Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Dear Forum members - I have really enjoyed reading your comments and have picked up a great deal by reading through some of the older threads. I must admit I've come into the Rickenbacker fold fairly late after having used Fenders for over twenty five years. After acquiring a 4003 earlier this year (and having to sell my Jazz to finance it)I must admit to feeling a little terrified when I started working with it - the width at the nut took a little getting used to, especially due to my average length fingers and the fret board felt very flat and square. Anyway I've now settled in and a few gigs down the line it now feels like my bass. We are playing a set of instrumental rock,(difficult to survive with a set like that in my part of the UK),with mid song changes from 70's clank to fat bass / jazz tones. As this is all within the same song I am experimenting with just using fast changes with pickup selection and playing with pick and then quickly changing to fingers, and hitting the string behind the rest / and or in front of it. Its a real experiment at the moment, as most of these changes occur in one piece quite often!!. Am struggling to get a quick fat blues tone without fiddling around quite a bit - the bass pick up gives me an almost "double bass" (humour me!) tone which is good for jazz but not fat enough for blues - I guess i need to be a bit speedier getting to the tone pot!

The amp (trace Elliott) EQ settings I've played around with, and now have a fairly flat profile with just a bit of overall boost, with a small reduction on the mids.

Anybody else changing sounds / tones in this way?

Hi Tim. Welcome to the forum. I live in Teignmouth & it's nice to see another member from the south west of England here.

Tim and Tony: I don't want to take from this thread. Welcome Tim. I am trying to find out whether Celestion still makes the Blue Bulldog speakers at Ipswich as they only put labels on the blues and there is no indication that they are "Made In England." Any thoughts? You might respond to the thread under "The Others" topic. I am, trying to "Find That Sound."

Joseph ... what you really need is compression ... you can get that with the pod or just get a compression pedal ... for those of us who play aggressively a compressor really helps the sound ...

Tim ... When I play a 4003 I start with all of the volume and tone controls at 10 except for the neck pickup volume is at 7 or 8 ... I adjust my amp and tone for this setup ... if I need more bass or a sweeter tone I turn up the neck volume ... Also the pod could help you as well ... I use the pod with a footswitch that gives me access to 4 presets ... with this technology you can set up 4 presets with 4 different tones and switch to them as needed ... I used to do this a lot ... but these days I made a preset that I really like and I use it for 98% of what I play and I get different tones from changing the neck volume and attacking the bass differently ... for instance if you play aggressively with a pick you can get a Chris Squire sound, but if you palm mute with a pick you can get a dull thuddy flat wound sound ... if you play aggressively with you fingers you can get a Geddy or John Entwistle sound ... and if you play gently you get a smoother sound ... or you can get a good funk sound by thumb slapping then if you gently pluck with your thumb you get a different sound ... I try to master all of those techniques ... I practice them all and use them all ... it makes a bass a very versitile instrument ...

I also usually keep the treble vol. on 10 and the bass vol. somewhere backed off a bit, I get different sounds by where I play and how I play. I set the tones by ear on the bass and amp somewhere in the middle of what I like for the particular room I'm playing, and adjust my position from there. When I set up my basses I make sure the strings don't hit anything on the neck or treble pickup ring when I play hard, simple but it works.
All sorts of techniques here.

Hi Jeff...I would be very interested in the settings for your 4 favorite bass pod presets as well as the favorite you use 98% of the time. I have the PodXT but I'm sure they are similar enough.
Thanks!

I post that info here later ...

the first thing about the bass pod is that the stock patches aren't of much use ... also the way the pod manual tells you to eq your amp will pretty much guarentee that your sound will SUCK!!! They say turn your bass and treble to zero and your middle to 10 ... ouch ... that will make for an unpleasant sound ...

Set your amp up to have a good sound without a pod ... I set the treble, middle, and bass in the 4 to 6 range ... and I set my eq like this ...



then I set my pod like this ...



well I changed one thing ... to make the gain structure better I set the output level at 4 or 5 ... drive = 2 or 3 ... bass = 8 ... middle = 2 ... treble = 8 ... chanel volume = 10 ... compress = 5 ... effect tweak = 0 ... effect = rodent ... amp model = amp 360 ...

that is the basic model that I use most of the time then I plug into an ampeg b2r and use 4 10's and mike it with an sm57 into a 6000 watt PA ...

Jeff, you are almost making me want to buy another one of those Pods!

There are 2 open jams that I have been to where the house bass player just plugged straight in ... then I would show up with my pod and they had heard my sound and had to have one ... when used right the pod can improve your sound ...

but on the flip side we had a guitarist who had a pod and eq'd it the way line 6 recommends ... his sound sucked ... it was harsh and unpleasant ...

Joey ... the good news is the pods are cheap on ebay now ...

...I know, but I just keep remembering why I got rid of my first one.

I Believe that the true hand of god tone resides in an early 70's svt w/8-10 cab,20 foot cable and a rick 4001-3 strung up with light guage 40-95 ghs roundwounds. With a vintage jazz bass for backup

That's why they make different amps, different basses, because everyone likes a different tone.

Thanks Jeff for your effort. I will try those settings tonight after work!