Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

ok...I have a thread here..."help, my '64v4001 needs a healing touch"...more of the story is there. I am trying to get pics on here, but am having difficulty resizing them and getting them on. In short, my father bought this bass while he was stationed in San Francisco while in the Navy. It was already well on its way to being in this shape. The front pickup was already gouged out. Anyway, my Dad bought this bass in a pawn shop and took it with him aboard the U.S.S. Midway when he shipped off to Vietnam. All this was before I was born...When I was 12 I wanted to learn to play and I started out playing this bass. It really wasn't playable and I ended up getting an Ibanez Roadstar II for my 15th birthday. I have had an intense desire to get this instrument back in playing condition for years. My parents gave me the bass and a promise to restore it when I graduated from college. I don't want to ask them for anything, I just want to get it done myself, but don't know who to go to or how much t oexpect it to cost. I guess that wasn't too short, but that's the story.

Here are some pics of my '79 4001 on New Year's...

Nice to meet you, Javier, and thanks for sharing the story of your '64 Rick bass.
Just took a look at the additional pictures of it in the '...Healing Touch' thread - my, that hack job on the neck pickup area is pure heresy!
Allow us to help you restore that rare 4001 to its former glory.

I too have one of Sergio's pickups and they're great!!!!

I really want that bass in working order again!

Let the experts lend a hand...

Sérgio made a couple of pickups for me also and fixed two others and all of them sound great, he fixed a 1972 screw top high gain for me. I have one of his toasters in.... ahem another type of bass and it sounds great and is adjustable too, I have to get a toaster top so I can put it in one of my Rics. I also have a 79 4001 mapleglo.

Sergio, do your toaster top type pickups sound much the same as the new Rickenbacker made scatterwound to 7.4k ones, or do you do them differently? Just curious.

Yes, they sound the same since their design is the same as the real thing - six magnetic slugs and a squat bobbin wound with #44 wire to around 7.0 K.
The ones I build differently - four polepieces instead of six, and one or two bar magnets to magnetize same - are hotter and fully adjustable.

Thanks Sergio> One day I'll get into pickup winding myself, but I've been on an amp kick lately and before that a building guitars/basses kick. I wonder what the impedance of the Rickenbacker pickups works out to be? I just checked some Strat pickups with a friend's meter and they were all around 2.2 henries which is supposed to mean they are clean sounding I guess.

Henries? Why not ohms?

I meant to say that we checked the inductance, not impedance! They were 2.2 henries on an Extech inductance meter. I forget what the AC resistance was, but the DC resistance is about 5.7k on the neck pickup and 5.1k on the middle pickup. The bridge is dead and my friend Wolfe Macleod of Wolfetone pickups will be winding me a bridge pickup soon hopefully. I'd like to check my Rickenbacker pickups, especially the ones on my 230, but they have to be disconnected from the guitar to get an accurate check. Too much work!

You only have to disconnect one side of the pickup to measure it.

I wasn't sure on that count but thanks for setting the record strait Jeffrey! I may check it out then when I see him again.

Inductance is the other big factor in the sound of a pickup, that everyone forgets in favor of DC resistance. Also, the coil resonance is a biggie and all of these factors taken together is the only way to compare pickup specs- without listening to them, of course.