Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

...and I LOVE the change!

The bridge pickup on my 1984 330 always sounded a bit anemic to me, whether it was the original HiGain or the scatterwound toaster that's now installed.

The other night I soldered a bypass wire from the lugs that the .0047 cap is connected to, effectively shorting out the cap, and am delighted with the results! MORE volume, MORE chime, MORE jangle, and MORE presense from the bridge pickup - it's as if the .0047 was sucking the life out of the guitar's tone!

To be more specific, the mod has added a bit more bass to the guitar without eliminating any treble sparkle, and its output is boosted, both of which are making it sustain and ring better. The tone with both pickups selected is vastly improved too, since the pickups are now better balanced. The neck pickup used to sound slightly muddy before I made the change.

I highly recommend exploring this completely easy and 100% reversable mod!!

Glenn: Should you get the chance, I expect a nice close up photo or diagram would be welcomed by those who may wish to perform this reversible modification.

Will do!

admin wrote:Glenn: Should you get the chance, I expect a nice close up photo or diagram would be welcomed by those who may wish to perform this reversible modification.

Yes, I would appreciate a diagram as I am about to attempt this on my 330.

anyone?

Would like to see a close-up pic of the cap bypass too.

The easiest way to do this is to take a short piece of wire (a piece of solid buss wire with sleeving over it works), bend a J hook on each end of the wire, and hook them around the leads up close to the body of the cap - solder it in place.

Thanks Kris.

The .0047uF is the physically smaller of the three caps in the control area.

It also should be clearly marked. Two of them will be marked .047µf and the other .0047µf.

There is another mod which you may be interested in. It's a "variable cap mod." Here is the link.
http://www.rickenbacker.com/forum_view_ ... e=Variable
Basically, it allows you to connect the cap to the mix control. Then when you use the bridge pickup, you can actually dial in the cap as much or as little as you want. You can also do this for the neck pickup which I recommend because it makes the neck pickup less muddy. I prefer this to removing the cap, or a push pull mod, because the variable mod is just that....variable and you can dial in some cool sounds.