Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Holy cow. I just took out the stock pickup from my 4000 and installed a new RIC horseshoe. I was kind of expecting it to be like the Lollar horseshoe that I have in one of my 4001's. That has a low output and reedy tone that is a perfect counterpart to the very warm and powerful toaster up front that Sergio wound for me.

As soon as I plugged the bass in, it was thunderous. I have to turn the Trace input down to about half of what I use for all the other RICS so as not to overdrive the input stage too much. It even seems to have more output than the 4004LK.

I played it for about an hour, and it's got a huge range of tones to it. It's definately changed the whole character of the 4000, that's for sure....

got another one laying around?

The C64 HS is pretty hot. The V63 HS is even hotter.

Good stuff Gareth, is it a reissue Horseshoe like the v63's / c64's ... ?

Even hotter with the Shoes left on ... keeps all them electrons focused !!

Yep, it's a reissue horseshoe that I got from a forum member. It's off a V63 I think.

The HS on my '93 V is super hot too! I love it!


And now, thanks to this 4001S, I have an extra HS laying around!

All four of my Rics have 'shoes - I love 'em!

Man after my own heart, you can never have too many shoes .... !!!

Sigh....

Here you go.

Before.....




After....



I see that it's all routed for the front pickup too underneath that pickguard. I have a spare front pickup, pickguard and 4001 TRC too. I see a 4001S in the not too distant future.

I like that one!

i would love to do the horseshoe replacement on my 74 4000 as well-although the stock pickup sounds great to me,too. cool!

So, at the risk of rehashing a conversation that might have already happened a million times (I wasn't able to narrow down on this in the archive)... what's the basic TONE difference between the V63 horseshoe and the 4003 hi-gain? I have the 4001v63 myself, and agree it practically doesn't need to be plugged in to drive an amp...

It also has made me wonder if horseshoe technology like that could benefit tapping instruments (I play the Stick) since it picks up energy along more than one axis, and pickups need to be as sensitive as possible in that situation.

Rob
http://myspace.com/robmartino

Unlike the original horseshoe, which had a magnetically-coupled horseshoe made of ferrous iron or steel, the newer re-issue have a cosmetic-only horseshoe wrap-around. It can be removed, since it is cosmetic-only, and not affect the performance or characteristics of the pickup itself.

So, the "re-issue" pickup in the v63 is not going to perform differently than would any conventional pickup. It just looks cool!

To get the true "wraparound" magnetic field, you would have to get an original horseshoe with the non-removable wraparound that is actually part of the pickup magnet assembly itself. The least expensive way to do that today is to buy an old "frying pan" steel guitar made by Rick, available for less that a grand most days, and cannibalize it for the pickup. Although a little larger than the original 1960s magnetic horseshoe, it will give you the characteristics to which you refer, namely the multi-axis effect due to the wraparound being an integral part of the magnetic field assembly itself.