid bridge!"

Yeah, but they don't look as cool as the 4001/4003! (My opinion, of course)

My tailpiece doesn't seem to be giving me any major tone/action issues But I'm restoring the bass so I thought I'd see if I could fix the tail lift while I was at it.

David, agreed when we're talking about features on a PC, car or bass. I'm not talking about features.

When I buy a car, I buy the warranty in case something breaks. Bridge lift is a flaw in design that has been going on for a long time now. It should be covered as such. If RIC offers to swap bridges that lift for the newly designed ones, I have no problem with that.

Just to clarify the bridge lift in my picture: (1) this was on a 5-string, (2) the strings on it when I received it were totally the wrong gauge, and (3) whoever the previous owner was, that person didn't take logical steps to abate the lift, or exacerbated it by overtightening the tailpiece mounting screws. I don't have any tail lift problems on any other of my RIC 4000/4001/4003 basses.

Here's some pics of my basses and the status of the bridge on them. The CS was made in 99 and is on the deck. The 4003JG is 97 and has the highest lift, but it is still no issue. Included is my DCM that, out of the case, has more lift than the CS. Almost every bass I've seen fits into the range shown in my pics. Not being an issue to aesthetics or playability I'd consider this normal. Also shown is my 68 that has a little lift, but took almost 40 years to get to that point.

Here are a couple of angles on my '93 4001V63.

Scott, my DCM looks like yours. I think you could slide a piece of paper about 1/2" under the bridge right out of the factory. I am hoping it's just that the shape of the bridge does not match the body perfectly in this case, and it will get no worse over time.

I'll bet the "washer fix" will take care of a new 4003 that has slight lift. I'm pretty sure it's not an issue with the top of the bass being level.

Scott J...If that's your '68 4000 in the fourth pic, then it doesn't appear to have an original tailpiece on it, which is probably why it's lifting. It does have a lot of bridge tilt though, and there's a fix for that too.