Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Sometimes I get way out of the habit of using my neck pickup and wonder if there'd be some way to "re-4000-ify" a modern 4003. I do somewhat prefer the tone of the treble pickup in its own circuit, i.e., mono plug in Ric-O-Sound jack. Fortunately the wise Kenny Howes talked me out of ever using epoxy or wood putty to fill the rout if I removed the pickup--thank you Kenny! Later on I did have a thought, though, about a mod that would be reversible to an extent. That is, craft a tight-fitted block of tone wood to fill the primary rectangular rout and drill it in with one or two bolts. Using a gentle wood glue to set it to the surrounding maple, this may help bridge the gap as resonant waves travel from the neck to the body portion and wings, and increase mechanical resonance. Or it may do nothing.

Naturally there may be no effect to tone or sustain at all and I may go, "What a dumb idea," or the tone block may affect sustain or tone negatively. Also, I do use the neck pickup sometimes and having more options is always a nice thing. But the OTHER nice thing is that this mod is completely reversible if done right. Any thoughts?

Or... just take the pickup out and use a pickguard with no hole for the neck pickup. It'll be fine.

Esquires are all routed for neck pickups too.

tennis_nick wrote:Or... just take the pickup out and use a pickguard with no hole for the neck pickup. It'll be fine.

Esquires are all routed for neck pickups too.

+1

I did it to my 4001... sort of...

My 74 4001 had some dodgy "screwdriver" routing in the neck pocket and a case of colapse in the neck join.
I routed (with templates) out the finish and the damaged bits. Then made some rock maple plugs(that were in fact an interference fit). The first one filled the lower part of the route (Where the magnets would hang into) and then routed that area flush then fitted the second plug filling the pickup route. I then routed the whole area flush.
I could see that the neck angle had been wedged back into place and the neck was a lot stiffer. If I had then strung it up I'm sure that it would sound different too.
I then routed for a standard size pickup (a very tight close fitting route) the void is now a lot smaller than the standard "dirty great hole" route in these basses.
Since being strung up this is the stiffest and most stable neck I have ever had on a Rickenbacker. So it can make a difference.
If you did this mod on a 4003 you would have to at least route a channel to allow removal of the truss rods. Apart from that the wood block could be chased out with very carefull routing (using templates again), but I would be more inclined to only remove just enough wood to get a pickup in there if you wanted to refit one.
However I probably would not even bother at all unless it had a neck problem to start with..

Eden.

so....if you're able to get the SOUND you (sometimes?) want by just plugging in the ricosound jack,you already have more versatility than you would have if you (semi-permanently) remove the 2nd pickup...or you could just buy a 4000......go on,you know you need just 1 more rick bass!

I made this one out of a trashed '76 4001. It had no finish, whacked rods and of all things a homemade "purple" pickguard. It turned out pretty well. It now belongs to the capable Paul W.

cassius987 wrote:Sometimes I get way out of the habit of using my neck pickup and wonder if there'd be some way to "re-4000-ify" a modern 4003. I do somewhat prefer the tone of the treble pickup in its own circuit, i.e., mono plug in Ric-O-Sound jack. Fortunately the wise Kenny Howes talked me out of ever using epoxy or wood putty to fill the rout if I removed the pickup--thank you Kenny! Later on I did have a thought, though, about a mod that would be reversible to an extent. That is, craft a tight-fitted block of tone wood to fill the primary rectangular rout and drill it in with one or two bolts. Using a gentle wood glue to set it to the surrounding maple, this may help bridge the gap as resonant waves travel from the neck to the body portion and wings, and increase mechanical resonance. Or it may do nothing.

Naturally there may be no effect to tone or sustain at all and I may go, "What a dumb idea," or the tone block may affect sustain or tone negatively. Also, I do use the neck pickup sometimes and having more options is always a nice thing. But the OTHER nice thing is that this mod is completely reversible if done right. Any thoughts?

I went the reverse way and made my 4000 into a 4001S. There's no need to fill in the front pickup cavity as most 4000's were routed for it anyway straight from the factory. Some were not, but I have seen very few of those. All you would need to do is to get a new pickguard and rewire the bass to use just two pots.

The main difference would be the set neck as opposed to the through neck. The set neck has a different sustain from the through neck, though it's still a very distinctive RIC sound.

Well, thanks for humoring me, everybody. Ultimately I suspect I'll just use the Ric-O-Sound jack when I want "that sound" but I wondered if anyone had tried anything like this. I'm not up to it for now but it's good to know that it's been done at least a couple of times, and has made a difference for some.