Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I picked up my double neck Ricky bass/guitar from my luthiers the other night. He re-fretted the new fingerboard on the guitar neck, set it up and wired the electronics. Each instrument has two pickups(un-buttoned high gain and HB1 humbucker),a pickup selector switch and a single tone and volume. The output from each neck's controls is run into a three position neck selector switch and then to a RIC production ROS jack harness so I could run the instrument in mono or sent each neck to a different amp. I used RIC 500K pots,.047 caps and Switchcraft 3-position switches. The odd thing is that there is a volume drop on either neck when both pickups are run at the same time although not much drop at all when both necks are on. Each neck is essentially wired like a 4004 bass. Do 4004's have a volume drop when both pickups are on? Also the tone contol on one neck does have some effect on the tone of the other neck. I could have wired this like RIC's 4080 but having master tone/volume controls and no ability to run both necks at the same time seemed a bit limiting. Any thoughts on this? Should I just run Volume Volume Tone on both necks?

Are the pickups out of phase, or is this possible with high gains?
Shouldn't matter with humbuckers, though.

I don't think it's an out of phase problem since it's on both necks.

the 4004 pickup has different tonal qualities when it is soloed and when it is run with another pickup ... also when 2 pickups are run together at equal volume you get a smoother cooler sound, and when you run one pickup it is has more growl ... that is why I rewire my 4004 basses volume volume tone ... I can dial in subtle differences in tone and growl ... also when you have a hot pickup in the bridge and a weaker pickup in the neck and you run both full open the weaker neck pickup will mellow out the hot bridge pickup ... the 4003s5 has a 15k ohm hot fat growly bridge pickup and a sooth 7.4 k ohm neck toaster pickup ... so to get the optimal tone I run the bridge at 10 and the neck at 7-8 range ... I have a 5 string p-bass with a hot growly seymour duncan 1/4 pound pickup ... it was too growly ... so I added a bridge 5 pole jazz pickup that was around 7 or 8k ohms ... then I dial in smoothness with the weaker bridge pickup and I roll of the tone to about 5 and I can get a nice warm sound and by changing the bridge volume I can dial in smoothness and growl ...

I had a 74 4001 that I experimented with pickups and it seemed that no matter what pickups I put in that bass it seemed slightly out of phase when both volumes were at 10 ... I never figured that one out ... so I sold the bass ...

Jeff, so you're saying this is normal due to the wiring arrangement that I've chosen? It's not a bad sound when the volume drops. It's actually a pretty intersting "voice" when both are run together. I just want to make sure nothing was done incorrectly. Do stock 4004's actually have a noticeable volume drop when both pickups are run together? Could the fact that one pickup is a single coil have any to do with it? Perhaps if I want more out of it I should wire it "VVT"?

Not much of a tech-head myself, but I think you'd be happier with a "VVT" config.

I have concentric pots in my 4004, which give each pickup its own volume and tone control.

I'm not an electrical engineer ... so I am not sure if there is a problem ... the 4004 does not have a volume drop when both pickups are run together ... but there is a tonal change ...

Hmmm....I wonder if running a single coil with a humbucker could be what causes this. Although I've got some very talented luthiers and techs working for me, none of them is a wiring guru. Since John Hall signs off on all RIC's wiring schematics, perhaps he can lend some assistance.

you can do single coils with humbuckers ... the hb1 has 4 leads and a ground ... so you could have a phase problem ... try a little trial and error by change some wires and look up some schematics ... it is not rocket science to wire a bass ... but 4 pickups and 2 necks makes it complex ...

The HB1's come with a couple leads soldered together which leave you with just one lead and a ground, so it seems pretty straight forward. Maybe there is something different about them but I supplied schematics of a 4004 and HB1 to my luthier so I can't imagine what we're overlooking. I'm not even sure there is anything wrong.

I went through about 15 different wirings and pickup scenarios on my 4004L5 ... finally I went to 2 hb1s with 2 1000k ohm volume controls and a 500 or 1000k tone control ... the next best scenario was having a neck toaster and 500k pots ... the toggle was the first thing to go ... that improved the bass a lot ... check the neck pickup on an ohm meter to make sure it is working properly ...

Well I have an un-buttoned high gain in the neck position and 500K Ricky pots. All four pickups sound very loud while the high gains sound particularily clear, but run together, their's a volume drop/thinning of the sound. Perhaps VVT wiring would be better but wouldn't the effect be the same when both volumes are all the way up as when the selector switch was in the middle? I can do a lot of things with/to my basses but this is murky water to me.

I usually run asymmetrical volume levels on most of my basses ... when both volume controls are on 10 there is some phase cancellation due to the physical location of the pickup ... I don't have a full understanding of this because I am not educated in electrical engineering ... I know a little of the basics of magnets and electronics ... I actually worked in manufacturing at a place that made magnets that was a supplier to musical and government customers ... I can read a schematic and I learned a lot by chopping up and rewiring cheap fender copies ... I did my learning and made my mistakes on them ... sometimes you get into certain scenarios where something sounds bad and you can't figure out why ...

As a side note, the pre-wired Ric-O-Sound jack(which neither of my luthiers could understand initially) works perfectly. As it turns out, this jack is a stereo jack first with a special mono jack with internal switching that bridges the two pickup signals. We kept looking at it as a mono jack first that is somehow made stereo which was confusing the heck out of us. We wired it off the neck selector switch. I bought a Ric-o-Sound unit and it splits the bass neck to my Ampeg and the guitar neck to my Vox. By the way, does anyone know what the extra cable is that comes with a Ric-O-Sound unit? It appears to be a mono guitar cable with a ground and two conductors grounded together at the tips.

but run together, their's a volume drop/thinning of the sound

OK that's a phase reversal problem. The thinning of the sound is the clue, because you lose low end when they are out of phase.

You will need to reverse the wires on one of the pickups. Since they have coax shielded cable, you can't just solder the shield to the hot to reverse them, so you will have to unsolder the pickup from the coax and reverse it that way.