Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I currently play in a thrash/doom metal band in the fun little college town of Carbondale, IL. We have played a couple of gigs in the local bars and we are currently working on a demo so we can play larger venues. Anyways our guitar player just got a new amp and his old amp is just laying around. So the other day I bi-amped it with my current rig which is an old Kustom 200 sitting on a matching 2x15 cab. Last year I suggested buying a separate guitar amp for that exact same purpose but my fellow band mates thought I just was going to play strictly through the guitar amp and poo-pooed the idea. So when I demonstrated the fun potential of the glorious rick-o-sound, my band mates where in awe of its tonal awesomeness. The added distortion of the amp turned my warm and wooly flatwound strung 4001FL into a thick and snarly beast! They wondered why I hadn't done this before and this was what our band was missing. Oh those silly band mates!

You play metal with a fretless bass ... that is different ...

Do you detune? I used to do some metal and I had a bass tuned DGCF, but then I converted to 5 string Rics ...

most of the Rics that I have owned were mono or had a broken ric-o-sound.

But these days I split my mono signal into 2 and run one into the line 6 bass pod for a distorted mid growlly sound and the other into a mxr bass di+ for a clean sound with boosted highs and lows and then I blend the 2 signals with a small mixer back into an amp with a small Rolls 4 channel mixer. I gives me a great Entwistle-like sound.

I got addicted to playing fretless like 6 years ago, before got into heavier music i.e. heavy metal. I bought the rick due to my love of heavy music and the feel of nothing getting in my way. Yes, we do detune down to drop C, which is your tuning but drop the low D to a C. Steve Harris signature Roto's work very well for this application. By the way Jeff, I love your website. I enjoy the audio sample of the toilet bowl bass very much haha

-Mike

Have you ever tried tuning BEAD?

You guys are speaking my language!
My band's three different tunings: DGCF, CGCF, BEAD
I've never really messed around with the Ric-O-Sound much, though, I just plug into vintage SVT's turned up to about noon for that rip-your-face-off Ampeg snarl. All my basses have RI horseshoes, too, and I never use the neck pickup...

rhampshire wrote:You guys are speaking my language!
My band's three different tunings: DGCF, CGCF, BEAD
I've never really messed around with the Ric-O-Sound much, though, I just plug into vintage SVT's turned up to about noon for that rip-your-face-off Ampeg snarl. All my basses have RI horseshoes, too, and I never use the neck pickup...

How do you at a gig switch guitars without it taking the momentum out of the show? I'd love to do that, but the time it would take for everyone to swap out their guitars (we have to guitar techs) would take too long. Any advice?

to switch guitars quickly you need a good ab box

jwr2 wrote:to switch guitars quickly you need a good ab box

Or a muting tuner and some fast hands. I mute the signal, swap the strap and cord and am back in business in about 15 seconds...

I still switch basses while I play ... but it is more for show and for tone ... all of my basses are tuned BEADG ... except once in a while I tune to E flat ...

Ricks can often surprise those who aren't properly schooled in them.

Mike, I'd like to hear your band.

We are currently looking for a new singer because are currnet one could be better. But yea soon as I get some sound clips I'll post them. A couple of our songs we will play DGCF, I dont have a muted turner so during appulase I quickly tune right back down to C.