Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'm a couple days late with this because I had to run out of town for my nephew's graduation.

My band played our usual location last Friday (4/29), and I used the new 4004 L I got about 2 months ago. There was good and bad, and maybe all it was was that I should have played louder!

Compared to the 75 4001 that I've used at the same place a few times, I didn't hear the low-end I though I should have. I did hear really nice highs cutting through...had to be very pleaed with that. Definitely a Rick sound.

One other thought that came to mind is that both basses use very different strings: the stock Rick RW's on the 4004 versus the bridge cable Fender flats I use on the 4001...so maybe what I'm looking for will require me finding a good flat string...

But for now I'm going to stay with RW's on the Laredo. I'm leaning towards GHS L-3045 Boomers, but might waste $30 or so on a few sets of Rouge mix-n-match...one set being dedicated to science immediately.

Then I think that I need to put on a set of those Fender bridge cables (9050 ML)...

I think so too if you want good bottom, For me a better choice is Pyramids, expensive though but they sound great. RW's are for piano players.

Bob, what guage range do Pyramids come in? Well, I guess I can look that up...

What are the guages on the Pyramids you use?

"RW's are for piano players" oh man Jeff did you here that.

Just did a set up on a 2004 4001 Monty Brown for a young player in town. While making seasonal adjustments to his bass he was playing my C64s. He stopped playing and looked up asking "why can't I get this sound from my Rickenbacker? This is the sound I hear in my head." The answer was one word... Pyramids.

"RW's are for piano players" oh man, chuckle chuckle.

Ed,
Pyramids are .040, .055, .070, and .105 in diameter, no known published string tensions available.

I guess I'm in the minority here, then. I bought a set of Pyramid Golds for my 4001 and hated them. I thought they sounded too lumpy. They sounded better on my v63 and I wound with Roto flats on my 4001. The rest of my basses get roundwounds. I didn't care for the last set of GHS Boomers I had on my 4003 and currently have D'Addario Halfrounds on it.

I didn't really like them at first either but they grew on me. But then again I hate Roto flats, I had two sets and the g strings were both dead right out of the package and they were very bright, didn't sound like flatwounds.
Roto flats are for harpsicord players. haha!

most of us 4004L owners seem to find the bass has very good low end and not enough high end response ...

and yes if you want the piano like ring and sound that a Ric bass is famous for then you will need roundwounds ... if you want it to sound dead like McCartney's hofner or Duck Dunn's p-bass then use flats ...

fatter strings usually give you more low end ... I use a .105 E string ... more slender strings have less low end ...

My 1993 4004L has plenty of low end ... I rewired the bass volume, volume, tone like a jazz bass and I put in 1000k volume pots and a 500k tone pot to give it better treble response ...

Maybe the guage was the issue? It could have just been the moment/place. In rehearsal, with the same rig as I've used with the 4001, the Laredo was awesome...

So I'm not sure why I was slightly disappointed. Just have to do a few more gigs and see what the issue was. Not going to make any big changes just yet.

Rw's are designed to give a piano sound, pianos have absolutely no bottom on the lower notes they are all overtones. I have used some RW's that had decent bottom though. Those blue steels sounded pretty good, the cryogenic strings. With flats you get real solid bottom that you can't get with any RW string IMHO. Ric Nickles are good sounding strings for RW's, but you're not going to get a great solid bottom like Duck Dunn got out of them that's for sure. McCartney's Hofner was kind of muddy even though I liked it, Dunn has a great deep clear sound, he's one of the greats.

there are thousands of bass players throughout the world who get plenty of low end out of round wound strings ... I have never had a problem getting low end out of any round wound string ...

Ed, maybe it was the room...even though your 4001 sounded good in there, rooms have a way of trapping frequencies in a unique fashion. You'll have to play the 4004 out in a variety of settings to get a better idea of the difference between the two...just my guess.

put on a new set of strings and adjust the pickups closer to the strings ...

From one flatwound player to another: Ed knows what the problem is. haha!

Hehehe...

Rooms can be weird. So can people. We were jacked up...giving away our recently recorded CD. I was also under other pressures...had to go to my nephews graduation 3 hours north of me the next morning.

It just seemed odd that the sound would seem to do that in a place I'm real familiar with. But if course it was a new guitar...

Not sure about what to do at this point. I think Dane's idea is best-be patient.

PS Jeff - you do know that some folks are just trying to get your goat, don't you?