Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

...you're right, the bridge higain PU had even more variants than the neck one.

Neck glued up.
TI Flats acquired.
Truss rods adjusted.
Neck is straight as an arrow.
Action is low.
No more buzzing G.

A few more final pics below:






Mission accomplished.

Those photos loaded vertical but are now appearing sideways. Will try to fix...

Can I borrow your Tardis; I'd like to go back and buy one new for myself.

Congrats on the bass. Wow!

sys700 wrote: ...A few more final pics below...

I hope not.

Hmm, thought people would be getting sick of seeing it...

sys700 wrote:Hmm, thought people would be getting sick of seeing it...

That I doubt.

Last shot is really on fire, awesome. Did you use a filter.

No filter, just shot with an iPad, and some brightness/contrast adjustments in PhotoShop afterwards because it was too dark in the shade of the tree.

johnallg wrote:

sys700 wrote:Hmm, thought people would be getting sick of seeing it...

That I doubt.

Nope I don't think I could get tired of seeing that. If you ever need a baby sitter for it.let me know. LOL Beautiful Bass!

heinpete wrote:

Baker69 wrote:No, my '78 has the older type of bridge pick up with the non-adjustable pole pieces so is not the 'high gain' version. I did measure the impedence the once but can't recall what it was, possibly 7.35? Re-issueToaster was a bit higher at 8. something.

Sorry about my less accuracy: There have been two higain neck PU versions in the '70ies:
1) the early one (directly after the toaster) with unpainted mushrooms
2) the later one (starting about 1976?) with a thick layer of black paint, that easily cracked or broke of at some areas
First one was rather strong and the second one more moderate.
My 1974 4001 had the early neck higain with 9.6 kOhms and Sérgio had to wind hard to get an equivalent bridge PU for me!
Writing of "modern" I did not mean the adjustable (allen wrench) pole piece one, that is the "recent" one in my eyes.
In the '80ies the late '70ies version of the neck PU was carried on in production, but quite some variation in impedance can be expected (you already give 7.35 for your '78 model).

The 'mushrooms' on the bridge pickup of my '78 4001 are un-painted, a sort of a gun metal finish. I did a check on the impedences - the neck pickup is 7.84 and the bridge pickup 7.54 so they are not 'high gains'. (I do have a new high gain on another bass which I measured at 10.98

I presume the re-issue Toaster I have should be ok on my 4001 as the impedence of it is only 6.79?

How would it be with the bridge high gain I have (10.98) with the relatively low powered Toaster of 6.79 at the neck?

Baker69 wrote: The 'mushrooms' on the bridge pickup of my '78 4001 are un-painted, a sort of a gun metal finish. I did a check on the impedences - the neck pickup is 7.84 and the bridge pickup 7.54 so they are not 'high gains'. (I do have a new high gain on another bass which I measured at 10.98

I presume the re-issue Toaster I have should be ok on my 4001 as the impedence of it is only 6.79?

How would it be with the bridge high gain I have (10.98) with the relatively low powered Toaster of 6.79 at the neck?

...seems like the previous owner removed the residual cracked colour (I also did this on a '83 4003), it may ad some clarity but definetely a "clank" when the string hits a pole. Even the lower impedance PUs of the late '70ies were called higains. The first combination you mention here should be o.k. However the second one will have a kind of harsh tone (why not, if you like it? ). You can gain a little bit more substance if you remove the toaster cover screws and carefully glue (reversibel with only a few points of glue) the cover on to the PU, then the heigth adjustment of the toaster gives some extra mm. On the opposite, if you lower the 10KOhm neck PU to level the output difference, the harshnes of the overall tone will even increase. Check it out! It's more ore less a matter of taste.

Yeah, wasn't sure what to call them as I tended to look on the latest pickups as 'high-gains'. As you say, it's possible the previous owner picked the paint off the mushroom heads, or it has simply flaked off over the years.

Are all the modern re-issue Toasters round about 7.4? I read about people wanting to fit them as an 'upgrade', but if they have say a 4003 with a high output bridge pickup then everyone faces this problem as it is going to be a lot more powerful than the Toaster?

The bass sounds really good as stock, but I've read that much about Toasters being the holy grail of pickups and the fact that I have one at my disposal. I've also read that if you have an old bass like this and it sounds ok then don't change the pickups! I did try the Toaster for a brief period a short while ago but I couldn't convince myself as to whether it made an actual improvement or not, I think I lost some of the beef out of the sound and it was more cutting (which sounded good when played on its own but it seemed to get lost in the mix).

Will give it some thought and I might give the Toaster a try out again as it takes very little time to swap them over.