Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Wow I have been following along on this post. Nice job guy's I have learned a lot about that Ric O Sound. Never tried it before I will have to experiment with this. Thanks for taking the time to walk through this step by step guy's!

Randy

I went to switchcraft.com to double check the jack number. I am not positive by looking at the drawings but I still believe it is a #13 or possibly a #13E. I made a call to a friend who has some in his stock but he could not find a number. Stay tuned. I then went to Mike Park's site and it shows the Rick part # 08011. It is priced at $8.00. So if needed at least it is replaceable. Although most likely you could bend it back into shape if that is even where the problem lies.

Thanks for the update Ken, I'll take a look see if there's any form of identification on my jacks. It'll be interesting to see what's actually under there. Since I've had my 4003 I've only had the scratch plate off once.

Well I doubt my jack is bad since it was brand new when I put it in and it looked good then. Thanks for looking up the jack info though.

I wonder if maybe there is a misconception on my part as far as how Ric-O-Sound is supposed to be working? I assume it is supposed to give the neck pickup to one side of the ROS box and the bridge pickup to the other, with no intereaction when plugged into the stereo jack with a stereo cord. If thats wrong, someone please correct me? That should be the way it is for true stereo I would think.

As I do not have a ROS box I can't say how it is supposed to work, but just using a stereo cable into the stereo input of my mixer, I do get true stereo seperation.

Jim will be able to use the Ric-O-Sound pretty soon.....(I am thinking about Lyle's)

Greg, That is how it works. One thing I didn't mention is make to sure there is no short between the channels of your Ric-o-sound or stereo cable. It would be a drag to pull your guitar apart only to find no problem with it. Sometime the simplest things get overlooked when debugging. You can easily check your cable with an ohmeter. Make sure there is an infinite reading between the tip and the ring of the stereo plug with the cord unplugged.

Thanks Ken. I'll check that out. The ROS box has been the only common thread between all of the testing I've done with various basses trying to see how ROS is supposed to work.

The problem could be in my bass too as even though I used all Ric parts, and wired it up as the schematic says, my bass is very slightly thinner than a real RIC and there isn't as much space in the control cavity as a result. Also, I used the conductive paint to shield the cavity, so something could very well be shorting out. Thats what I get for being too eager with the sander! I'll check the ROS box first however.

It is a Switchcraft model #13 'Isolated "make" circuit'. My friend found what I missed at the web site. The only other place the two pickups go to is the selector switch, but each has it's own side.

Ken Joseph, Jeff Rath, and Jeff Scott .... gentlemen thanks for all the help with ROS, Ken, the pointers toward the shorted out treble contact on the mono jack were great.

I took apart my output jack plate tonight and lo and behold the treble contact on the mono jack was in fact hard against the other stop closing the circuit, this was in turn was shorting out the twin ROS feeds into the dual Mono blend I've come to accept as "normal"

After I took the contact and moved it apart the ROS now works as described, my neck pickup is on one channel on it's own, the bridge is on the other, and both active when the selector switch is in the middle.

For all of you who reported a similar output to the one I had, ie both pickups always present on both sides of the ROS then as Ken Joseph suggests double check the mono jack for a short.

This took me all of 10 mins to detect and correct this fault which has been present on my 4003 since I took delivery of it new in 97 !!!

Once again thanks guys !!!

You're very welcome. I'm glad we helped you get to the bottom of this.

Detectives Joseph, Rath and I at your service!

Glad to hear it worked for you! I haven't had a chance yet to take mine apart but hope to soon. I am guessing I have the same problem, though since my bass is self made, and I have less room in there, it may be harder to fix mine than yours! We'll see I guess.

I've run into at least 4 ric-o-sound setups that were screwed up ... So I rewired them all 2 mono outputs ... a simple solution ...

does anyone know what is actually in the Ric-O-Sound box ? I bought a cheap stereo jack to two mono jack adapter and it works just fine (having looked at the wiring diagram on the RIC website I was quite confident it would) but I'm still curious what you get for your money paying the extra for the box.

Paul

Jim, I'm glad it worked out for you.
As far as looking in the box I have never done that. I don't think you get anything extra. Keep in mind I have seen high quality stereo cables, such as the one that comes with Parker guitars, go for approximately the same price. I built my own with some of that George L's cable and have about $35 in materials. I wouldn't do that again. It was a pain in the a** trying to solder and crimp two cables into the strain relief of one plug. Stereo cables run two sheilded cables the full length. I beleive the Ric-O-Sound uses a cable that is two conductor with a sheild.