Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Does anybody know what kind of pickup this is?

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Seymour Duncan

Thank you very much.

I'd rather see less of that than seymour ...

doctorwho wrote:I'd rather see less of that than seymour ...

LoL!

Seymour Duncan makes many very nice pickups, but I don't know what they were thinking when they came up with those pickups made for Rick bass replacement.

rickenbrother wrote:Seymour Duncan makes many very nice pickups, but I don't know what they were thinking when they came up with those pickups made for Rick bass replacement.

You mean the way they look? I think they just wanted to avoid the legal kerfuffle.

It's a Seymour Duncan replacement pickup for a Gibson Firebird guitar, so it's not for a bass at all though since it doesn't have individual poles then it doesn't matter what you put it on. I read recently that in his original Rick basses Lemmy of Motorhead always used to replace the neck pup with an original Gibson Thunderbird pickup which looks very similar to the above SD too.
I used to have one for a little while - bought for an SG, but switched it out for a John Birch custom one.

ilan wrote:

rickenbrother wrote:Seymour Duncan makes many very nice pickups, but I don't know what they were thinking when they came up with those pickups made for Rick bass replacement.

You mean the way they look? I think they just wanted to avoid the legal kerfuffle.

I mean the way they sound. If you install those SD's in a 4001 or 4003 you'll lose the growl and get an ordinary bass tone. Those Rick replacement neck pickup looks exactly like the custom mini humbucker SM2 replacement pickup for a Les Paul Jr or similar.
Then again, I don't really like the way they look either since the mini humbucker doesn't fill up the pickup route in the pickguard.

Exactly. I think good old Seymour merely took one of his existing humbucking pickups and called it a replacement neck pickup for Rickenbacker basses. Which is why it looks AND sounds fundamentally wrong on a Rick bass.

If they sounded like Ric pickups then what's the point in making replacements? He made a drop-in alternative for those who would otherwise take a Dremel tool and install a Gibson or a Fender pickup. Every Ric with SD's is a Ric that has evaded a mudbucker fate.

I'm sure many people installed those SD's in a 4001 thinking they would have the same type of sound, only louder.

I agree whit you Rickenbrother...I remember when these SD´s where new on the market...I bought the whole set for a 4001 from 1975 I had back then...OK it was less hum and more Low bass so to speak...but all the RIC growl was gone...Suddenley my RIC sounded just like a nice clean Bassguitar...and I dont wanna sound nice and clean...if I wanted a clean and nice sound then I hade bought some High Tech Bass whit all these excotic woods and active electronics(Who even makes coffe for you If you want it to) in the first place etc....I like Duncan pic ups in general,they make those excellent mini humbucker replacements for Gibson Firebird guitars just to name some product...but these replacement ones made for RIC basses is not my cup of tea so to speak.
Best Dan.

rickenbrother wrote:I'm sure many people installed those SD's in a 4001 thinking they would have the same type of sound, only louder.

I love Duncan pickups usually but these 'Rickenbacker bass' ones are a total cop-out. The neck one is a guitar mini-humbucker and the bridge one appears to be a full-size guitar humbucker that doesn't even fit in the stock surround and requires you to use a 'special' one from Duncan to "improve the appearance of the bass". (Assuming you think that a completely different plastic surround IS an improvement...) Neither fit the instrument properly nor have been designed specifically for it.

Come on Seymour, you can do better than this... even without infringing on RIC's trademarks.

I would like to see a proper neck humbucker that fits the pickguard and a stacked bridge humbucker that fits the stock surround and gives the same sort of 'original tone but with more output/fatness/mids etc' that the Hot Basslines do in his Fender P and J sets.