Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

That's the concept behind my latest creation...

Nice! very clean looking.

Thanks Bob, how's the weather there? We're getting pounded by hurricane Isabel right now. I'm surprized the power hasn't gone off yet! Since I don't have the cash for a 4004, I figured I'd try the HB-1's in this bass, while keeping it vintage looking. I like having more tonal control than the 4004's. I've tried a series of pickup combos on this, and the HB-1's are by far the best sound yet! Much quieter than the single coils yet still retains that notorious RIC sustain!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this looks like Rick Humbuckers in a 4001 with deluxe features made fretless? Nice look. Is this a doctored photo, or did you actually rebuild this bass? If you did rebuild, did you have it refinished and who did it?

Inquiring minds want to know!

The weather here is nice today, it's about 65 and sunny (the sun is rare here in winter, I think spring is almost here, yeah!), I've been watching CNN about the hurricane, my parents live in Ma. and I thought at first there was a chance of it heading down that way.
And yeah, I've wondered how owners change the balance of the two pickups of a 4004. I imagine that that must give you more flexibility and bite with the two volumes and tones. Are those pickups smooth sounding like most Humbuckers are? That looks like a good idea. I especially like the white pickguard (V63?) with the vintage knobs.
Do you need the ring around the treble pickup to mount it, or is that just your personal choice? I myself prefer the black hole look. (Before I really got into taking them apart and tinkering I always thought that the treble pickup assembly was very mysterious looking and strange with the cover off.)

Dano,
I didn't even notice that it's fretless, very cool. Did you coat the neck or is it bare wood?
And if you did, what did you use? I recoated a fretless 4001 one time with epoxy clear so I could use round wounds and it never sounded the same afterwards.

Yes it's fretless with inlays. I find the learning curve much easier this way, as opposed to a dot inlay neck. I used tung oil and polyurethane (mixed) to recoat the neck. I rubbed the mixture in with a fine steel wool pad, let it dry over-night, then brushed on an addition coat. It's not as good as the conversion varnish used on RICs today, but it's the next best thing. Yes it has a V63 pickguard (used the pickguard off my JG V63 as a templete). The pickguard material came from Stew-Mac. I mounted the HB-1 bridge position to the plastic baseplate inside the PU cavity. The chrome ring is just personal preference and it's adjustable just like 4001/4003 bridge pickups. The HB-1's sound very smooth!!! I love the combination. It really fits this bass well. The photo is not doctored. It still has the original finish. Has not yellowed at all. When I purchased it the frets had already been removed. The previous owner had started restoring this bass and for whatever reason never finished it. I did route the neck pickup to 1/2 inch spacing, it sounds better in this position. The vintage knobs just seemed to fit the theme ;^)

Dano: I just love what you have done to this bass. Very nice work. White guard on a white body with a touch of black trim. Is the truss rod cover white as well?

Bob, 4004 owners don't really change the balance between the bridge and neck pickups, except for what little bit results from turning the tone knob. The neck pickup is also quite a bit more powerful than the bridge, even though it's farther from the strings. I measured 300mV of output from my neck pickup. You basically have three tones: neck (fat), bridge (fat-lite), or combined (polyfat). Then you fine tune with the tone control. I like combined (polyfat) the best, and I adjust the tone to taste, usually full treble because I use fingerpicking. The tone is still dark and deep, unless switching to bridge pickup only. My 4004L is nowhere near as bright as my OLP Music Man Stingray copy. The OLP oversized "humbucker" sounds and looks like two J-bass single coil pickups mounted together. You have to keep both coils on the OLP turned full up (or equally matched) or you lose the humbucking noise cancellation and get single coil hum. With either coil turned full up and the other coil off, you get the J-bass single coil sound (and some 60-cycle hum). My 4004L has true humbuckers that cancel noise at all times regardless of any switch or tone control setting. The tone flexibility might seem to suffer compared to a 4003, but basically I just get a decent tone and then adjust by picking. If more change is needed, just flip the selector switch to bridge or neck. I don't mess with the tone control much (amp or RBI controls do much more tone changing), and mainly use the volume control to match the output of the bridge or neck pickup when they are used alone. My OLP Stingray copy has taught me to use technique more than knob twiddling. You can get more variety of sound from a 4003 control setup, but the 4004L and Stingray control setup allow really quick selection of a few killer tones. Want to go from fat humbucker to a J-bass single coil growl? Just roll off one of the Stingray volume controls. Not even a need for a selector switch. The 4004L has similar quick-set character, but you flip a switch instead of rolling off a volume knob. Trying to remember where 4 knobs and a switch need to be set to get a specific tone, plus having to adjust the knobs, kind of turns me off. I have 4 knobs on my amp for that, so they don't need to be on my bass. To each his own, but I will take the 4004 or Stingray setup when having to change settings often. Tone knob twiddling in a recording studio is something else, and understandable.

According to Rickenbacker and the dealers I use, both 4004 pickups are the same. RIC assigns them different part numbers but they are the same so I don't see why a neck pickup would be more powerful than another. I like what you did to the bass Dano but the little pickup inside the big trim ring just seems odd. How about a bigger pick guard that mounts both ala 4002? My luthier had a different take on fretless conversion. He pulled the frets on one of my 3000's and glued very narrow strips of white plastic into the empty fret slots. After this he gave it a few coats with urethane and buffed the whole neck to a high gloss. Standing back looking at the bass it looks like it has frets. The front edge of the shark tooth inlays would be just slightly behind the correct fingering position.

I think Philco may be refering to a 4001/4003 when he says the neck pickup is hotter, am I right?

You've done some cool mod, Dan!
Now you have the RIC humbucker sound with the tonal versatility provided by 4 knobs and a toggle switch, in the good old 4001/4003 way.
The white pickguard and vintage knobs makes her very elegant.

Does the HB pickups have a flat top or a curved one following the fingerboard radius?
If not, are the A and D strings as loud as the E and G?
Did you screw the HB on the treble PU baseplate with 2 screws?

Dane, I believe the same pickup sounds louder at the neck position than at the bridge position due to greater string vibration amplitude/swing near the neck when its distance to the strings are identical in both positions. But I may be wrong and somebody please correct me if I am.

Has anyone ever tried changing the 4004 toggle switch to a "pan" knob so the balance between the neck and bridge pickups could be fine tuned at will? This is the closest thing I can imagine to achieve flexibility, but it may be a dumb idea of mine...

Oh by the way, how many wires do the RIC HB's have?
Can you do coil splitting with them, like switching between single coil/humbucking with push-pull pots?

Paul: The humbucking tops are flat. My experience with them installed on a guitar is that there is no difference in the volume of outside versus inside strings. The RIC humbuckers have four wires and as such you can do coil splitting.

Thanks for the answers, Peter.