Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi all

I have a rickenbacker 360 which I have been used to playing at low volumes. Recently I have been playing with a band and I've noticed a very bad buzzing sound at higher volumes, especially when I use an overdrive pedal. I have noticed this sound in different amplifiers, in different locations with different cables so I'm pretty sure its the guitar. The buzz is there even when I'm not playing. I took it to a couple of guitar stores and they thought it sounded like a grounding problem...but neither found anything wrong with the guitar. I read some articles from the archives about shielding and I tried putting aluminum tape on the underside of the pickguard but it didn't seem to make any difference. I have hi-gain pickups..are these single coil? is this a normal consequence of using these pickups at loud volumes? Also I noticed small cracks in both pickup magents, could this be the source of the problem? Would replacing the pickups solve this? or maybe use different pickups? I thought about using ric humbuckers but I'd rather get the hi-gain ones to work. I've also thought about getting a noise gate but I dont like the idea of something cutting into my sound..I'd rather fix the problem if possible.

The buzzing is normal for single coil pickups. My guess is that other guitars you have played or owned have humbucking PUs, right? The only way around this would be to install HB-1 humbuckers; this would be easy as they are a direct retrofit for the SCPUs you have now.

Thanx for the help. The ric is the first electric guitar that I've owned. How is the difference in sound between the humbuckers and single coil? I like my sound a lot now except for the buzz.

SC pickups usually have more clarity and the "Jangle". Humbuckers are generally thicker sounding, think typical rock guitar sounds like Les Pauls.

Jeffrey, does that generalization hold true for the Rickenbacker humbuckers, too? I know they should sound a little thicker, but do the Rick humbuckers sound fairly close to a Les Paul or other full size HB pickup? I was under the impression that they still retained alot of the Rickenbacker sound, although they were much quieter, more powerful, and did lose some of the jangle. I've been considering dropping one in the bridge of my 350.

Somewhat but I have only done a direct comparison on my 4004Cii bass, so on a guitar there may be other differences. I find the toasters to have greater clarity in the highs and especially in the mids.

Milo,
Did you ground the aluminum tape? that is a must otherwise it will just attract more electrical noise.
I once shielded two Ric basses I owned with Copper tape which is more expensive but I put it everywhere, under the pickguard, in the control cavity, and in the treble pickup cavity (basses), I made sure that there was continuity from each piece of tape to the others and grounded it to one of the pots (I think) or maybe the ground on one of the jacks, they were as quiet as a church mouse. I could stand right in front of a neon sign playing stereo (without a Ric-0-sound box and get no buzz at all. (playing stereo without a box is usually twice as noisy as mono). The only way I got buzz was if I actually aimed the bass at sources of noise. It was a pain to do, but definitely paided off as the stock single coils are great sounding pickups. this was with an SVT with the treble cranked up to ten with the ultra hi switch on.

Thanks for all the info. For anyone who knows- how does Peter Buck get that tasty overdriven sound with his Ric without the buzz. Im pretty sure he uses single coil pickups at least from the pictures I've seen.