Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

New for 2006
Rickenbacker introduces the Vintage Tone Selector for 4003 Series basses. This additional control is included standard at no additional cost on all 4003 basses beginning in the 2006 model year.

Prior to 1984, Rickenbacker basses utilized a capacitor in the treble pickup circuit to emphasize treble tones coming from that pickup. However, changes in tone preference and a call for higher output led RIC to discontinue the use of this capacitor in favor of a more balanced sound. Nevertheless many users added this capacitor back into the circuit, experimenting with and sometimes preferring the sound of the older configuration, despite the resulting drop in volume.

Rickenbacker has now decided to give players a choice, allowing the best of both worlds. With a simple pull of the treble tone control, the Vintage Tone Selector will allow a player to move between both sounds at the drop of a hat. Pressed in, you'll hear the familiar balanced tone of the 4003, while pulled out to engage the circuit, you'll appreciate the bite and crispness popularized by such artists as Chris Squire.


who has the schematic for where I can put the cap in my `01 4003?

The cap or the Vintage Tone Selector?

If you want just the cap, it goes where the red shunt is in this pic:



For the schematic, go to Rickenbacker's corporate website. The cap is C3 in this diagram:

http://www.rickenbacker.com/pdfs/19507.pdf

Thanks Ilan

You might want to put the switch in also as the cap seriously cuts down on the bass's low mid presence, that's why most people took them out in the first place.

I'm thinking of bypassing the cap on my C64 bass. So it will be closer to my V63 which dosen't have the cap.

By the way just how do you go about bypassing that cap anyway? I've never tried anything like this before.

Just put a piece of wire exactly where the cap connects. Unsolder the cap and replace it with the wire... Easy!!!

It's pretty straightforward. I know next to nothing about solder joint prep and I did it. I did save the cap though (maybe someday on ebay the original 4001 caps will sell for 20000)!

I would just put a wire across the cap and it is quickly reversable at a later date.

For a nice schematic look at Joey Vasco's site.
http://www.joeysbassnotes.com/TipsPics/06%204003%20wiring.pdf

You don't need to unsolder the cap. Just solder a wire where the cap is. The current will take the path of least resistance.

resistance is futile...

Thanks guys. I'm grateful for all the advice. There are a lot of really good people on this forum, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

I bypassed the cap on my C64 eariler this week and the tone and response of the horseshoe is much more to my liking. Much fuller sounding and a little louder than before. It is now a lot closer in sound to my V63, which is what I was after.

I just soldiered wires over my caps also and left them in. I also figured out a circuit where you use one of the tone controls as a variable control for the cap and the other tone is for both pickups. I don't think anyone but me here has ever tried it as far as I know. The problem is that if you turn one of the volumes down especially more than about 3/4's you start to lose treble. I never turn them down much so it doesn't effect me at all. I turn the bass pickup down a little bit for bite that's all. The variable cap is nice it acts like a mid control and you can fine tune the amount of cap you want in the circuit. I never figured out where the treble was bleeding into ground through the volume controls but I never tried very hard either because it never bothered me, in fact I didn't even realize it for a while. I left one of my basses with the mod, the one with round wounds on it.

The reason you lose high end is because of the way the cap works in the circuit. The cap, along with the resistance of the volume pot, forms a high pass filter (blocking lower frequencies). As you change the volume, you change the resistance of the pot, which in turn changes the cutoff frequency of the high pass filter.

It doesn't actually bleed into the ground - It's working exactly as it's supposed to. You're actually fine tuning the amount of resistance in the circuit.