Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

My 4001 has a replacement tailpiece/bridge assembly. I believe that it is manufactured by "STARZ" and was installed in the early to mid 1980s.

The bridge is capable of a greater range of intonation adjustment than the stock bridge, but the bridge makes no contact with the tailpiece. The tailpiece is 'cut out' to accomodate the bridge, which seats in the body 'route' if that makes any sense.

My question is if anyone has heard of these assemblies and if there be any benefit at all to keeping it on there? I've been thinking about going back to a stock assembly, but don't know if its worth it. The bass sounds good to me, but I have nothing to compare it to.

Thanks.

I installed those for many years .

Stars Guitars was an off branch of ALEMBIC.

When Alembic moved everything out of SanFrancisco out to the Santa Rosa/Petaluma area , the Brady Street shop turned into Stars Guitars.

They made all kinds of brass hardware for guitars .
I have two of their 12 saddle bridges on my own guitars .
I used their Strat bridges for a long time .

The Rick bridges that were made were of two type;
one was a plate with a hole cut into it so the bridge saddle assembly could set into the original bridge cavity .This was the more expensive of the two and had better sound quality , and better sustain .A very excellent bridge replacement.

The 2nd bridge was a plate in the exterior shape of the original Rick bridge with a P Bass style saddle assembly .The saddles were rather small and had little adjustment to them .Again a nice design for a bass with so little natural adjustment.