Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi:

I'm getting my new Rick 360 Amber Fireglo soon. It will come with "hi-gain" pickups. How does this differ in sound from "toasters>" I already have a Rick 370-12 RM.

The new hi-gains are getting nothing but great reviews from users. I have to say that I love em. I got them in a new 330 that I had planned on putting Toasters into, but I've totally changed my mind. They have a great tone that seems to have more mid-range than the Toasters.

Hi Karl !!!!

I have new 620 with the new adjustable hi gains which I play through a Hot Rod Deluxe. I don't have anything with toasters so I can't compare them but they do have a solid, but not overpowering midrange, and a sharp top end without the "ice pick" effect from other well known single coil pickups.

I am particularly impressed with the bridge pickup and there is plenty of variety on tap with the blender control. Plus a good dose of jangle !!!!

high gains are louder and have a nastier growl ... toasters are smoother and a little more jangly ...

High gains seem to be a really good do-it-all p/u for me, although they really do provide a lot of gain if you aren't used to it. Mine pre-date the adjustable ones.

Toasters are a bit thinner in sound, but I'm starting to get used to them and like them more and more.

Karl...I'm putting toasters on my 330-12; they're on order as we speak, and it's a good thing, because the Hi-Gain neck pickup that's on there now has pretty much gone dead on me for some reason. I plan to call Rickenbacker tomorrow to speak to someone in customer service about it.

On my 360-6, I have Hi-Gains and am very happy with them. I can play all kinds of loud, crunchy rock rhythms and leads, power chords, etc. with ease, and they sound great.

I think the toasters are better for 12-string stuff. A guitarist acquaintance of mine described toasters as being "airier" than Hi-Gains. I think that's a pretty good description.

You can also mix them. I had two 360/12's for a while, one with toasters and one with high-gains. I played mix and match with all the possible combinations and decided that a toaster neck and high-gain bridge with a toaster cover gave me the most available sounds on a single guitar without giving anything away.

I heard my first live Rickenbacker 360/12 last night. It had high gains. And listening to the player and his guitar, I began to have second thoughts about swapping out the high gains for toasters when my Ric arrives. I thought perhaps I might get enough satisfactory jangle out of high gains if I got a good compressor/sustainer pedal.

Although I'm a big fan of Roger McGuinn's, I came away from the show thinking that I don't have to sound exactly like my hero, but just enough to let the audience know I've been listening to him perhaps.

The other piece of the equation is that I could always play with the tone controls and the blender knob plus the settings on my amp to get my version of "Mr. Tambourine Man."

JimK

In my humble opinion, your amp (and just as importantly, the upper frequency range of it's speaker system) is far more important in generating a sound that's in the ballpark than whether you have toasters or high-gains. You may have noticed that amp manufacturers concentrate a whole lot on their overdrive sounds, but generally far less on their clean sound. I don't know squat about frequency response, but I'm convinced that there are components of proper, well-rounded jangle which are above the useful range of an awful lot of the available amp/speaker systems. They may be wonderful amps, they just aren't all that great at bright clean sound with the type of overtones, harmonics or whatever it is that come out of a Rickenbacker twelve-string. Once you find an amp that will do jangle, the high-gain/toaster question is not a huge difference and either will do a good job even though they don't sound exactly the same.

There are a couple other options to play with as well. Obviously, one is a Janglebox, which many of use own and use a lot, the other is string selection. Flat-wounds, like Pyramids and Thomastic Infelds have very dead sound on the wound, primary strings. This makes the octaves stand out more and tends to generate a bit more of that McGuinn tone. If you're not shooting specifically for that tone, but rather a more balanced relationship between the primary and octave strings and substantially more ring from the primaries, then the Ric compressed round-wounds are a good choice.

Good point regarding strings, Todd. I didn't get a chance to talk to that fellow last night about the strings he was using.

JimK

Thanks, everyone, for your input. Each of you made excellent observations!! I may have to simply try the "hi-gains" and see if they do the job for me.

Again, this will be an amber fireglo 360 six-string. I love that "jingle-jangle" sound of the Byrds and I'll be playing rhythm with it for most of the time. I also have a JangleBox.

Karl

Karl -- another "solution" advocated by many RAS addicts, Forumites and other Ric enthusiasts is to just acquire more and more Rics with the different pick-ups, so you have all the options..... Regards Rich F.

+1 Rich!

...Dean

Be sure to post some pics of your new guitar, Karl. We love pics, and we love amber fireglo!