Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

"Well, they didn't have any bottom... unless you knew about the cap bypass mod. I didn't know, I needed a bass that could produce bass frequencies, so I sold my Ric."

Me too Ilan in 1979. Mine was either too deep or too trebly, I coundn't figure out how to get a good sound out of it, always missed the mids.

"I still don't get that 'no low end' thing. As stated McCartney was not really what one would call a clanky player. In some opinions quite the opposite. And he ran around all over the place, in that time period, playing a 4001. So here is a man, with penchant for the low end, who could have had any bass he wanted, playing a 4001. What did he know that no one else seems too?"

He only played it in the studio, the old 4001's with the cap are scooped, it's really the lo mid and bottom that is taken out of the treble pickup and the neck pickup is all bottom, live they sounded like they had no presence because of this scooped effect but in the studio they sounded great, and the old ones seem to have had much more bottom than the later ones anyway.
The problem is most amps especially of that era simply couldn't reproduce the bottom of the neck pickup, that's why they ended up sounded weak live, they always sounded good through SVT's though but still not as good as when the cap was bypassed.

"He only played it in the studio"...

I think not. He played it live through most of the '70s. The Wings Over America tour & album is all live Ric and sounds fantastic.

I never had a problem getting low end out of my '75 or '77 Ric and they both had the cap.

I seem to remember seeing him doing small places in England (schools and the likes) - 4001 in hand. Personally that is one reason I got my 4001 in '74 - the range in tone. Could go from sooo very thin to super fat(with a hint of tink for attack).

Ah yes, Machine Head...

Thas where the "jones" to get a 4001 started. Too bad there's a J_zz Bass neck on the back of the album liner-or was it the inside.

Damn that was awhile ago!

Playing in a Prog-Rock-Band those days, back in the late 70ies I did not have any problems with the 4001 cap sound. The trebles cut through nicely and I could play a lot of melody parts. The bass was substantially there due to my Hiwatt 100 and the Hiwatt 2x15" cabinet with the Fane speakers. I put the treble sound to the top when I loaded Kramer strings on my 4001. However that killed the fretboard/neck after "adjusting" the truss rods to maximum. None the less, the cap was always there!!!

"The bass was substantially there due to my Hiwatt 100 and the Hiwatt 2x15" cabinet with the Fane speakers."

I had a Fender Bassman tube head and 2x15 cab back then, I don't think the problem was the amp. The bass sounded fine at living room level, but lacked bottom end at gig levels.

I never understood why it was put there in the first place. The logic behind having a bass-cut capacitor in a bass guitar eludes me. I am still angry because I loved that bass, but had to sell it because being a bass player my bandmates kind of expected me to produce some bass. And before that I replaced the treble pickup twice because I thought, the problem must be in the pickup - first with a period-correct pickup and when that didn't do the trick I went to the local Rickenbacker dealer (when there was still one in Israel) and bought a new pickup assembly, and they are not cheap.

So in the end I got rid of the bass (a '73 Jetglo), I think I got $500 for it, and went back to Fender P's. Until the internet came and one day I read about the cap mod. I was thinking, what?! a bass cut? and all I had to do was shunt that evil cap? You can imagine how frustrated I was.

Ilan, I had not-too-dissimilar problems with my first 4001. Luckily some nice chap decided to steal it from me to save me from any more grief....

Hey Ilan- I tried to send you and email and it got bounced back to me. Could you shoot me an email at the address in my profile please? Thanks!

Jeff... did you get my email?

Oops! Yeah, I got it. I'll shoot you one back in a few minutes.

Hey Guys I havn't posted in a while but saw the thread and thought I'd add my 2 cents. My band just opened for Deep Purple a couple weeks ago at The Warfield Theatre here in San Francisco and I had the chance to hang out with Roger before and after the show. He's a very nice and accomadating guy, we talked about basses, specifically about his Vieger signature bass which he had backstage. I got a closeup look at his Rick, I believe he said it was a 71 and I told him I owned a 71 as well. I told him his name comes up on this site occasionally and the talk about his Rick and the modifications done to it. He sort of grinned and said he wasn't a techie kind of a guy and didn't know what pickups were currently in the bass however he acknowledged they were't the angled jazz style pickups from the Machine Head days. The pickups looked to be some sort of humbuckers. I think he only used his Rick on 1 song the whole night. For amplification he used all SWR with 3 Megoliath 8/10 cab. All in all an unbelievable night hanging out with all the Deep Purple guys, I'll never forget it.

Now THAT is cool! I can't imagine hanging out with Roger Glover!

Didn't he have SDs put in it? He needs to get some real Ric p/ups in there, or some of Sergio's. I've had SDs; neck p/up in my old 76 and bridge in my CS and didn't like them much. I thought they took away a lot of the snarl and grit, which is kind of what I like about Rics.

Roger said he didn't like the sound of the stock pickups, go figure.

He had the cap in it probably, many people including me didn't like the lack of b###s because of the cap. Should have told him to try a new one.
I couldn't believe the difference when I shorted mine out, it was a new bass. I had the same reaction, all that trouble because of a stupid 99 cent cap.

Yeah, after 25 years I sold my 72 in the 90's, regretted it but am loving my new 4003. Probably wouldn't have sold it if I'd known about that stupid cap that I could've removed though.