Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Ok, some more dumb questions from me....

It seems my bridge pickup has half the volume of my neck pickup. I played it tonight with just the bridge and I like the sound a little better than with both. I have Chromes on it, by the way. I do have a new toaster I could try in the neck....

Maybe I should investigate the wiring, or try some Of Jeff's ideas with different pots. I know I'm nitpicking about the sound, but I also am trying to play lighter on the strings and not dig in so much. The cool thing about turning up the volume and playing lighter is, when you dig in you get a wonderful snarl. That is my term. Rics have a growl anyway but this is right at the instance you finger pick the string. It's gone almost immediately but there is almost a bite to it, thus the term snarl. I probably would love a 4000, but I didn't have the wherewithall to try one at the confluence.

So ,as Alan Parsons once said: "Where do we go from here?"

I don't think that is a pot problem ...

I assume you are talking about a 4001 or a 4003 bass ...

so what could the problem be?

1 - There could be faulty wiring
2 - The pickup could be going bad
3 - The pickup height ... you may need to raise the bridge pickup ...

I normally run all the tone and volume controls at 10 except I back off the neck volume to 7-9 range to increase snarl and growl ...

For a 4004C bass I prefer wiring it with 500k pots volume, volume, tone like a jazz bass and I run the neck volume at 5-9 and bridge volume at 10 and tone at 5-10 range ...

and for my pj and j fender basses I run the neck volume at 10 and bridge volume at 5-10 range and tone at 5-10 range ...

It's an 87 4003. I tried to turn down the neck some but it doesn't really change the tone until I switch it off or turn it all the way down. I suppose I should go inside ,check the wiring, unhook the pickups and check the resisitance to see where I'm at.

I lowered the bridge pickup to get rid of some strange noises when I had Dr's on. Now that I have chromes maybe I should raise it some and see if that works before tearing into it!

the bridge pickup should be louder than the neck pickup ...

That's not the case now. I'll look at it tomorrow. Thanks.