Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

regarding several of the above comments,i have my 2 pickups set for even volume,so the bridge pup is raised,the neck pup lowered. having both full on gives me the tone i prefer to use 90% of the time,i will occasionally use the neck pup alone,and really like the tone of the bridge pickup soloed. i too find it hard to imagine that the current pickup placement on the 4004 would sound the same,especially the bridge pickup-it just does not seem far enough back to get that "nasal" edge,(i typically play right over that pickup)---but i have not had the pleasure/opportunity of trying one out.

If I was in the market for one I'd look for one with pickups pushed toward the bridge. What years were these made?

cassius987 wrote:If I was in the market for one I'd look for one with pickups pushed toward the bridge. What years were these made?

Don't know, but I do know that the pickup location was changed to facilitate truss rod removal. On the older ones, two routs have to be made at the end of the neck to take them out.

Obviously, everyone has their own interpretation of what is a "Rickenbacker bass sound". This is one of the best examples I've seen in a while. This is good.

To me, a 4001/4003 sounds real close to a Jazz bass. Maybe its all in how we each set up our instruments?

I play mostly p basses until I got the cii , there is a similar sound there but the Ric has more snarl on it .

cheyenne wrote:To me, a 4001/4003 sounds real close to a Jazz bass. Maybe its all in how we each set up our instruments?

Ultimately I think they sound like neither! The rest is probably just a matter of what your mind interprets from the minutiae and extra details...

For me, it doesn't have anything to do with whether it has a "Rickenbacker bass sound," whatever that is. With each bass, from any maker, you have to take some time to find its unique voice. That doesn't mean you'll be crazy about the voice you find, though, even setting aside any preconceptions about how it "should" sound.

Well said DCR.

cassius-my cii is an '04 model. i think the pickups' positions changed briefly (maybe just 1 year or so),don't know for sure.it was relatively short lived,even though when you look at ric's website,the 4004 is represented on there with that pickup spacing...... i also like jeffrey's idea of a 4004 model with the extreme spacing of the 4005 model.....

dpowell wrote:

cassius987 wrote:If I was in the market for one I'd look for one with pickups pushed toward the bridge. What years were these made?

Don't know, but I do know that the pickup location was changed to facilitate truss rod removal. On the older ones, two routs have to be made at the end of the neck to take them out.

The early 4004 basses had the pickups towards the neck as they are now. I'm not sure exactly when the pickups were moved away from the neck.I guess that was late '90's. Late '04/early '05, the pickups were moved back towards the neck for the reason that Dan states.
I like the extra growl of the bridge pickups on the 4004 basses that have the pickups away from the neck. I'd love to get a recently made Cii and install a third pickup close to the bridge.

A goofy invention (you saw it first here) would be pickups on rails so that one could slide the pickups to where one wanted them ... please tell me there isn't a guitar or bass that has that feature!

rickenbrother wrote:I'd love to get a recently made Cii and install a third pickup close to the bridge.

Just get an LK and wire it V/V/V/T then you can have the 4002 and 4005 p/u configurations.....and more!

doctorwho wrote:A goofy invention (you saw it first here) would be pickups on rails so that one could slide the pickups to where one wanted them ... please tell me there isn't a guitar or bass that has that feature!

Check out the Gibson "Grabber" and the Dan Armstrong Plexi bass for an example of that idea...
Eden.

hey gary- gibson had a bass with a sliding pickup years ago. it didn't work real great.... the turner model 1 bass had a pickup that actually rotated about 3/4 of the way to get different sounds....it worked a little better than the gibby....

doctorwho wrote:A goofy invention (you saw it first here) would be pickups on rails so that one could slide the pickups to where one wanted them ... please tell me there isn't a guitar or bass that has that feature!

Alembic's first bass, S/N 72-01, made for Jack Casady, had sliding pickups.
As far as I know, this was the first time this concept was used on a bass, or guitar, for that matter.

Dig the McIntosh amps in the background.