Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I just bought a great playing 1976 Univox 4001 clone. I love the way it plays and looks, but the two low strings are really dead sounding. I play through a Fishman pre-amp, and the little red light that indicates the strength of the signal is always bright on the top two strings and barely lights up when I hit the lower two.

It came with two Ric High Gain PUs, and has round-wounds on it now. Could it be the strings, or is this systematic of a problem with the PUs? I love the guitar, but don't want to put a ton of money into it right now.

Any idea what's going on here? Do I just need a nice set of low tension flats? I know, I need a real Ric, but have to wait on that one.

A few pics: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/douglas_hemlepp/album?.dir=a2e3&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Hi Doug. Welcome to the Forum.
I assume that by 'top two strings' you mean the E and A strings. Maybe both pickups on your bass are too close to said strings and not close enough to the other two strings. A little adjusting via the crosshead screws that hold the pickups in place should do the trick.

Other than the fretboard, that copy looks very realistic to me. I probably would've been fooled had I not been told . . .