Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Congrats and enjoy the 4004, Ray!!

I'm thinking of changing my name to Darth Hacker...LOL!

The Fender younglings must die to save the galaxy!

The Maple beauty arrived today. First impressions were the light weight and the super comfort of the body shape and the best action setup I have ever had the pleasure of.

Negative impression for shipping out a filthy Rick. Seems like some stale baloney sandwich bits at the fret bases and the back of the neck has that cruddy dirty feeling, why the heck would someone let something this nice get that dirty?

More to come after we plug her in!

Congratulations Ray! Welcome to the 4004 squad!
Someday we will save the Rick world from evil, I believe!?

Well, ya plugged her in yet?? Impressions??

Peter is probably right!

If it is as filthy as you state, you'll probably want to put new strings on as well to get the real tone to shine through.

I have a new set of Chromes (thanks Paul!) ready to go. I think a full clean and polish is in order. What is the green stuff on the fret bases, tarnish?

Plugged her in for a bit last night, strong output from those HBs! But the rotos have to go...

...didn't quite find the sound I was after, but the Ashdown MAG does take a bit of farfing to get what you seek.

No need to rush, this ones a keeper for sure!

A 4004 is a keeper, for sure! They don't come in hundreds, still, and luckily no bait for collectors so far.

The 4004 is the only Rick that can give the sound of a tank doing 80!!!

I wasn't too impressed with my 4004's sound until I got an amp setup that had good clarity and detail, and have finally settled on a Markbass/Sansamp RBI rack combo. I experimented with pickup height too and have settled on about 2mm's, looks like it helps the pickups "see" the strings better.
With DR rounds on I can get a sound very close to Geddy's rick on ESL, which I would have thought was not possible when I first plugged my 4004 in.

mark-i have the markbass 12" combo,and the 4004 sounds fantastic through it-as all my different basses do.the amp has great clarity and brings out the character of the instrument really well.i previously had a mesa boogie walkabout/scout and am wanting to dial in a tube sound from time to time-is the sansamp the ticket? i have a bnx-3 digitech pedal,that has sampled tube emulation settings-is this similar to the sansamp?

I have never used Digitech stuff so I'm not sure how it compares to the Sansamp, but I have heard good things about Digitech. I really like a blend of about 60/40 Markbass/Sansamp to get my sound, keep in mind I'm talking about the rack model with mid control not the pedal. Just enough to give the solid state Little Mark II a little tubey vibe. Scott Doseck recently got an RBI to go with his power amp and he says he likes it. I also just started using a Demeter Compulator in front of my amp and really like the sound I'm getting now, it smoothed and sweetened my tone.

I really like the Sansamp RBI. Its perfect for me.

I did'nt however like the pedal (BDDI).

Got her cleaned up today and put on the super light Chromes.

She plays so smooth with the silky flats, the bypassed eq tone out of the Ashdown Mag is way sweeter than it was with the rotos, imo.

Bonus for me, there is not a mark on her. It's like a brand new 2004 three years later now that the grunge is cleaned off...

I'm in love!

Great to hear Ray, if the secret ever got out about how great the 4004's are RIC would have to build an extra factory to keep up.